Monday, September 21, 2009
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Responses to Merrill
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Responses to Merrill
Wordle Response to Classroom Managment 3
It was an election year, so my Social Studies teacher had us make a commercial for why the voters should vote for you. We had to research topics for why we were going to be a good president and how we planned on following through with our plans. It was fun because we got to play around with the camera, and then show everyone in our class our work. We also learned a lot about the election process.
ReplyDeleteThe instructional strategy my teacher used was the hands on idea. Everything we did was hands on. The commerical, working in our groups, etc. It was even fun researching our plans.
One of the most memorable moments I had as a learner occurred when I was in 6th grade learning about Iowa history. I was struggling with remembering specific facts about the state, such as the state bird, state flower, etc. However, one day my teacher assigned each student and a partner to write and illustrate an ABC book of Iowa. After working with my partner and drawing the pictures, I began associating specific facts about Iowa with the letters. This made it easier for me to retain the information I had been incapable of retaining through lecture.
ReplyDeleteI feel that my teacher used the cooperative groups instructional strategy. The book was made by working with another individual who shared their ideas about what made Iowa important. I feel learning to work with others is something very important because it is something you will be doing throughout the course of your life.
I know I've already talked about this experience in the last blog, but it applies here as well, so I'll bring it up again.
ReplyDeleteMy psychology teacher put us into groups and had us research our assigned psychological theory. We were to either present in front of the class or make a video about how a professional would apply that particular theory. My group was going to make a video, and a LOT of work was done outside the classroom. Having my group members come over and working together on this allowed for a lot of creative input from all of us. In addition, we got to know each other a lot better because they weren't close friends of mine at the time.
Not only did I learn a lot about why sports psychology was a distinctive and valuable area, I learned even more about working with others. In the process, I made some lifelong buddies. I'm really glad my teacher often used cooperative groups as an instructional strategy. It gave us a lot of responsibility and ownership of our learning.
One of the most memorable moments as a learner for me would be in my tenth grade Marketing class. All four years, I had the same teacher for my business classes and she did many wonderful things for all of us as students. However, the Interview project was one that stands out the most to me and one that applied to a real life situation.
ReplyDeleteFor a whole unit, we focused on the way you should promote yourself when looking for a job after college. Since we were still in high school, we thought it was going to be a big waste of time and something we would forget easily but once we started our whole attitude changed. The teacher wanted us to get a real life experience so she brought business owners to our class, one by one; we had to have an "interview" with the business owners while being recorded so she could assess us later. We all prepared for weeks and learned different things that would make the interview go smoothly, we even had to dress up professionally on our day of interview. Though everyone was a bit nervous, the fact that she took the time to bring the lesson "to life" and make it as realistic as possible made it worthwhile.
To this day, I still use what I learned in about the interview process whenever I go into one. I will never forget the lesson because it was a strategy of teaching that would benefit us in the real world when school, teachers, and tests weren't there anymore.
One of the most memorable experiences I had in elementary school was when I was in Sixth Grade. We were doing a unit on Egypt. Our teachers put our whole grade, not just our class, into groups together, and chose a pharoah and three vizier's. They led our community. Our groups each had a different task, based on some aspect of Egyptian way of life. My group was focused on Egyptian dress and makeup. We got to actually re create many forms of egytptian dress. we sewed the clothes, and decorated them, and weaved for the shoes. It was a really exciting experience, especially for in school. Then, after a few weeks, every team did a skit over their aspect of Egypt. The Pharoah and Vizier's chose which group to "make noble" after the skits, or basically who did the best.
ReplyDeleteI think the motivational strategy behind this experience was mostly to allow us to do things that truely interested us and get us motivated. If they would have read to us about Egypt from a book, we would have not learned nearly as much. It brought the subject alive to be able to actually recreate it. The biggest motivators were allowing us to do art and drama and letting us do it our own way, following certain guidelines. It was the part of the day we most looked forward to, because we got to be creative, which is one of the biggest motivators there is for a child.
For me it was my history teacher. It was the way he taught his class. Every knows at some point that you have to do lectures in history class. Most student don't like lecture at all. He was able to make his lectures fun. He would ask how you felt on that topic or add extar facts about people that most people wouldn't know. He never made you sit the whole class taking notes. He want you to be thinking while you were taking notes,.
