Lesson Self-Assessment

I prepared for my lesson by cutting out pictures that I would need and gluing them to construction paper so that they wouldn't be so plain. Also, I read the story beforehand, just to see what it would be like and I felt like the book would be too long for a class of first graders to listen through.

The first objective of the lesson was for the students to gain a little background on different types of birds because many young children, especially children from the city, don't get too much interaction with different types of birds. Next, they had to listen to the story, create their own ducklings (which were so cute), and finally for them to make their own mini-stories to go with their ducklings. The corresponding assessment measures were my personal observations during our class discussion about birds, during the set, (where each student had to come up with a bird feature), and during the story, when I asked them for their predictions and about how they felt. I was also observing while I walked around the room during their individual time working on their ducklings. Additionally, I created an informal rubric to assess their stories and their ducklings.

I tried to go through with my lesson plan exactly as I wrote it, but I know there were a few things I missed in my anxiousness, such as the discussion about fairy tales - which was vital for the unit. The most important thing I tried to teach them was about bullying. I asked them how they felt and their reactions to the poor duckling getting tossed and beaten and they seemed to understand that what was going on was not nice.

Overall, I think the lesson went pretty well. I was expecting all of my peers to act out but they were relatively well-behaved as compared to other days where children were getting out of their seats, crying, throwing papers, etc. I got through most of the material and the class seemed to like making their own ducklings.

I learned that even grown students get impatient when sitting down to listen to a long story.

Looking back, instead of reading the story myself, I would have used the online version, which I later found on Starfall, because the words were condensed and it was simpler to read and understand. I could also have made this lesson even more effective by going more in depth with anti-bullying and maybe tying the set a little closer to the lesson.

I planned to use the SmartBoard, which worked very well for the set at the beginning of the lesson, but again, I could have used it to read the story with Starfall. I think every time we use the SmartBoard it's a good experience because it gets us involved and it gets us to move around, even if it's only to write one word down. The students seemed to enjoy the use of the SmartBoard as they do in every class. I can bet most of us didn't have the privilege of using the Smart Board in our classrooms when we were in grade school, so we enjoy using it for the simplest things. In future lessons the daily do now can always incorporate the use of the Smart Board. Also, Starfall is great for activities throughout the day and movies when appropriate.

Thanks so much to all my fellow students for behaving :)

SPC Library Visit

During our class library visit on Friday, we learned a couple of different things about the various resources available to us as Saint Peter's students. We learned about ERIC, which is the largest education database and is sponsored by the Education Department. This database could be a valuable tool for us as future educators because we will always need reliable resources to go to. We can use the database when planning lessons, researching books, articles, etc.

Another great tool we have access to is the eBooks on the EbscoHost database because eBooks are an up and coming technology that our children might be using in the classroom one day. I think teachers everywhere should find a way to incorporate the use of eBooks into their lessons and even into their classroom library.

Finally, something all Saint Peter's education majors could use is the access we have to Praxis practice exams. As college students, we don't have as much exposure to practice questions on the Praxis because there are many different kinds of Praxis exams for different teachers. All in all, I enjoyed our trip to the library because I gained some insight to a couple of resources that I can definitely use in the future.