My Course Description
In this class we focused on creating lessons that would get students engaged and excited to learn, while also building relationships with them. There were multiple guest speakers who talked about their experience in education and gave us first-year teacher advice. We also attended a three-day long conference where we got to work alongside other educators from around the country and learn new teaching strategies. The most important thing I learned in this class was how to connect with students, especially those that don’t care about school or the subject you’re teaching. I also learned that you can’t expect students to learn if you don’t take the time to get to know them, and you won’t be able to do that if you only focus on content.
Official Course Description
“The course provides a review of approaches to science education using model programs from across the United States and including proposed programs from the National Science Foundation. It also will have hands-on experiences involving problem-solving methodologies for science labs. Field study required.”
Work Samples
I decided to include this, not because the lesson went well, but actually the opposite. I had this elaborate lesson plan with mystery bags, interactive questions, and a card game, all of which I had very high hopes for. Unfortunately, things just didn’t work out very well. The mystery bags were my hook, it went fine, and it was actually the highlight of my lesson. This was a huge improvement from the first hook I designed, but I digress. I ran into some technical difficulties with the question/answer portion of the lesson because I had some graphics that required a specific program to run, and it wasn’t installed on the computer I presented with. The card game was kind of just a disaster because I got nervous about time and rushed through the rules and instructions, so everyone was confused. Still, I got the chance to field honest critiques, take suggestions, and overall learn to accept failure. I’m not someone who’s particularly good at any of these things, so having the chance to do this helped me grow as a person and as a future educator.
