Take5

We are heading towards the end of the nice Thanksgiving weekend. I hope everyone enjoyed these last couple of days with their loved ones; friends and family. Oh how can I forget to mention black Friday, yup I hope you all got some good bargains if you woke up bright and early to start your X-mas shopping =) Well today I am going to blog about our fifth JA experience last Wednesday since the students were out yesterday Friday. Being the day before Thanksgiving there was a number of students absent. Overall the show had to go on, and the day went well after all. What I liked about this lesson is that it was conducted just like a history class and what I would imagine my classroom to be. The lesson started with a brief review of prior knowledge and the content we learned about last week transportation. Then we had a great conversation discussing the topic for the day/ communication. It was a topic everyone could relate to and we made sure they understood that because of the evolution of communication technology (newspapers,Postal service, telegraph -Morse code, etc) they were able to enjoy appliances such as cell phones, text messaging, Internet etc. This time Victor and I worked together, we took turns lecturing and explaining the activities. We used the student workbooks to read about the first four forms of communication. Focusing on the Morse code students learned how to read decode (vocab word) a message in a group. It was really fun to see them engaged working together. I liked that the activity enforced teamwork at in the end each group sent a representative up to the front of the class and one by one shared the message that their group had decoded. It was neat to put every ones work into one, it felt like a whole class effort rather then a competition =) We shared that next week would be the last session, all good things have to come to an end. But we told them that we would share of contact info with them next friday.

1,2,3,4 =)

Happy Monday everyone =) I know it's hard to keep the routine going and be productive when it's a short week, Thanksgiving is three say away and the holiday season is around the corner. I just dont know why I seem to procrastinate on these blogs, I tell myself, "I'll do it later, I'll do it later," and time just flys. Well last friday was my fouth JA session, and to be honest I really had a great time; I had had alot of stress from school all week and just being there made my day. The lesson focused on natural reasources and their role in transportaion. It was really neat to implement material covered that I covered in my second lesson plan. I used some of the lecture materials from my lesson to incoporate in that days session, for example I defined and gave examples of natural, human, capital resources. After I had defined the terms, I had student relate it to that days topic of transportation and wrote their answers on the board. We read from the workbook and after some lecture/ discussion between them and I. Victor explained that days activity/ game. I always tend to just walk around and observe the students as they play the games but this time, somebody needed an extra person and I volunteered to be on his team =) I had a good time mingling and playing with the students. The period flew by and next thing I knew victor was wrapping up the game and we had about five mins left to review the session and the concepts learned.

The third time is a charmer.. ok maybe not

Hello Hello everyone, well all I can say is that I am very sorry for lagging it on sharing my experience with you all. I've been meaning to write about last Fridays; the third JA lesson plan but have been procrastinating due to the many other things on my plate this semester. Since I will begin to plan the next lesson for this Friday soon, I needed to close up this one. Well I will start by stating that this lesson's topic was the most exciting for me so far. I took a California History class last year in which we covered the Gold Rush in depth, therefore I felt confident pertaining to the actual content for the day. =) Reguardless of my knowledge on the lesson, we felt it was time for a change. Victor wanted to try to do the lecture part since he too felt confident with the material, therefore I left him take the spotlight of opening up the lesson/ lecture. On the other part I was in charge explaining the game for the day. I thought it was going to be easy but I ended up finding it a bit challenging since I had a bit trouble explaining myself. At that moment I learned that over confidence is not so great as it seems, since one might find something easy and not worry or work as hard as if you knew it was going to be challenging from the begining. Yet, we did do the game and met our objective of students understanding that not all prospectors who came to California to strike it rich in the mine were mostly not successful and it also served as a review of vocabulary. I first explained the directions to playing the game, then we split the students into groups and handed the strike- it- rich cards. We gave the students about 15mins to play the game and record their results. Throughout the game we constantly provided guidence and feedback to the students. Students were for the most part into the game and seemed to have fun with the card questions. Overall some of the points that I liked about friday's lesson was the fact that we are at the halfway point of the program. Therefore, we are at a point where we can refer to prior knowledge and key terms and content learned in previous sessions and I like that. By being able to do this students are beginging to see the bigger picture and connection between the topics and concepts. For the most part I have begun to learn the students names and interact with them for a ittlw bit after class. I like the fact that they not only see me as an authority figure but also as an approachable person. =) Well lets see what happens this week, this time I expect to do my blog asap. =)

JA Adventure- Take Dos =)

