Teaching Direct

         Hello blog followers!  It has been quite some time since I have posted and I think today is a great day to reflect back on my fieldwork experience.  As a member of Group 4, I taught a direct instruction lesson on Lewis and Clark and the expansion westward on March 17.  It was my first time teaching whole class and I could not have asked for a more supportive, hardworking group to have gone through this process with!  Leading up to our lesson, our group worked diligently all throughout our Spring Break.  We tossed around many ideas for guided and independent practice, as well as possible ways to state our development.  Our first thought was to develop a Prezi, instead of a boring old PowerPoint.  We found the perfect layout: it was a "journey," with footprints leading to each new slide.  But, as we added more and more information, the Prezi did not look as great we had expected. So, we went back to a simple PowerPoint.  This worked out much better...the classroom teacher even complimented our work on it! After these changes, my group also came up with some awesome ideas for independent practice.  We were going to have the children write journal entries on old-looking paper we created (thanks to Julie's artistic ability)!  But, this activity did not fit in well for direct instruction, so we ended up using a crossword puzzle activity.  The children did very well with it and showed us that they were able to understand the core concepts of the day's lesson.
          Our actual lesson went extremely well.  We equally split up our teaching time, with Julie leading the introduction because her enthusiasm instantly captures student attention.  We activated prior knowledge and transitioned nicely into our new topic of the expansion westward.  We stopped often to check for understanding, although we could have done so a little bit more.  Incredibly enough, our timing on the lesson was close to perfect and we were able to fit in every piece we needed to.  We even were able to have students come up to our map and have students sequence the journey of Lewis and Clark.  While there is room for improvement, Group 4 was thrilled with our first lesson.
           Looking back on this specific lesson and the work we put into it, I am extremely appreciative of my group.  We all did our part and adapted well to the constructive comments and tips given to us by Dr. Smirnova.  We followed the direct instruction outline very well and were successful with this method of teaching.  As my first whole class experience, I can truthfully state that this more than solidified my desire to become a teacher!