ReplyDeleteDuring my junior year of high school I took a business class. In this class we were instructed to create our own business. We were to decide what we would sell, how much we would sell it for, who was our audience, what type of individuals would we employ and how many? After determining all of our information we were to present our store to the rest of the class with visuals and items from our store. I had a lot of fun while completing this project and learned how much starting a business entailed.
ReplyDeleteMy instructor used a hands on strategy that allowed us to put ourselves in a "real word" situation.
A project I had to complete in high school for my American history class is the most memorable experience I had as a learner. The strategy my teacher used was connecting the topic/unit to the real world. After spending a few months learning about the Civil Rights Movement, JFK, etc., my teacher introduced an interview project. This project required us to interview a grandparent (preferable) or another elderly American citizen about his or her recollection of life during these important times in history. The interview was videotaped and turned into the teacher to grade. Grades were based on the questions we asked our interviewee, the length of the interview, etc. This interview project helped make the topics we had just learned about seem more real as we heard first account stories about life during these times. It also gave us an opportunity to talk to our grandparents on a deeper level than some of us were used to, which is a priceless experience.
ReplyDeleteIn middle school, my geography instructor was teaching us how to use the different aspects of maps, in particular, road maps. We were given a research assignment about traveling across Iowa. We had to pick a total of 10 places to visit in Iowa, and reach all sides of the state. We then had to use the map to find the best route to reach all 10 locations, record what roads we would take, how many miles between each trip, and the total miles we would travel on the entire trip. I actually found this assignment in sometime of my old schoolwork and I've considered visiting all of the places!
ReplyDeleteWhen the terrorist attacks on September 11th occurred, I was a sophomore in high school. As was the case with most classes all over the country, not a whole lot of teaching was done that day. However, in my drawing class, our instructor did leave the news on, but gave us each a sheet of paper and told us to express how we felt through our pencils and/or charcoal.
ReplyDeleteEven though this was an art class, I learned a lot more than just how to express myself creatively. I was beginning to understand the magnitude of the events that happened that day, and about possible social and political implications. I'm really glad he took the opportunity to take such a tragic current event and frame an unstructured lesson around it, with us students choosing how to respond.
I still have that drawing and every time I look at it, I remember everything about that day; how I felt, what I was wearing, the classes I had that day, and how I thought my friend was joking when he told me what happened after we came in from marching band practice that morning. It's my own piece of history.
The moment that stands out to me the most was in social studies we had to learn the names of all fifty states. Our teacher taught the states to us using the song “Fifty-Nifty United States” which covers all the states in alphabetical order. To drive this idea home, we each were assigned a state and when our state came up in the song we were to lift our sign high in the air.
ReplyDeleteThis teaching strategy used the rhyme and rhythm of a song and also incorporated movement with the use of signs. I find it’s always easier to remember things when you can come up with a saying or a song that pulls all of the main ideas together. Even to this day I can remember all fifty states using the song.
Another very memorable experience I remember, after reading the first post on here, was a unit over elections and their components. It was when I was in 8th grade social studies. We split the class in half, and one half were democrats, and the other republicans. We chose who was our canidate, and all had election based jobs. We advertised, made posters, gave speeches to the kids in the younger grades, and tried to persuade people just as a real canidate would. Eventually we actually had a mock election. The grades below us all came and voted for someone, and we tallied them up to see who won. Then, after we determined who won, as a class we tried to figure out why that team won, and what strateigies the winning team used opposed to the team who lost.
ReplyDeleteThe instructional strategy used here seems like a constructivist one. The teacher gave us the information and the resources we needed, but allowed us to recreate and bring to life our learning. We enjoyed coming to class everyday because we knew we would be able to work collaboratively, have fun, and compete. I also think the teacher allowed us to compete against each other because she knew both teams wanted to win, therefore we would demonstrate our best work. So not only did our teacher make a kind of boring topic fun for us, but also got us to put our best work into the unit. It was a great instructional strategy in my eyes.