Hello fellow readers,

Well just to update, I've been busy busy! Just to follow up on JA info... my partner and I were supposed to do our second lesson last Friday but we received an email from the teacher letting us know that she was going to be absent, therefore it would be best if we would go twice this week to make up for last Friday. To be honest I was bummed to pros pone the lesson since I was all ready and prepared to teach the lesson. Well long story short.. Victor and I ended up going yesterday Wed Nov 12. Some of the opportunity costs (one of the concepts learned throughout the lesson) was that I had to leave work early to meet up with Victor and go teach the lesson, therefore forgoing my income from working. The good thing was that it was worth it, I really enjoyed my time with the students. I feel a bit more comfortable lecturing a class then conducting an activity. Therefore, once again I was the one who began the lesson by going over vocabulary such as (costs, benefits, opportunity costs), and providing a brief lecture (overview) of the topic; the significance that agrigculture played in the economic development of the United States. I introduced, described and explained what the Homestead Act was and its significance. After that we took a look at the biographical passage of Daniel Freeman in their workbooks. After that Victor took over and explained and conducted the activity/ game which rewuired stundents to be put into 5-6 groups. During the activity/ game students were somewhat engaged. I began to notice that group work can also mean freetime to others which find no consequence of participating. I began to realize that even if I have a good plan/ lesson its up to my classmanagement that will determined whether I am an effective teacher or not. Students must be held accountable when working in groups, and I will follow these pointers, I have learned so far to implement them or avoid free loaders. After the acitivity we both reviewed key terms, and reminded students that there are costs and benefits in every choice involved in a decision.

Overall the class did ok and participated when asked. Well its getting late and I still have to review for tomorrows lesson. Thats right we are going tomorrow to try to catch up with the lessons tomorrow will be the 3rd time. I hope we are able to get them all done before finals week. We have talked to the teacher and he is willing to help and adjust to our busy schedules. We are most likely going to have to doo one or two lessons in the same week since there are about 3-4 weeks left, I think we can do it with a little compromise and organiztion.

JA Adventure- Take One

After several weeks of waiting and miscommunication between the JA representatives and myself I finally was able to start the program on Monday Nov. 3. To be honest I underestimated the amount of work that goes into teaching a lesson. I am lucky to be team teaching with Victor whom I work very well with. We met a couple times prior to Monday to go over the lesson plan and our roles and work that we were responsible for. Working with Victor made me realize that I tend to over think and I tend to make life (things) harder then they are. I was excited that I was going to be in the classroom setting, and I was curious to know how the students were going to be, react, and behave with us. To be honest even though I have worked with middle schoolers for the past two years and feel comfortable around the students I work with, I was very nervous on Monday I was afraid of not being a good presenter. I'm a tutor therefore I am the teacher assistant in the classroom and that is my comfort zone. In the JA project, I am the teacher (center stage), and I have to teach the lesson, keep students engaged, lead the discussions, games, assign work and my biggest challenge is classroom management.

We headed to the middle school early in the morning before school began to meet with the teacher, whom happened to be Victor's formor teacher. We talked to the teacher about him letting us post the JA banner, and the maps that correlated with the JA "America Works" curriculum. Then the moment of truth began as the bell rang. As the students came in, they were curious about us and what we were going to do with them. We then introduced ourselves, our purpose there and introduced the JA program and objectives.

First we passed out the table tents for them to write their names so we could , and the workbooks that we be using for the next five weeks. Then we immediately took our roles since there is no time to waste since there was much to cover in the first lesson. I was the first one up, I was in charge of giving the lecture. My part consisted of introducing the topic of how businesses and entrepreneurship affected the economic development of the United States during the 19th century. I explained several key factors that were going to be covered throughout the activity. Among them were Immigration, Emigration, Entrepreneurship, push and pull factors. I gave a brief explanation/ introduction to the following terms. Victor walked around the classroom as i was teaching, he made sure student were on task and paying attention. As I was teaching I made sure to keep a good rapport with the students by using their names on the table tents in different scenarios. My presentation involved many critical thinking questions and questions in which students could relate to or connect with. After we reviewed content from the workbooks, it was Victors turn to teach. He explained the concepts and purpose of the game we played. He divided students into groups, and each group was responsible for a group of immigrants. He did a good job keeping the students engaged throughout the game and I monitored the class. We finished the lesson right before the bell rang, but unfortunately we didnt have time left over to review the lesson. We informed the students that we were going to go back Friday Nov 7th .

Final thoughts- I realy enjoyed working with the students. They are a bright group of kids who seemed enthusiastic of having college students in their classroom. I didn't miss the chance of encourging them to go to college. I think the challenge of doing this program will be finishing the remaining five lessons before the semester is over and balancing work and all my other school work at the same time... but i look forward to this experience