If She Can Do it, I can Do it

Dr. Johanna Blair was an interesting guest speaker at our advanced instructional methodology class. Her introduction was a good hook that grabbed my attention. Beginning with her educational background, and then shedding the light on how getting her MA degree was a turning point in her career. Hearing that from someone who is professional at this point was crucial, especially for students like us who are working on their MA degree and at some point may have felt tired or overwhelmed. 

"Quick Fix Arts" was the main focus of Dr. Blair's presentation. How to add an artistic touch to one's lesson which unwanted material like boxes and scratch paper. And the hands one part, where Dr. Blair made us actually make our puppet stage and characters on stick was her message of proving how easy and simple it is to do a lot in no time (in other words, if I can do it you can do it) . Not to mention, the bled of approaches like learning through inquiry, student-center, indirect and direct method of teaching and more which was demonstrated through our activity; which also shows how with time experienced teacher use different methodologies involuntarily and flexibly . Of course, as new teacher we worry a lot about when and which approach to use and miss on how to enjoy our students and the teaching process as a whole.        

Dr. Blair session was just like a quick recipe for a perfect and a well-balanced meal. If I would've looked backwards to the lesson, I would have defiantly thought that the preparation for the exhibition display or the puppet show took a decent amount of time and energy to get done. Instead, Dr. Blair guided us smoothly and precisely throughout the simple steps of 'How to combine quick fix arts to ones lesson' in neither a time nor energy consuming way. Most importantly how to not only teach but make our students aware of how valuable it is to give your work life through presentation without much effort but with technique.   

I just wanted to share with you this video which I related today's class too.  Unfortunately, the internet was slow in class but I hope now you can watch it and enjoy it. This is creativity!

Pure Art :)

The Rational Behind My Lesson

As seen in my written lesson plan and observed while performing my lesson, one might want to know the reason behind certain decisions I took for this math class.

The classroom setting was divided throughout the lesson. At the beginning of the lesson students sat on the floor to observe and participate in the activity. Then students sat on their tables in a u-shaped arrangement for application (paper and pencil). Moving the students into two different setting was to physically help differentiate between the activities and to keep them moving and prevent boredom.

First of all, one should keep in mind that the students I was dealing with are KG2 students, and their age varies from 4.5 to 5.5 years of age. There for, I focused on involving the students physically and mentally as much as I can to be able to deliver the concept taught (addition and subtraction) without losing their attention; where students of this age have a short attention span. Choosing students in pairs to jump on the number line was to make the lesson fun for the students and enhance their gross motor skills. To also, choose a third student to write on the board while the peers where jumping on the number line was to enhance fine motor skills and to apply collaborative learning. However, the reason behind having to colored set of number line on the floor, one was from 1-10 A4-sized paper and the other number line was from 1-5 in an orange A3-sized paper was because of the different levels of students I had in my class. The slow learner in my class had reached 1-5 in learning the numbers unlike the rest of the class. The bigger sized papers were easier to jump on for physical difficulties and her favorite color is orange to encourage her to participate, using self reference, and to make sure that besides the student's differences, the class would participate as a whole according to their individual learning styles. Yet, not to make the difference obvious between the shorter orange colored number line and the other longer one, I gave other students the option to jump on the orange number line as a second round if they pleased. In a way or another, making the students take over the activity through participation, writing on the board, choosing a teacher-helper, and having them decide and choose their partners were all for gaining the sense of responsibility, excitement, involvement, and having a student-centered classroom. Most importantly, relating the concept addition and subtraction through moving/jumping and forward/backward to the calendar (which is to one of our daily routine) was for reasons like:

-          Relating the lesson to real life experience starting from the calendar

-          Opening a window to the students minds indirectly to other ways one can use the concept of addition and subtraction

-          Students will remember this math lesson every morning while reading the calendar during circle time and keep the concept refreshed in their memory.

-          During the math class, students that liked to be challenged would find relating two different concepts like addition and subtraction to the calendar interesting

Finally, I believe that positive reinforcement is the essence of encouragement in and out of class for all ages. However, choosing the kind of reinforcement that suits the age and the interest of the student is the key element for right positive reinforcement. While teaching KG2 students, I used smiley face stamps on each student's hand who participates, to encourage and acknowledge their performance and to give them a good feeling. I chose stamps instead of stickers because stickers would quickly fall off, but stamps would at least stay till they reach home and their parents would ask them about it, and they would remember and would proudly tell their parents about their accomplishments of the day!

The centers or stations are always a part of my lesson. Students who finishes quicker than others has to be always doing something useful or else they would be unintentionally   distracting their peers. For that reason, students would finish their work/activity and choose which center they would want (drama, blocks, drawing, reading).

