Time to Teach

Today was our second day at St. Joseph's Elementary School but it was no longer a getting to know you day, it was time to teach and to let everyone get to know us as teachers. Myself, Ms. Vakirtzis, Ms. Popolizio, Ms Moses and Ms. Mauch were ready to teach our fourth grade class everything we had prepared for Medieval Times. The first day teaching can be very nerve wrecking! you never know what the expect and you need to be prepared for anything and be open minded to others ideas and statements. The first day we were teaching our direct lesson plan that we had put together to our fourth grade students. We had a powerpoint in front of the class that we would have the students follow along and fill out the note packet that we had provided for them, this way they were obtaining the information we were teaching them and had a reference to look back on if needed. Each teacher had a part of the powerpoint that they would be teaching to the class, as this was going on the other teachers circled around the classroom to make sure that the students were following along and filling in the blanks.  After all of the information was provided from our powerpoint and the note sheets were  complete we then asked the students work in their groups to complete what we called a Medieval Match Up. Each group had one student come up to the poster board and stick the vocabulary word next to the correct definition in order to show what they had learned throughout this lesson and what they understood about the vocabulary. This allowed us teachers to see where each group landed in understanding what they had been taught today. After the medieval match up board had been completed we gave the class an exit ticket to work on before they were able to leave. Us teachers had provided the class with an emoji board. This board was used to see where each of the students felt their understanding after the lesson today fell. If the student felt really confident about the information we had provided them with and felt as if they learned a lot they were asked to write down two things they had learned today and place it next to the first emoji symbol on the board to show that they understood and learned. The second emoji was for students who felt alright about the material they had learned today but still had some questions, these students were asked to write down what they learned and what they wanted to know or what they may still have questions or be confused about. The third and final emoji was for students who felt completely lost after the lesson. They were asked to place their post it with questions next to the third emoji. This allowed us as teachers to see how each of our individual students felt about what they had learned today. It was very helpful to see where everyone felt they had been after this lesson was completed and it allowed us to work on our second lesson and be able to give students to answers to any information they may have had questions on.  Students were also asked to place a post it in the wonder box! Which we were able to look at the next time we met as a group to address any questions the students may have had.  I personally thought our first lesson went very well. It is very nerve wrecking to be the first group to get up in front of everyone and begin teaching but i feel as if we did a great job working together to complete this first day teaching with one another!