Another instructional strategy that still remains very memorable is from my junior year of high school in Spanish class. We were doing a unit on the culture and put into groups to present on a different aspect of the culture, but through a video presentation that we had to create. My group decided to do an instructional cooking video. We had a lot of fun learning about the Spanish culture, but also had fun incorporating technology in the video-making process. Our video was a success, especially when we brought the actual food dish to class and got to share with everyone!
ReplyDeleteDuring my sophomore year of high school we studied world history. Every unit focused on a new culture. We were put into a group for the entire year. Once the end of the unit was approaching our group would have to create a visual that summed up the unit, and then we presented it to the class. I can still remember specific things about different cultures that I probably wouldn't have, had we just studied straight from the book.
ReplyDeleteSome of the things our group presented over, for example, were famous buildings, religions, foods, etc. from the different cultures. For one presentation, we all dressed up and presented over the culture's clothing.
I believe that this class remains memorable to me because of the hands on teaching strategy that was used.
During my junior year of high school, I took U.S. History. We had a new teacher that year and he tried to make his lessons more hands on than the previous teacher. We were studying World War I and the topic of the day was "trench warfare." When we walked into the room, our teacher had all the lights off and we were told to stand on either side of the room. Then, after all the class was in the room, he evened us out and told us we had 5 minutes to prepare our "trench" using anything we could find in the room. So we started flipping desks over and setting up baricades and using plants as screens. Then he used a nerf gun to simulate bullets being shot at us. When we thought the worst was over, we were "gassed" with Axe body spray and we had to put on our surgical mask "gas masks." I will never forget this lesson because it got the class involved and it was extremely hands on. He made it very believable and easy to remember for the test.
ReplyDeleteNot only did I experience some great instructional strategies back in grade school, I have been lucky to have observed one in the classroom since level 2 has started. For 4th grade social studies, the students were studying the continents on the world map. Instead of sticking to normal worksheets or paper-pencil work, the teacher had the students get into groups and gave them a huge sheet of blue paper to represent to world, and a huge sheet of green that could represent their continents. They were able to tear the green paper to make it look like the continent, and place in on the blue sheet. After they were finished placing them in the correct place on the "world" they labeled the continent, surrounding oceans and were encouraged to make a key like they have seen on a regular map. It was fun to see the their excitement and how detailed they were about their placement and continent shapes. I felt it really came to life for them because they were creating the world but in their own fun way.
ReplyDeleteI had a really great experience my third grade year due to a teacher who believed in me and left an impact. I did not feel very confident in math or science and struggled with the two subject areas. My third grade teacher worked with me daily and helped me become better at my multiplication and division through flash cards and worksheets that were not grueling and instead extremely helpful. This classroom comprised of about 25 students as well, so she was always busy and motivated by her students. The teacher was very patient and understanding and you could tell she truly loved her profession even as she was going onto her 30th year of teaching. I will definately strive to demonstrate her teaching qualities and remember that students learn on different levels and time.
ReplyDeleteAnother great educational experience I encountered was during my eight grade science class. Mr. Parker, my teacher, loved science and you could tell by his everyday enthusiasm and love of the subject. Mr. Parker used all hands-on techniques when introducing and teaching us about science. I remember one day he had the entire class outside working with plants of a until dealing with the ecosystem and everyone enjoyed that day so much. As a middle-schooler, going outside rarely happened so this day was very memorable and I wish more teachers held class outside. Mr. Parker went above and beyond when it came to teaching eigth grade science and that is why he is remembered.
ReplyDeleteMy biology teacher in high school was an AMAZING teacher. I have a thing for biology to begin with, but he taught lessons in ways that were so easy to retain. He very much used the hands on instructional strategy to keep the students focused on what we were learning. It was awesome because everything he did was loud and expressive and involved... Everyone loved working in his class because it was so fun. He also had a lot of creatures in his class that we were able to "adopt" for the semester. All of us were so excited to have some responsibility in taking care of the class pets. Whenever we were learning a concept we were always doing some activity or making something. I can still ramble off the organization of living things (kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species) simply because he taught us in a way that was so hands on, I had so many different parts of my brain working. He was truly a great teacher and I want to be a fun teacher just like him!
ReplyDelete