The first lesson that I learned about was Direct Instruction. The purpose of a Direct Instruction lesson is to acquire basic knowledge and skills of a specific topic. It is very important to learn the basics of something before going into greater detail and a higher level of thinking. Direct Instruction promotes the mastery of basic concepts and complex skills. A Direct Instruction lesson includes: an anticipatory set, which assesses prior knowledge and introduces the topic that is going to be taught, one goal, one objective, demonstration, presentation, or modeling of the topic, guided practice, check for understanding/feedback, and extended practice. The second lesson that I learned about was the Information Processing Model. The Information Processing Model is an important and effective way of teaching children other than the Direct Instruction Model. The Information Processing Model is an important method to teaching because the students can take the information that they have learned during direct instruction and apply it to the new process. In the Information Processing Model, the students use procedural knowledge which adds on to what they have learned through the Direct Instruction Model. In the Information Processing Model, students must analyze things and think about the answer. The Information Processing Model is a higher level of thinking than Direct Instruction.
The last lesson that I have learned about is the SIM (Social Interavtive Model). The SIM lesson is made up of 4 different things (PIGS). Positive Interdependence, Individual Accountability, Group Processing, and Interaction/Social Skills all make up the methods of an SIM lesson. Positive interdependence is when you learn from others, work together to accomplish one goal, and rely on each other to complete each piece of a group project. Individual accountability is the measurement of whether or not each group member has achieved the group's goals. Each member contributes to the project and gives the results to each of the other members. This promotes fairness in group work so that each person is held responsible for their share of the work. This is also beneficial because it shows that students are learning better cooperatively and it is helpful for real life situations as well. It is important to keep the size of groups rather small and give individualized tests to check for understanding. It is also important to observe each group as the teacher to be sure every one is contributing. Group processing is when the group members discuss how well they are working to achieve their goal and maintain effective, working relationships. It is also important to decide which behaviors to keep and which ones can be changed to better the group. The purposes of group processing allows the group to improve their work over time, focus attention on all contributions made to the group in order to increase individual accountability, and it makes the learning process simpler. The steps of group processing include: feedback, reflection, improvement goals, and a celebration in which the group can look at how much hard work they put into it. Social skills is also very important. It enhances developement of speaking and listening among learners. It also helps learners become competent enough to think critically and share their views among the rest of their peers. Group members can promote success among each other by praising, encouraging, supporting, and assisting each other. Six social skills outcomes include employability, productivity, quality of life, physical health, psychological health, and the ability to cope with stress. The SIM model is the highest level of thinking out of all of the lessons that I have learned about. I also think that it is the most important model because it teaches children how to work with others and get their work done. There are 2 goals in a SIM lesson. One goal is academic and one is a social interaction goal. The objectives are the same as DI. The materials include everything you will need for the lesson and the introduction assesses the students' prior knowledge of social skills. the developement indicates that the SIM will be implemented and students will work together in groups. Guided practice is group work and the teacher walks around to monitor individual work. The closure is usually when the groups present their projects to each other and they learn from others. They can reflect on each other's work as well. Accomodations and independent practice are the same as DI. Rubrics are used for evaluations. There is a lot of things that can be done with the SI Model.
Each of the types of lessons that I learned about are all very important. There are many different ways in which I will be able to implement these types of lessons. As I found out during my fieldwork experience, the SIM lesson is more fun for the children because they are learning hands on and they do not have to sit and listen the whole time. Fieldwork was a great experience for me during this semester. The first lesson that I taught was taught by using DI. I taught the students the basics of telling time. The second lesson that I did was using the IPM lesson. My lesson was on sea animals for science class. I had the students looks at pictures of these sea animals and compare/contrast them. I had asked them: "What is different about these animals?" and "Where do these animals live?" and "What is different about the animals?" This was a success. My third lesson was using the SIM lesson. My lesson plan was on roles of people in a community. I had the students work together in groups and they were each assigned different roles such as: president, vice president, treasurer, secretary. The students got to work in groups and create a poster that showed how each member was needed to make the community work together. It was a great experience for me because I got to really practice being a teacher and I got some excellent feedback!
Over the course of this semester, I learned so many things in Methods of Teaching with Dr. Smirnova. I have learned many different things in this course that will benefit me as a teacher in the future. I learned so much about the use of technology. Technology plays a major part of a person’s everyday life. Being technologically advanced during this day in age is very important because in order to accomplish anything, some sort of technology is usually involved. It is important to understand the concept of using computers because in the future everything will be done by computer even more than it is today. In Dr. Smirnova’s class, using computers plays a major role because I use it to do my work and discover new programs to make projects more interesting and fun. If it wasn’t for this class, I would not be prepared for what is to come in the future. As a future teacher, I feel prepared for any technology that is to come my way.
Throughout this class, I have discovered that working in groups and learning from others is a very important method to teaching. It is important that students get the opportunity to learn in groups because they not only gain knowledge from their own observations, but they also gain everyone else’s as well. I feel that working in groups has taught me a lot about my own work as well as the work of my classmates. Presenting individual projects to the class is also important because it gives everyone the opportunity to learn about each other and the material that they have learned about. Methods of Teaching with Dr. Smirnova was definitely a wonderful and positive experience for me. It was also great to be able to have such a small class so that we could have a more open and comfortable environment!
The course focus on the role of self and peer evaluations was great because everyone got to reflect on how they did as an individual as well as in a group. I also think that being able to leave feedback on our forums is a very important part of learning because it enables me to see what others think of my work. I really enjoy getting feedback, whether it is positive or negative, because it is a good way to let me know if I should change something to make it better. Learning from others is a positive way of learning and reflecting on others’ work is also an important part of learning because it is good experience to get the opinions of other people as well as yourself. Attending a Professional Developement course was also really important because it enabled me to see some of the different things that teachers do outside of the classroom. I went to a literacy presentation which was presented by graduate students. I really enjoyed it and learned a lot from their presentation on teaching children vocabulary and the different techniques that can be used. I also realized that I have such a wide variety of the use of technology and those teachers did not. It made me realize how lucky I am to be able to do things to help others with the use of technology. Technology is very important. I learned an excessive amount of useful information throughout this course.
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