First Day of School

 Time is flying by, as we are in our Fourth week here at Penn State! How exciting!! Things are really starting to get fun as we are diving into some exciting content such as Scope and Sequence, Unit Plans, and Small Gas Engines! We also got to teach in our first lab for AEE 412, which was the First Day's Of School lab! We were tasked with writing a lesson plan for a 40 minute class period, and then choosing 10 minutes of it to teach to our peers! I am going to explain what I prepared for this Lesson and some reflection on how it went!

For my First day of school, I wanted to answer 3 questions throughout the lesson: 

1. Who am I?

2. What are we going to be Learning?

3. Who are the learners in the room?

Over the weekend, I was playing games with my family and my Fiance's niece wanted to play the game "Spot it". This is a card game with circle cards, and a bunch of different objects on the cards. Each of the cards has at least 1 matching object between them! When I was reminded of this game, I immediately thought that I could use this in my first day of school lesson plan! I was able to incorporate this into my interest approach and during my content of the day!

Lesson Plan

After creating my lesson plan, I then had to decide which 10 minutes I was going to present to my classmates in our lab! I wanted to practice a section that would not be as comfortable for me, so I chose to start my lesson at the What are we learning section. I decided to skip over the Bellwork, which was students writing down a question that they had for me and the 4 powerpoint slides about myself. The interest approach was going to include the Spot It cards, as students were going to find a match with a partner and then using that object, relate it back to agriculture. 

So, when I started teaching to my peers today, I picked up on the slide where I discussed the four units that I would be teaching with them through April. Then, I talked about the daily classroom procedures, Expectations using the PRIDE Acronym, and classroom consequences. I had not gotten the chance to talk to Mr. Haussener about Cedar Crest's Rules and Expectations, so I want to clarify with him next week, to make sure I align to the school. 

After getting through these things, I wanted to answer my 3rd question of the day, which was who are the learners in the room. To do this, I brought out the Spot it Cards again and laid them on the table face up. I had students come pick a card that looked good to them! Once they had their card, I told them to pick an object on the card and connect that object to themselves and agriculture! After they had their story, I asked students to share their story to the class. This is where I ended the lesson for my lab students. 

To finish out my lesson, I was going to answer the questions that they had written on the notecards, that I did not answer during class. For the Ticket out the Door, I am going to have them fill out a Google Form Survey, to get to know them better. I wanted to give students a way to share things with me about their learning, without sharing it with the class. 

Reflection

After teaching this lesson, I felt like it went very well over all! One thing that I noticed, was that I felt slightly nervous as I started my lesson and I could hear it in my voice. I have no idea why this happened, because I felt completely confident before hand! This is something that I want to work on!

Some positive things that my peers said that they liked:

1. The slide with the units on it

2. Good Energy, Excitement, and Enthusiasm

3. Outlining my Expectations using the PRIDE Acronym

4. Easy Flow through the slides

5. Spot it Game to change the state of the learner.

I completely agree with all of these, that these were my strong points throughout the lesson! There are some things that I want to work on. One suggestion was to give an exact time, instead of a range of time ( saying 2-3 mins compared to saying 3 minutes) They also suggested that I could play a song or put a timer on the board to give students a sense of structure, and I think I will definitetly be adding these to my lesson. 

Another suggestion that was made to me was connecting student and activity into the unit review. I think this is a great idea and the suggested crowd sourcing/ brainstorming 2-3 careers for each unit. I am not sold on that specific idea, but I would love to somehow incorporate student choice into that! Some suggestions relating to my powerpoint were to increase the font to a minimum 22-24, and having numbers for steps to be clearly stated to students. 

The final suggestion that I think was a great idea, was to give students an opportunity to Think, Pair, Share with their Spot it card Personal stories. I was originally thinking to have everyone share, but I think this would be a better idea so that the more reserved students would not be as frightened in front of the whole class!

After reflecting on my first Teaching lab experience, I am excited to grow in some of my weaker areas, but also excel in others! Our next lab is the Interest Approach lab, so stay tuned to see what I will be teaching next time!