teaching 6th grade!!

Finally we taught in front of some real live kids! thank goodness we were prepared and there were four of us to help each other out. These kids were a little talkative and just antsy, which I think might be more like teaching 7th graders, but lucky no one was sassy or anything. What we did was we taught them the elements of design and had a competition with who could make the best cereal box design. They totally loved showing their projects and I could see that method, of hands on work or end products that they can display, as being a great teaching tool. All in all it was a great experience and I feel like it was awesome because we prepared so throughly for this lesson.

Also this week at seminar we had some student teachers come in and talk to us about their experiences and how they are handling different situations. It was really helpful to hear from their opinion. For a little while I have been thinking I should get a job that is related to the type of teaching I want to do and since one of the student teachers mentioned that would be a good idea I'm going to make it a priority for the next semester. Also I am going to organize my notes really well for the classes that I have take so far and keep them on file to refer back to later. I think student teaching is super difficult but really rewarding and I really look forward to it!

Grading

One thing that was funny to me this week was the discussions we had about the different formats for grading and different tests. Geoff was very adamant about tests being based on the actual knowledge the student has acquired but we as students wanted a different type of test. For instance the tests that Geoff was suggesting would definitely test our actual knowledge but as a student those test are the hardest to take. Also as a student right now when we study for tests a lot of times we are just trying to memorize as much information for the test as we can and then we forget it with in 24 hours after the test. This means we weren't actually learning the information. Geoffs approach to test taking was, "let me show you what I know", because he is actually trying to obtain and retain the information in the classes. This is what we all need to be doing because we need to know this information, not just memorize it, in order to be successful in teaching!