Little Pigs Have Mud Races

What is geography?

Geography is the study of the physical features of the Earth, including how humans affect the Earth and are affected by it. 


Geography is composed of so many different topics therefore it is split into 5 themes. The 5 themes of geography are location, place, human-environment interaction, movement, and region. I'm sure you're thinking that its a lot to remember, but i'll let you in on my secret to how I have learned to remember these 5 themes. Little Pigs Have Mud Races! This is the mnemonic I came up with to easily remember the 5 themes of geography. It has worked for me and I hope it sticks with you too! Now let's learn a little more about each theme


Location 
The place where a particular point or object exists. This can be an absolute location which is commonly given in the terms of longitude and latitude (ex. Mount Saint Mary College is 41° North and 74° West). Or it can be a relative location which is description of how a place is related to other places (ex. Mount Saint Mary College is 6 blocks away from  Orange County Community College). 

Place
The physical and human characteristics of a given location. This involve describing the mountains, valleys, and the living organisms that inhabit it, infrastructure, and communications.

Human-environment interaction
The study of how humans affect the environment and how the environment affects humans. This human affect can either be positive or negative and is often debatable.

Movement
The effects of anything that moves across Earth. This can include humans, goods, services, immigration and the migration of animals.

Region
The classification of different parts of the world. How the land is split up into continents, regions, countries, counties, states, and cities.

Great introductory video for geography!

Let's Test & Assess!

 One requirement from our teacher and the second grade teacher was to make a pre and post test as a form of assessment for the students.  We created this test by using Google Forms. I was never aware that tests can be created using a Google software. I have never used this tool but it was awesome! Everyone from my class was able to collaborate to create the assessments for our students. Each group was in charge of their own subject, my subject was Early Explorers. I am not a big fan of written tests as a form of assessment, but the process of creating one was very interesting and informative. 

For the Pre-Test, we looked in the textbook for the first grade social studies curriculum and tried to connect it to what they would be learning this year. This was a way for us as teachers to access the students' prior knowledge on early travelers. We wanted to make sure that all of the students understood the previous material. My group outlined this pre-test to have a higher order of thinking and allow students to use their recalling skills through the cognitive lens. As you can see through the link some of the questions are short answer and the rest are multiple choice. This gives students an opportunity to see what they will learning in each section. I liked creating the short answer questions because there could be more than one correct answer. The pre-test was definitely harder to create because we didn't teach the students when they were in first grade. After creating the pre-test it was much easier for my group to figure out exactly what we needed and wanted to teach our students. 

Just last week my class created the Post-Test. As a group, we decided to keep some of the same questions as the pre-test and make changes to the rest. These questions are to see if the students understood the material and stored it into their long-term memory. The post test shows us as teachers what the students learned and how well they learned it. This test was much easier to create because we asked many questions in our direct lesson that we used as questions in the pre-test. According to Bloom's Taxonomy we wanted to see the students reach a higher order of thinking, therefore we gave the students more short answer questions. This required students to apply their knowledge based on what they learned not what they already knew. This allows the students to think deeper and evaluate themselves on the thinking process. The results from the post-test make me nervous because I hope as a teacher I did a good job teaching them the necessary material.

Learning a Lesson While Teaching One

Although fieldwork is ending, the many tools I have learned from the experience are just beginning. The past 5 weeks teaching the second grade class at BDMS have taught me many aspects of teaching I never knew until standing in front of a class. I enjoyed fieldwork this semester because it was different than the fieldwork I have done in my previous classes. You don't feel like a real teacher until you teach to an entire class, front and center. One thing I gained throughout my fieldwork experience was confidence. I learned that every student is different and it is my job as a teacher to accommodate these differences. 

I learned how to create three different lesson plans and the necessary elements required for each. The direct instruction lesson plan requires much more detail and step by step instruction for what is going to be said by the teacher than the other two lesson plans. After teaching the direct instruction lesson plan I was able to go back and make minor changes to make it even better. There was not much that needed to be changed because my group members and I worked very hard on this first lesson plan. The next lesson we taught as a group was the inquiry lesson. The inquiry lesson plan requires students to go through the inquiry process on their own to solve a problem. Before this class I never saw an inquiry lesson implemented in a classroom. I was very excited to carryout our inquiry lesson because it was engaging and technology based. My group created a Webquest for the students to explore in order to solve the problem given to them. I think this lesson went very smoothly and the students were excited and engaged the entire time. When I looked back at the lesson plan to make changes, there were only a few minor things that needed tweaking. One thing I wish my group had done was physically modeled the process using a tablet instead of showing them on the SmartBoard.  I would have verbalized my thought process throughout the exploration. Other than that I think the lesson plan was written great and the lesson was taught phenomenally by my fellow group members and myself. The last and final lesson my group taught was the cooperative learning lesson. A cooperative lesson requires students to work together to create a common goal. Our students were required to make a poster portraying the explorer they discovered in the inquiry lesson. The students had a really great time having roles and working amongst their classmates. This lesson plan only needed simple changes like the inquiry. I needed to change the lesson objectives because I did not provide a performance goal required for the students. 

Here are my final lesson plans:

Direct Instruction

Inquiry

Cooperative Learning 

Overall teaching in front of a class was an amazing experience. I need to thank my colleagues for the great group effort and collaboration that made this fieldwork experience possible. We all worked really hard this first half of the semester. I look forward to teaching my own classroom in the future because of the experiences I've had so far. 

Let's Go To Finland!

