Week 2

My week 2 field experience in IPS gave me and Kasie a lot of opportunities to take an active teaching role in the class. We were tasked with teaching the lesson over electoral processes and different ways of voting to two Government classes. I was very nervous to teach an entire lesson for the first time, but I think it went relatively well. Because of the layout of the class, we were a little constricted on how we could teach the material. Each student has a packet of information for each Unit, and everyday of class they are to follow along with the teacher presentation and fill in the blanks in the packet. I do not completely agree with this teaching method, however it seems to be effective up to a certain point in the classroom. I feel that it is hard to get a lot of feedback from students and get discussions going because students are just listening to get the answers so they can complete their packets. However, throughout our presentation we tried to get some discussion going. It seemed that we got the most class input when talking about students being able to vote and how they can vote, because many of them will be voting in this election.
After our first lesson, we went over what we did well and the areas we can improve. Co-teaching a class is kind of weird and we realized we needed to work on our timing and communication. Both Kasie and I like to talk a lot and lead discussion so sometimes we were stepping on each others toes. I also learned that I needed to make sure I kept the volume of my voice up through an entire sentence or expression and make sure I do not let it taper off and turn away from the students. Also, I hope to be able to work on giving students more time to come up with ideas and questions when we pose a discussion. I think that when I ask a question or try to pose a discussion, I get worried when I hear a moment of silence and immediately want to jump in and try to get it going. Also, I need to continue working on learning how to play off of students interest when I hear them talk about them in class. After hearing about the methods we could work on I was interested in getting ready for the next class.

The next class however, was way more difficult to handle as far as classroom management. It seemed like the 30 minutes before lunch all of the students were restless, and after lunch the students had shut down. I think we did a better job in co-teaching the class, but it was hard to implement discussion critiques because class participation was way down.

Next week we are going to be teaching US History classes and I am excited because we also are doing Test Review. Why we do not get to cover new material with the class or really have a lot of time to pose discussion, we have way more freedom on how we can teach the class. I am hoping that this week will not be as hectic in my other classes and Kasie and I will get more of an opportunity to come up with a good lesson and test review for our classes.

Week 1

My first day at IPS was very interesting. Upon meeting the teacher and getting settled into the classroom Kasie and I found out that we would be teaching part of the lesson and every week after would be teaching as well. This was a big shock to us but after the day was over I was very glad that we are going to have plenty of opportunitites to participate.

The kids in our classes were actually better behaved than I thought. There was off subject talking and people blurting things out, however that was expected. The teachers strategy for classroom management seemed to be effective to an extent. He has a very laid back strategy that includes no real due dates (except for the end of the semester), students sit where they want to, and he tries to engage them in a lot of conversation outside content material. Why many of the kids did not act up or cause problems they did not seem to participate effectively that much either. All students get a packet for each unit covered over the year. Every day there is a powerpoint that accompanies the portion of the packet and student work through it with the teacher. When Kasie and I took over and used the smart board to plot a graph on the changing of agriculture and manufacturing jobs between 1830 and 1920 the kids did not misbehave. However, we struggled to find volunteers or provoke a discussion because it seems the students do not engage much in that type of learning.

The last part of each class was spent in the computer lab finishing up paper on certain inventions. Some students worked dilligently, others did a lot of copying from sites, and some did not work on it at all. The teacher seemed not to care because as long as it was turned in before the end of the semester it would be okay. However, most students that do not turn them in this week will never turn them in anyway. I got the chance to walk around the room and ask students what they were doing their invention papers on. It was nice to get to interact with the students.

Also lunch was really good!

I am looking forward to next week but also a little nervous about teaching an entire lesson.