Testing the waters of teaching

I had the 4th and 5th graders in the afternoon this week and was able to teach a lesson on how to use the online catalog.  Since this was my first time teaching students, I was really excited.  It's one thing to watch, but it's another thing to create the lesson, plan out the objectives and then teach it!

My supervisor helped out so that I wouldn't have to do all the classroom mgmt alone.  That was great because my 4th graders were a bit wild.  However, they did fine and we made it through the lesson.  I'm beginning to learn how to be tough, but appropriately supportive and assertive.  I can see that respect is earned with these students.  

Overall, the lesson went well.  I used a space theme and gave the students a "mission".  My goal was to chunk the lesson into 3 distinct "tools" they would need to complete their mission:

• Guide book = technology vocabulary
• Directions = steps/strategies to finding materials
• Vehicle = navigation the Destiny catalog interface

For the 4th graders, I assigned crew leaders and grouped students at the start of the lesson.  This was a mistake...I ended up grouping students who were a bit rowdy together instead of splitting them up.  When I grouped 5th graders, I waited until the end of my lesson.  This worked out better because I told them in the beginning of the lesson, I would be looking for good listeners to be crew leaders.  Wow!  What a difference in attentiveness!  It was hard to choose my 5 crew leaders. I can see where the benefit of knowing the students helps, too.  I grouped 2 EC students in the same crew in 5th grade and that didn't work out great. 

During the lesson, I allowed students to check their knowledge by coming up front and use the eBeam pen to select an answer.  I had come up front, tell the class what they thought the pictured icon was (IE, Recycle Bin, etc.) and then they could touch the board w/ the pen to reveal the answer.  They really liked that!

After the lesson, I had them work in their groups for practice and conduct a scavenger hunt for terms.  After I checked each group, I had them work independently at the computers doing the same steps: use the Destiny icon from the desktop, identify the catalog tab, and create a breadcrumb doing a keyword search for something they were interested in.  Their 'ticket out the door' to go browse was that they had to show me they had mastered each step.  I didn't do this with 4th but was able to with 5th.  

For next time, I will wait to select my crew leaders until the end of the lesson and the same with crews so I can separate friends or rowdy students.  I liked working with them individually, too and I didn't get to do that with 4th grade so I need to make sure I have enough time to do that.  I also need to work on how to dismiss students so I can successfully manage the classroom while allowing them to browse the media center when I'm not right there.  That would have been tricky if I was on my own.  I need to start thinking about and asking my supervisor about transitions so I know what to do.

The best part was that most of the 5th grade students were able to find the books from the independent search they conducted.  My supervisor was really pleased with my lesson and felt it went really well, too.

 : )