Adding and Subtracting Using the Number Line

Teacher: Ms. Sarah Abdallah

Room Number: 306

Class Period(s): 2

Grade Level: KG2-B

Course Tile: Math

Unit Topic: Addition and Subtraction

Lesson Topic: Adding and Subtracting Using the Number Line

General objective: students will be able to write addition and subtraction sentences/operations using the time line

Physical objectives:

·         Students will enhance their gross motor skills using the movement through jumping on the number line when adding or subtracting.

·         Students will also enhance their fine motor skills through writing the additional or subtraction sentence on the white board and on the paper when working on the task.

Cognitive objective:

·         Students will be able to calculate and master the concept of addition and subtraction

Social objective:

·         To participate and help each other through working in pairs during the activity on the white board and on the number line

2. Procedure

Introductory activities (10 mins)

·         Students will sit on the carpet to get introduced to today's lesson and to refresh their memory on the addition and subtraction concepts

·         Students will watch a video of a song called The Adding and Subtracting Song Adding and Subtracting Song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feRV7t5djwY

Developmental activities (15 mins)

·         Students will be jumping on the number line to add and subtract

·         Then writing the same mathematical sentence on the white board

·         The rest of the students will be filling the columns of the activity on paper

3. Instructional Material

-          White board

-          Number line

-          Paper and pencil

-          Overhead projector – video/song

My Reflection on an Indirect Instruction Class

Teaching Strategies for Indirect Instruction  

Grade Level: 2

Period: Mathematics

Lesson Topic: Graphing primarily

The class began with the teacher trying to brain storm with the students through asking questions like "I want to know how to count the jelly beans?"  And asking for different suggestions from the students. Those questions where followed by the teacher distributing jelly bean bags to each student, to make it student-friendly task and using self-reference, the teacher ask the students which color of jelly bean was their favorite. Students then where suppose to write on a piece of paper their favorite jelly bean flavor/color. The following step was to uncover the bar-chart that the teacher had already prepared on the board. The students where to choose their favorite color jelly bean flavor and based on the color they will choose the square shaped colored cards and each group of students were called to the board based on their table number to post on the bar-chart their cards. After posting every table's card on the charts, the teacher said to the students to simply look at the graph and analyze the graph "what do you know from this graph?" The first student walks up to the graph and points at the green colored bar and said most people like green jelly beans.

Another key question, the teacher asked was" what else do we know from this graph?" After getting the student's feedback, the teacher proposed the following question "how many more people like green jelly beans than red?" The students were asked to form a problem and solve it based on the previous question. The teacher then rotates around the students to repeat and clarify the question individually. Than the teacher explained the purpose of this task is to form a problem like this:  12-4= -----__

One student suggested a different way to solve the problem which was not relevant to graphing. So the teacher redirected the student smartly and smoothly back to the topic of graphing. Finally, the last question was "how many people participated in the game of the jelly beans?" Students raised their hands and answered the teacher, so the teacher replies by asking a following question "how did they come up with the answer through explaining it to the rest of the class". The teacher raps up the session with giving the students the feeling that they came up with all the answers themselves. 

Reflection:
I think that the teacher was professional and organized the way she delivered the math period. She demonstrated high class management skills. The seating arrangement was in groups and tables were number-coordinated which is relevant to the math period. Group work was reinforced throughout the period yet, students had the chance to participate individually. I like how the teacher used real life example and what the students are interested in (jelly beans). She used inductive strategy through letting the students come up with the formula and the answers, and through moving from general concepts to specific ones. I also liked that the teacher relied heavily on the questioning strategy and used key questions as a transaction from one step to the other.

Comments:
The teacher asked an African American student to go up to the board twice, while others did not get the chance to participate at all. I am not necessarily stating that as a negative point due to her professional skills, I thought there must be a reason for her to do that. Maybe to boost this particular student's self-esteem or to encourage him to overcome a difficulty in math or ..ect

The teacher physically rotated around the students and making hand gestures that gave the students a sense of security and an indirect message of  "I'm here for you".

The incident of the girl suggesting off topic to the graph and then how the teacher redirects the students back to the topic through re-phrasing the right question was done smoothly and most importantly the girl did not feel embarrassed. 

The teacher collected the empty bean bags after distributing it to the class. And I think it would've been better if she choose a student as the "helper" in this period to do the job. That would give the student a feeling of responsibility and to reinforce the student-center strategy. 

