Blog 1_SS2018

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Permalink Reply by Margarita Mejia-Ramos on February 23, 2018 at 7:16pm

Hello Katheryn,

Your presentation wasn’t perfect, but neither was mine. That’s one of the things that I liked about the micro-teaching activity, because we all have the opportunity to learn from one another. Even though you made a mistake, you and Maria still managed to complete your goal, which was to demonstrate the different types of activities we can make for a diverse class and their special needs.

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Permalink Reply by Mary Mata on February 22, 2018 at 10:21am

Good morning class mates and teacher candidates. 

 

It took me a long time to think about what to write about the micro-teaching activity that Mariella and I presented in class last Friday. In first place, I would like to explain that our aim was to teach students a notion of  Italian grammar combined with a portion of Italian culture. We wanted to teach some basic and easy adjectives such as colors and personality traits by showing some images of the most famous carnival characters ( since our cultural portion was about the carnival in Italy.) In addition, we introduced to students some keywords such as pasqua, quarsima, febbraio, and mercoledi’ delle ceneri; which are all related to the carnival context as well.

We tried to make our activity as much creative and entertaining as we could, in order to make it interesting for everybody and  to not lose anybody’s attention. Therefore, we insisted on using images, strong colors, power point, and a YouTube video describing the event we  were presenting. In my opinion, the more illustrative methods are used, the more the lesson will be learned: for example, seeing what is verbally taught makes the topic more interesting and memorable. And, I think that we were able to achieve our goal.

Though, I think that the video length was a little bit excessive. Matter of fact, we lost some student’s attention. In this case, in future activities, we should divide the video into smaller sequences and show a little at a time (as the professor suggested); or we could just focus on the most known carnival celebration in Italy instead of presenting all of them, and maybe give a little bit more details about it.

In conclusion, we could’ve incorporated more culture into our activity by assigning the students a research (investigation) about the topic to be done at the moment or at home.

Permalink Reply by Margarita Mejia-Ramos on February 23, 2018 at 7:31pm

Hi Mary,

Your presentation was fun and interesting, I learned newer Italian words and the fact that it is a little similar to Spanish it made it more enjoyable. I’ll be honest I don’t think the fact that the video was four minutes long was the issue, but perhaps it was that it was going a little too fast; I say this because when you and Mariella were talking slowly we were more into the lesson. Other than that, I believe you guys met your goal which was to add culture into the lesson.

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Permalink Reply by Margarita Mejia-Ramos on February 22, 2018 at 1:47pm

The micro- teaching activity that we did helped everyone in our class to develop the techniques that our former teachers used in their classrooms. Not just that, but it also gives us a better idea about the type of students we will have in our classrooms in the future. The activity that my partner David and I did was based on bringing culture into our classroom. Now it may seem simple, but as we try to come up with an activity we had to keep in mind the different types of students that we have in classroom. For instead, we knew that most of our classmates are Latin Americans or from Central America, however, we also have two Italians in our diverse classroom. We decided to focus on the Latin American continent and talk about soccer, something that everyone from there can relate to. This was our mistake, we wanted to be general, so our other two students could relate, but we forgot that the best way to teach about culture is by using “little C”, in other words be more specific and teach something that most students don’t have a big knowledge of.

Something that I would change from our presentation is the text. We made two mistakes when putting the text into our activity. The first was not re-reading our text; this is something big, since we are giving the students information that we wish they will understand and never forget. At the begging of our activity, I wrote the goals for that day’s lesson, as well as the level of the class. However, our text showed something else, it showed that the text was not meant to be for a five level Spanish class and it wasn’t because they wouldn’t be able to understand it, but because we did not realize the different types of conjugations that we used. We went from the past tense to present tense, which it would have made the students confuse.

Bringing culture into our classroom may be hard at times, but we can always do it by learning the numerous cultures that we have in our classroom. For our activity something else I could have done to bring culture is perhaps bring art into our last activity, the students could have drawn the flag where they are from, this way the other students could have an idea of the color of the jerseys that soccer players use.

