Thursday, November 13, 2008

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.

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