Aims and Learning objectives

Teacher: Ms. Sarah Abdallah

Room Number: 306

Class Period(s):  4 

Grade Level: BA students

Course Tile: Introducing Instructional Methodology

Unit Topic: Aims and Learning objectives

Lesson Topic: Writing instructional objectives

1. Lesson Objectives:

Students will be able to prepare instructional objectives

2. procedure

Introductory activities (10 mins)

• Students will watch a video that simply defines and introduces "How to Write Instructional Objectives."  How To Write an Instructional Objective
• Students will be asked to link and relate what they already know from previous sessions about writing learning objectives  and what they will be learning in this session based on the video they watched. 

Developmental activities (15 mins)

• Students will observe how to write and prepare instructional objectives based on chapter 3 from the book.
• Students will work in pairs to create and analyze an instructional objective

Closing activities (15 mins)

• Students will be evaluated based on each objective he/she presents by the end of class by their classmates.
• As a whole class, students will gather the most important elements of preparing an instructional objective and they will create one together on the board. 

3. Instructional Material

- Text book "Understanding Your Students"

- Smart Board 

4. Evaluation of Students

- students experienced self evaluation and peer evaluation throughout the activities in class

5. Assignment

- Students will write an instructional objective for the next 2 chapter on the syllabus

6. Comments about the Lesson, and Ideas for Revision

- The lesson was interactive and student centered. However, next time I will as students to search different definitions of the topic that will be taught and presented part of the introductory activity and can be used as a warm up for the lesson. 

My sample plan :)

                                              

                                                 Literacy lesson plan

Teacher: Ms. Sarah Abdallah

Teacher's assistant:               

Room number: 21

Class period: Third

Grade level: Grade 1B

Lesson topic: literacy

There are 10 students in my class. Four are female students and six are male students. Two of this class group are students with learning disabilities (LD), a males and a female. Most of the students age vary from 4 years to 5.5 years old.

Objectives

Emotional objective: students will gain the feeling of self-confidence and ability to make something out of nothing

Social objective: students respond to the activity through participating with each other as a whole with their own favorite words chosen

Physical objective: students will enhance their fine motor skill through writing and focusing on the handwriting

Cognitive objective: students to recite different words and will learn new words and know how to used it in a way that can rhyme

Pre-assessment:

Students will be asked to write roughly two rhyming sentences about what they like in school

Warm up and introduction:

I will introduce a two videos on youtube. One that demonstrates a poorly/funny written poem and another poem that is very meaningful and that has a very nice beat to it.

FUNNY POEM! but can do better..

GOOD POEM.. funny too!

OVERVIEW

To develop and increase students’ ways of looking at and listening to words, students will “mine” texts for favorite words from familiar children's literature. Working together, students select words and phrases to create a collective class poem that they will then turn into a performance. This lesson helps students recast the text they are reading in a different genre, which in turn, makes students more insightful readers and helps develop creativity in thinking and writing.

This lesson uses books from the Berenstain Bears series as an example, but any children’s books or book series can be used.

 

Materials:

-       Berenstain Bears series of books

-       Smart board

-       Videos

-       Simple musical instruments  

FEATURED RESOURCES

Procedure: Students use this reproducible to note words they find in their favorite texts and to create poems from them.

FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE

The process of working with words from established authors asks students to engage with the craft of writing without the challenge of facing a blank slate. As student choose words from the works of authors whom they admire, they must look at what material they have to work with in their collected lines and make all sorts of decisions about how they will get them to work together as a performance poem. As they work with texts in this way, students gain skills that can later be applied to their own work.

Referring to Bloom's taxonomy

Level of the domain knowledge:

-        Students will know the basic concept of rhyming students will identify, select, and list different words from different books

-       They identify rhyming words, list, and match them

Level of comprehension:

-       Students will understand the general fact and principle about rhyming words

-       Students will distinguish that not all rhyming words should look alike or end with the same letters

Level of application:

-       Students will demonstrate the correct use of the writing a poem

-       Students will produce a poem out of scratch

Level of analysis:

-       Students will analyze the organization structure of the words selected into a meaningful poem or even ad to it a musical beat

-       Students will outlines the words they selected and putting them together to make a meaningful poem

Level of synthesis:

-       Students will give a well organized and well written poem, that they can act it out or add moves to it

-       Students will create a move, act, or a dance that can be combined with the meaning of the poem

Level of evaluation:

-       Judge the value of the performance as a whole  by the use of internal and external standards (example: their peers in class and the other performances on youtube or ..)

My description

My blog is mainly focusing on different methodologies and theories that can be applied successfully in modern day classrooms .. Ideas and opinions will be shared and discussed in order to offer our students a good learning experience ...