October 25, 2024

 WHAT?

During my second visit to Agnes B. Hennessey School my partner and I taught a lesson about the history of Brazil. Throughout the lesson we made introductions, had a lesson 1 recap, went over vocabulary for the history unit, completed a timeline activity, a read aloud, a cause/effect activity, and finally a kahoot. When beginning the lesson we had the students go around say their names as a refresher and tell us about their favorite holidays. The students were able to explain a little bit about their family celebrations and cultures. I enjoyed this short and simple way to learn more about the students. After our re-introductions we went into a little recap on our previous lesson plan. The students remembered all about different types of regions in Brazil and it surprised me how excited they were to continue to learn. Miss Reynolds and myself provided the students with vocabulary strips and a vocab wall before we began talking about history. We went over primary sources,  secondary sources, cause, and effect for our main vocabulary terms. For our first activity we completed a coloring sheet to figure out the difference between primary and secondary sources (pictured below). During this activity the students chose two different colors to identify primary and secondary sources. The students were able to complete a coloring sheet of their own while following along with Miss Reynolds and I. This went extremely well as the students were eager to learn about the different types of sources in the world.

After the coloring activity, we read some of Brazil’s history to the students. This included a timeline of Brazil which helped when completing the timeline activity we had planned. The students had to work together to use the events and figure out when each event occurred. After one attempt, the students had some events in the wrong order, but brainstormed together to create an accurate timeline. After the timeline activity we related everything back to cause and effect. We had a T-Chart on our chart paper with causes and the students had to match the correct effect. We went over why every action has a consequence which can be a good or bad effect. It was clear at his point that the students had already met our learning objectives. After participating in the multiple activities, the students ended the lesson by completing a kahoot. This was a great way to see how the students successfully met the objects. They all excelled and even showed some competitiveness with the game. By the end of the lesson the students were able to talk about key parts of Brazil’s history. 

An area of weakness we could improve on would be to provide another electronic activity. The students seemed more engaged when doing an interactive activity on their chromebooks compared to on physical paper. The students excelled and were so excited to open their laptops and go on the kahoot which made it much more exciting. After further evaluation of my lesson, I believe that I need to include more electronic 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 continue to make the lesson interactive and even more engaging for the students. Even though my second lesson was even more interactive than the first, 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 I felt like I was running out of time towards the end of my lesson. 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 can add more electronic activities because they seemed so happy to participate in those. I can incorporate more coloring activities because they enjoy being creative. This lesson continued to expand my knowledge for the future lessons I teach. I was really happy 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 falling in love with being in a classroom and learning about new students each and every time. I am learning different ideas and strategies that can make me a better teacher. Throughout this lesson, I had to teach history 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. I am continuing to navigate my way through these experiences and I am so grateful to do so.

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
Google Slideshow: LINK