Group Teaching: Poverty 7/8/15

My group taught the class on the subject of Poverty. I chose this subject because it's something I'm very interested in and I get excited to learn more about. I lived in Ecuador for 3 months working in orphanages and was able to see how people live in poverty and how they deal with it and the effects of poverty in every day life.

How do you feel about your lesson delivery and why? Was it effective, why or why not? I feel like our lesson delivery went really well and even better than I thought. Yes, it was effective. I could tell people learned a lot from it and it was interesting to hear insights that other students had that I hadn't thought of before.

What evidence do you have (while delivering your lesson) of effective student engagement? I feel like evidence of student engagement was when the students would stop talking to their peers or doing their own personal work and look at me or my group members and sincerely seem like they were listening and interested in what we had to say. 

If you were to teach this lesson by yourself, not in a group, what would you change and why? I honestly feel like I wouldn't have done anything different. I feel like some of the information we shared was a little irrelevant but for the most part pretty on point. I felt like I kind of took charge in the group so a lot of what we did was my decision in the first place.

What could have been an area of improvement in your teaching? I think I could have prepared better and had some more insights that would have related to the students better. 

Based on the criteria for the “Teaching Experience” on our syllabus, would you give your group a 0, 5 or a 10?  Why?  AND would you give yourself a 0, 5 or a 10?  Why? I would give ourselves a 10. We really researched this topic and put our whole heart into it. It's something we sincerely cared about and did everything we could to help who we were teaching understand what our objective was.

Lesson 10

This week we learned about individual learning and helping our students learn by themselves and not just their peers, even though learning through others is helpful it's important to learn individually. In the book there were multiple different strategies we could use to help the student. We got into different groups that we had never been in before and discussed the strategies the chapter showed us. It was fun to get to know girls that weren't in our table groups or in our homie groups. We also had to pick a strategy and a way to remember it or a way to teach it to students. Our group picked the CAPS strategy that had to with literature and reading. We all decided that reading, or just literature questions, was a subject that we struggled with when we were younger and in school so we thought that strategy was one of the best because we felt like it would help us personally.

The strategy is C: Who are the Characters? A: What is the Aim of the story? P: What Problems happen? S: How is the problem Solved?
We came up with a fun little method that might help the kids remember it. We said the questions in a chant-y sort of way. When we asked the question, "Who are the characters?", we would point to ourselves. When we asked the question, "What is the aim of the story?", we would position our arms like we were holding a bow about to shoot an arrow. When we asked the question, "What problems happen?", we put our hands to the side with our palms facing up like we were asking a question. When we asked the last question, "How is the problem solved?", we would bring our hands together and clap one time. The class loved it and I think it might be something I will use in my class later and will help me develop other chants for things the students need to remember.

It's important that we are aware of all these strategies and learn them so that we can know what learning strategy a certain child needs. There were a lot of other strategies I liked, for example TAG. Modifying is a huge part of being a teacher and one of the biggest things we need to learn while we are preparing for this career.

Lesson 9

This week I was SUPER sick on Monday and wasn't able to make it to class. I asked a classmate what was covered in class and she said they talked about emotional and behavioral disorders and differentiation. It made me start thinking a lot about emotional and behavioral disorders and experiences I had with these disorders. I feel like this is something I have dealt with a lot personally and with other people who I am very close with. These disorders are disorders that either you can't do anything to prevent it or it happens because of something tramatic has happened in your life. It's something that is hard to fight and it controls and affects everything in your daily life. Because I have dealt with it in many different situations in my life, I know it will help me deal with students who have these disorders. I know that real-life experiences will help me with differentiation and the ability to teach students on the level they need to be taught.

Co-teaching

On Wednesday, we got in groups to learn how to co-teach and I just joined my table group since I was absent on Monday. The other taught my group how to lead. They separated us into people that didn't know how and people who already knew how. I was in the group that already knew how. I thought I knew everything about leading music, but I was wrong! I learned so many new things from different people in the group. Each member of the group brought their own knowledge and because of collaboration we were able to lead pretty perfectly! Our group was teaching the other group how to whistle using your hands. Even though I could not do it, I knew how to physically do it so I was able to still help teach. Towards the end, everyone was getting frustrated. There were people who caught on really fast and were able to do it right away or within just a few minutes. I was teaching and I STILL couldn't do it. With a lot of help, even from the people who were being taught, I was FINALLY able to do it and I feel like I have never felt more accomplished in my life! I was so excited and I could tell the people who were teaching me really cared about me because they never gave up and they were just as excited as I was when I got it. It helped me feel like a student who was disabled, who had a teacher who believed in them and because of that they were able to accomplish the task. This experience will always stick with me and help me when I am a teacher myself.

Lesson 8

This week started out with a group presenting on the topic speech impairment and they did super good! I was at the table that had to put marshmallows in their mouth and explain what they did that weekend. I couldn't help but laugh - and it made me feel SO bad that I was laughing at her. I know that I wouldn't usually if someone really had a speech impairment. The first girl started choking so Michael tried doing it and got nine, I think, marshmallows in his mouth! We had a really hard time understanding what he was telling us though. We got the jist of it but not as much as we needed to fully understand! The other groups tried speaking Spanish to each other, not talking at all and only using hand movements, etc. It really gave everyone a perspective on what it would be like to have a speech impairment. The main thing I learned through the activity is that patience is key, it is SO important. It made me a little worried for the speech impairment simulation that I would do later.

Lesson 4 & 5

This week was spent mostly reviewing the concepts and things that were important for our midterm. I was able to get together with some other girls from the 11:30 class that I knew from previous classes to study for the midterm. It's interesting how meeting with other people and hearing their insights can open up your own insights. The collaboration with the other students really helped me when I was actually taking my midterm. You gain so much more knowledge when you are working with others and it opens your eyes to so many different things that you couldn't have gained otherwise.

In class this week, with our table groups we each made a concept map for chapter 4 and 5 as a table. After we were done, we each had to present our map. It was crazy how we were all doing a concept map on the exact same material yet we each had such different doctrines, principles, and applications shown on our paper. We also had a case study about a little boy named Mark and what we could do as teachers to help him. Case studies always help me a ton because it puts the material we are learning into a better perspective and drills it into my mind better so I will remember it. It made me realize how much of your heart should be put into your career. I want to be the kind of teacher that genuinely cares about her students and put my whole heart into helping them reach their full potential.

Lesson 11

This week I did my presentation on poverty and it ended up going pretty smooth and I learned a lot about it and I think everyone else did too. Our activity of having tables build "houses" with different resources helped students understand the concept of students can't really do much if they have little resources or unreliable resources. It also made us realize how important it is to recognize poverty in the U.S. and the poverty around us and not just in the world where extreme poverty is. I'm so grateful for what I have and what type of environment I grew up in. It makes me especially grateful for the gospel and strengthens my testimony of what blessings the gospel brings into our lives.

Lesson 2

This week was heartbreaking, after watching those videos about those special needs kids in Serbia. It hit a little close to home because it reminded me so much of the last three months that I spent working in a special needs orphanage in Ecuador. I spent every day with kids just like the ones in the videos. There were so many similarities except for just one thing - their happiness. I realized how much a difference makes when a child has someone who loves them and is constantly being cared for. I learned so much about the divine worth of souls and how just because they have either small disabilities or severe disabilities, they still have feelings and still are in so much need of love and nurturing. These children are still Heavenly Father's children and won't progress if we are not helping them. My heart hurts for those sweet spirits who were sent here by choice of Heavenly Father. There is a reason for them to be on this earth.