Teaching Today!

Class Period: 2nd period
Topic: Vocabulary taken from the Article “Jackman’s ‘Wolverine’ leads weekend pack with $87M”

I chose to do a jigsaw lesson today because I needed more practice with it, and I thought it would work well to teach vocabulary words. It worked out really well. Part of my philosophy of teaching is that students should collaborate to work on team skills and communication, and they should learn in a variety of ways. A jigsaw activity was new for them, and from my observation, they enjoyed it and learned from it. After all, teaching is the highest form of learning.
I only observed one "normal" day in this class because I have been working as a teacher assistant for the TTRM reading program. That one day of observation was very important because it showed me what a normal day looks like in Mrs. Messerly’s class. However, since this is an alternative school, there are not many “normal” days because every week, there may be new students or old students leaving to go back to their regular high schools. I observed a Monday, and that is the day they do a vocabulary assignment. Because of this, I wanted to teach on a Monday to keep the regular flow of the week. The objectives were learned successfully based on the monitoring I did throughout the lesson while they researched the vocabulary words in their expert groups and taught them in their home groups. Also, they made good predictions about the topic of the article, and one group guessed correctly. After reading the article, I asked questions, and they felt comfortable answering them. My set worked because it effectively caught their attention. They arranged in groups correctly and worked collaboratively; although, they did get off topic a few times. The students effectively taught the vocabulary words to the home group, and they responded well after reading the article. I think most everything worked well; however, if I were to change anything, it would be to already have the definitions printed out for them to make sure they are teaching the correct definitions to their group. Some of the definitions had multiple meanings, and the students had no way of knowing which meaning I was looking for them to teach. If I had provided a handout with the definitions on it, there would be no confusion over what the definition is, and there would be more focus on thinking of creative ways to teach the word. The main thing I learned about teaching from this experience is that it is important to set the rules for behavior and make sure the procedures are very clear to students before they begin the activity. Jigsaw can be a little confusing, and if they are clear on what they are supposed to be doing and what is expected of them, they will learn more. It is easy for groups to get off topic and socialize without proper ground rules for behavior expectations. I feel more confident about teaching based on my experience teaching real public school students.

Also, the SWA and DYE students are in the Daily News Journal! Here's the link to read the article: http://www.dnj.com/article/20090504/NEWS07/905040315&referrer=FRONTPAGECAROUSEL.