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Permalink Reply by Leslie Gonzalez on February 22, 2018 at 1:56pm

          The micro-teaching activity I had to present with Briana Lopez was a very interesting activity that made me realize how detailed and precise one must be when presenting to a class. Using techniques that work for everyone in regards to understanding the lesson is very important. This activity shows what we will have to be prepared for when teaching in the future and it will shape us into better instructors. Accepting criticism is just as important as accepting admiration because it is the only way we will be able to improve and become better teachers.

          Briana and I’s objective was to present an activity that involved working outside of a classroom setting. Therefore we decided to create a project that required students to record their activities of a regular daily routine. The target of this exercise was to have the students practice using reflexive and irreflexive verbs in spanish in order to describe their routines. We wrote the learning objective on the board as a quick review what was learned during the “previous class.” Therefore our objective was to portray the idea that what was being left for homework was already taught and that only a quick review was needed. I spoke both english and spanish in order to make the instructions more clear hence not all the students in our class understand spanish.

          I realize that I could have presented the activity more clearly by going over a little bit of every learning objective, considering that there were three and we went over two. In addition, I mixed up the reflexive verbs with transitive verbs, making the lesson confusing. Speaking slower and explaining thoroughly each objective could have also avoided confusion what I was explaining. I realized that the use of visuals and technology could have helped understand the lesson since perhaps seeing the actions of the verbs could have given a better idea of what I was trying to accomplish.

          Overall, this activity was interesting and eye opener of what teaching will consist of in the future. It was given me an idea of how detailed I must be and what is needed in order to become a good teacher.

Permalink Reply by Briana Lopez on February 23, 2018 at 6:43pm

Hi Leslie,

I agree that this activity was very interesting. Even though we didn't succeed that well at accomplishing our learning objective, I think we gave the right idea about having students work on an assignment outside of the classroom and relate it to their everyday lives. You’re right, paying attention to details, even the smallest ones, can make a huge difference with how our presentation can turn out next time. This will only help us become better future educators and improve little by little. 

Permalink Reply by Briana Lopez on February 22, 2018 at 8:23pm

The micro- teaching activity that my classmate Leslie and I did helped us have a better idea of what our future profession will be like. It was very interesting in the aspect that it sort of let us dip our feet in the water and see what it is like to be a teacher. The activity Leslie and I were assigned to do was an activity involving work outside of the classroom.

Leslie and I tried to make the activity as creative and fun as we possibly could. We came up with the idea of making students write about their daily routines using reflective verbs. However, we notice afterwards, we didn’t have full knowledge and awareness of what we were trying to teach. Although the handout we gave explained exactly what a reflexive verb was. When writing them on the blackboard we mixed them up with transitive verbs. Which caused many of our fellow classmates/ students to be lost. I also believe I personally could’ve spoken a little slower since the assignment we were trying to teach was hard enough to start with and speaking extremely fast didn’t help at all. Nor, how nervous I felt. As well as, I also believe I could’ve spoken a little more in regards to what we were trying to teach. For the next micro-teaching I can improve by trying to speak a little slower, having full knowledge of what I am trying to teach, as well as, not letting how nervous I feel get the best of me.

We could also incorporate culture into our micro-teaching activity by making the students write how certain aspects of their day are related to their beliefs, traditions and in general, the culture in which they were raised in. Overall, I believe this micro- teaching activity will help us in the long run to become better future educators, as well as, we will be able to learn from our mistakes.

Permalink Reply by Leslie Gonzalez on February 23, 2018 at 6:32pm

Hi Briana,

I like the way you described the way this activity was, “dipping our feet in the water and seeing what it’s like to be a teacher.” It was definitely a way to see what teaching will be like we gave a presentation to students hoping they would understand and acquire knowledge of what we planned to explained. Since this was our first presentation, we now know the small and important details we need to work on to do a better job next time. I agree with what you stated, that controlling our nerves will help us not get our information mixed up and give our presentation successfully.

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