I could see significant progress
throughout my activity plans. Although I have written plenty of lesson plans
before this course, I had never written one for preschoolers and the format
seemed stricter than what I was used to. Early on, I feel that I did a good job
with including a lot of detail in my activity plans. As I progressed, I began writing
in bullet points instead of long paragraphs with “teacher talk”. I used to
think that quoting what I would say would be the easiest way to get my point
across. I have learned that listing the information in bullet points makes it a
lot easier to follow along.
I noticed that it was very
challenging to maintain the children’s attention during a lesson. While writing my activity plans, I made sure
to write it in a way that would keep the students focused. I noticed that a lot
of students responded well with asking them to keep a secret just between us,
asking them to help me find something I lost, and using different voices. I
think it is important to have a strong anticipatory set in each activity plan
to catch the children’s attention from the very beginning.
One area I am still developing on as
a future teacher would be writing and implementing assessments. On occasion I
will struggle with figuring out what I feel is a strong assessment to use
within my lessons. It is difficult to understand when you will complete the
assessments when you are not yet a teacher. For now we only need to include
them in our lessons, but there will come a time when I actually have to
implement the assessments in my own classroom. By writing the different
activity plans I feel like I have become more confident with my assessments. I
feel like this is an area where “practice makes perfect.”
Each of my activity plans made a
connection with the material my students were learning in class. My first
activity plan worked with the ABC’s and my second lesson worked specifically on
the letter K. These two lesson plans made a connection because they both worked
with letters. Activity Plan 3 dealt with mathematics. Because my class does not
do a lot of math, I decided to work with measurement because I knew they had at
least heard the word before in class. Before I began creating any of my
lessons, I would check in with my teacher to see if she was comfortable with my
idea for an activity.
I have had such an amazing
experience in my placement. I feel like a have grown as a future educator
during my time at my school. I have never worked with this age group before so
I was able to broaden my age range. I had a lot of “hands on” experience with
the children and I was able to implement my own lessons. By implementing two of
my lessons, I was able to see how unpredictable teaching can be. I understand
now that you need to be prepared for any situation as an educator. My placement
taught me how to think on my feet and expand my creative thinking.
In my first prompt I said, “I
believe that students need to learn from experience. I do believe that the
students need to be pushed in the right direction, but I feel like teacher’s
today spoon feed the material instead of letting the students find the answers.”
I still agree with the philosophy of learning through experience. Young
children should not be told everything they need to do. These children will not
fully develop as a learner if they do not learn to explore and learn for
themselves. If these children are “spoon fed” information, they will grow up
depending on their teachers to give them all of the material. The Bullard text
talks about how it is a teacher’s job to create an environment where the
children can initiate the activities.
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