I have recently read the article "How Finland broke every rule - and created a top school system" and it has changed my views on American education. This article talks about how the Finnish school system is basically the complete opposite of that in America. The only problem with this is that educators in Finland are doing everything the right way. 

"Instead of control, competition, stress, standardized testing, screen-based schools and loosened teacher qualifications, try warmth, collaboration, and highly professionalized, teacher-led encouragement and assessment." 

This quote from the article portrays how America is doing education versus how they should be doing it. In America education focuses too much on drilling and discipline than encouraging and collaboration. This is why students in America often do not want to attend school even at early ages. In Finland, school is something children see as fun. Teachers tend to start off as energetic and creative, but somewhere down the line they burnout. This burnout is something that should not be happening to teachers. 

"Children at Finnish public schools are given not only basic subject instruction in math, language and science, but learning-through-play-based preschools and kindergartens, training in second languages, arts, crafts, music, physical education, ethics, and, amazingly, as many as four outdoor free-play breaks per day, each lasting 15 minutes between classes, no matter how cold or wet the weather is."

This quote shows how students become diverse in Finland and are able to learn at their own pace with time in between. Children typically can attend to one activity that is interesting to them for around 10-15 minutes. How can we expect American students to be any different? Children need change to keep them interested, something that Finland is doing that we are not. 

Morgan Spurlock has recently done a video of himself experiencing school in Finland, which verifies this article in so many way. The video can be seen here. It is the last video on the page. 

In America children and adults do not take education seriously. In Finland teaching is the most admired job next to medical doctors. I'm sure many of you have hear the famous line "Those who can't do, teach" and this is the American view of teaching. We put so much time into lashing teachers than we do respecting them. Teaching is not an easy profession and maybe if more Americans realized that, the education system wouldn't be the way it is. 

First Week in Front

This week was my first time teaching in front of a full classroom! Most of the time in my education classes we teach with a small group, but this class is different. We were required to teach all three types of lessons over the course of two days. It was very nerve wrecking, but after seeing the first group of colleagues teach about Native Americans, I was a lot more confident. 

Our topic was 'Early Travelers'. We got lucky because on the day we were supposed to teach our direct instruction lesson plan it snowed and the school was closed. We had an extra two days to get our plans worked out and ready, for me the nerves just got worse. In my group there are six of us and we taught the direct instruction using google slides with a goanimate video. Standing in front of the class teaching wasn't as bad as I had thought. The class loved our video with Christopher Columbus and we could tell they learned the material. We had two different guided practice activities to make sure the students fully understood what we were teaching. I have to admit, I referred to the students as "guys" once. I know I said in my previous post that it was something to never be said, but i couldn't help it, I slipped. All in all, day 1 of teaching was a success!

The following Tuesday we were scheduled to teach our inquiry and cooperative learning lessons, but yet again the weather prohibited us from doing so. This time I don't think it was luck, it was more of a punishment. My group and I were so ready to teach that we were upset when we found out school was closing early and we wouldn't have the chance to teach. So, we kept on practicing and revising and when Thursday came we were beyond prepared. for our inquiry lesson the students went on an exploration using iPads and a webquest made by one of my colleagues. We introduced the problem by telling the students that the Museum of Natural History had mixed up some of their exhibits and needed their help to figure out what information goes with what explorer. The students were asked to explore the webquest and the different information provided to find out which historical figure they had been given. At the end of the lesson when the students had came to a conclusion, they scanned a barcode to reveal their explorer. The students really enjoyed this activity. They used information as evidence to draw conclusions. It was a great experience for myself to witness the inquiry process first hand.

Next was the cooperative learning lesson. Students were given different roles for this activity of creating a poster to show the class which explorer they had discovered. The student's did an awesome job working with each other to create one poster with all of the required information. Because of time, students had to give a very brief presentation and we were not able to have groups give feedback to each other like we had wanted. 

Of course my group performance was not perfect, but I think we did an excellent job of teaching for the first time. I am so excited to do it again and become the best teacher I can be!

1 Lesson, 2 Lessons, 3 Lessons Planned!

It's the first week of fieldwork and Group 1 taught their three lessons on Native Americans. Three lessons?! can you believe it. When I first heard that I would be teaching three lessons I was very overwhelmed. It sounds scary, but the important part is to understand the difference between these three lessons and how they are each effective. The three lessons are Direct Instruction, Inquiry and Cooperative Learning.

A Direct Instruction lesson should be the first lesson taught to students when learning a new topic. This lesson includes straightforward, explicit teaching to teach specific content. This lesson is teacher directed, meaning the teacher is in front of the class teaching the entire time. Teachers often use a powerpoint or other presentation software to teach a direct instruction lesson that includes key words and definitions for the students. After the teacher teaches the new material the students participate in a guided practice activity to develop automaticity of skills and master the content.

Inquiry lessons focus on student's understanding of the material learned in the Direct Instruction lesson. Students are actively participating in problem solving strategies. The teacher first models the expected behavior of the students and then let's them work on their own. Students observe, develop hypotheses and investigate solutions to enhance their knowledge. In an inquiry lesson, students are learning through their own experiences. The teacher has little to teach in an inquiry lesson, he or she should be observing students helping when needed. At the end of the lesson students are asked to give their conclusion and prove why it is true. 

Cooperative lesson students work in groups on a given project that will eventually be presented to the rest of the class. The goal of the project is for students to show what they have learned through the Direct Instruction and Inquiry lessons. Often times students are given different roles requiring students to interact with the rest of the group as they work. Cooperative lessons promote interdependence, social development and individual accountability. Students are often required to give feedback to group members as well as other groups to help them succeed.