I’m an honest person. I can’t say this semester started off easily at all. I can honestly say that I feel like I’m finally getting into the groove of thing now, almost 5 weeks into the semester. Due to some personal problems/decisions I had to face, along with the support of my friends and family, I definitely got off to a rough start. However, I am very confident that I am going to pull this off! I know that with hard work and a new found sense of determination that I will excel in my Methods class and learn the most that I can.
Part of this includes giving my blog A LOT more attention! While barely keeping my head above water the past few weeks, my blog has definitely suffered the most. Future weeks will show more regular updates and reflections – but for now, I’m going to take a glance back at the material we’ve already covered in this one mega-post :)
We started our semester with a creative introduction to our classmates – Dr. Smirnova style! We each created t-shirts that reflected where we wanted to teach, teaching experience we've had, what we’re proud of and what we fear. It was really interesting to see how many of has so many things in common. I’d say a good 90% of the class was afraid of boring their students – we all want to create a fun learning environment. Many of us had families to be proud of, we all wanted to teach in elementary schools – many in special education, and most of us are either substitute teaching or volunteering our time to help out around the local schools. This is a great activity to stick in my teaching tool kit. What a great way to learn about each other and see what we have in common with our peers. This activity could easily be modified to work with all different age groups.
We also worked on reviewing goals and objectives. This was really helpful! Even though it wasn’t that long ago that we were writing them out like it was our second nature, it definitely felt a bit foreign at first. After practicing just a couple of times it all came back to me :) Reviewing is SO important – I really do have to remember that when it comes to be my time to teach. We can never assume that the students all know the material – we must pre-access their prior knowledge and review previous topics.
A new topic for me was the Direct Instruction strategy. It is part of the Behavioral Model, which I knew about from last semester. Direct Instruction is teacher centered and has a goal of drilling information into the students until they reach automaticity (moving information from the short term memory to the long term memory). At first glance I couldn’t see how this teaching strategy could be useful at all. However, once we discussed in class and watched a couple of video clips, I quickly changed my mind. This is how the basics should be taught. DI is quick, efficient and effective. We, as teachers, want to make our lessons creative, reflective and full – but, when teaching the basic and necessary information we need to move quickly. The quicker we move through these lessons, the more time we have to be creative when it’s really needed. I can see myself using DI for basic math skills, spelling and much more.
Through using the DI method I worked with 2 other classmates to create a lesson on Anticipatory Sets. I was really lucky to work with two women who were cooperative, insightful and readily available. I think our group did a really awesome job at creating an effective DI lesson. We made the information short and sweet, checked for understanding and reflected at the end. We also followed the “I do it,” “We do it,” You do it” strategy. This is the key ingredient with DI. The teacher teaches the material, the class works on it together (guided practice), and then the student attempts it on their own (summative assessment).
I’m so glad that we have gone into this subject with such depth. I really feel like a have a firm grasp on its process and will be able to utilize this strategy when creating my lesson plans this semester. I think I’m on my way to automaticity on the DI strategy :)
Well - this brings me to the end of my crazy long post, sorry if it was a bit overwhelming! I really needed to just bite the bullet, get caught up and start fresh for the month of October. A huge weight has just been lifted off of my shoulders! :)
Here’s to a great month ahead!
I'm all caught up!
