WHAT?
During my first visit to Agnes B. Hennessey School my partner and I taught a lesson about the geography of Brazil. Throughout the lesson we made introductions, set classroom expectations, went over vocabulary for the unit, completed a map activity, a read aloud, and a matching activity to capture what they learned. When beginning the lesson we had the students go around and introduce themselves. During this time we had them say what their favorite part of social studies is. This let us get to know about the students and took it as an opportunity to see what we an incorporate in future lessons. After introductions we went over classroom expectations, which they exceeded by being totally respectful and lovely participants. Miss Reynolds and myself provided the students with vocabulary strips and a vocab wall before we began talking about geography. We went over geography, land regions, and freedom for our main vocabulary terms. For our first activity we completed a map activity to go over all the regions located in Brazil. The students were able to complete a map of their own while following along with Miss Reynolds and I (pictured below in 1 and 2). This went extremely well as the students were amazed to see how big the country was with different types of regions. The students even began to compare the regions in Brazil to the ones in Rhode Island. It was clear t his point that the students had already met our first learning objectives. After participating in the map activity, the students were able to identify and describe locations on a map by creating a map of Brazil and labeling the regions. After the map activity, we read a few pages of our book about Brazil. This gave the students a break however they seemed a little uninterested in the book.
An area of weakness we could improve on would be how to make the read aloud more engaging and interesting for the listeners. After the read aloud we completed a graphic organizer for the students to understand what jobs are in different regions of Brazil, and what children do in Brazil. Finally, we decided to check for understanding by completing a matching activity about the regions in Brazil and the jobs people work. The students excels in this activity and were really excited that they learned about the regions of the country. This showed that the second objective for this lesson had been met by all students. Students were able to explain how geographical features determine how people live and work by completing the matching worksheet. The evidence of this is shown on the worksheets and observations as they all completed the activity with excellence and little guidance.
After further evaluation of my lesson, I believe that I need to include more hands-on or interactive materials to keep the students more tuned in. The students were eager and ready to learn throughout the lesson however, I want to make it an even more memorable experience for them moving forward.
SO WHAT?
During this lesson, I learned that I have to make the lesson interactive and even more engaging for the students. I learned that I can plan more than necessary in case we have extra time. I have to continue to work on time management, as it got towards the end I felt my group began to rush to get in all the materials we pepped for. The more I practice and work on my time management, the smoother the lesson will go. Now that I know more about my students, I need to put the students’ abilities into more consideration for each lesson plan. I do not want to rush through material. Next time, I will minimize writing so I can properly assess each student. This lesson continued to expand my knowledge for the future lessons I teach. I was really satisfied with this experience, and I hope to continue to improve these skills to make me a better educator.
NOW WHAT?
This experience will influence my professional identity because I am still learning and trying to figure out the best ways for me to teach my students. Every time I have a new experience, I am learning how to teach in a classroom atmosphere. I am learning different ways on how to handle a group of students. I am learning different ideas and strategies that can make me a better teacher. Throughout this lesson, I had to teach geography which I had never done before! This lesson went well, and it was nice to teach something I had minimal experience on. This lesson taught me how to adjust and helped me prepare for future teaching experiences.
This experience will influence how I plan/teach/assess in the future. I have learned how important it is to be organized, prepared, and how important timing is. For this lesson, I was very well prepared and organized. I had everything labeled and put together in an orderly fashion. If I was not prepared to teach this lesson it would not have gone as well as it did. I am extremely grateful for this experience, and I am excited to plan/teach/assess in the future.
Thank you,
Giana Fitzpatrick
Slideshow used during lesson
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