Thanksgiving Unit
Collaboration is essential to the success of the student. I collaborated with the general education teacher and planned a station teaching lesson on the Thanksgiving holiday. I also collaborated with the resource personal in order to accomplish station teaching lesson. After the lesson was over I realized I could have used more books for each group to add resources for the students. I need to remember not to give the students the answers when I question them, but allow time for them to think through their responses. I feel I could have talked more about the various ways different cultures celebrate Thanksgiving.
Matter Unit
As mentioned above, collaboration is a very important part of being a teacher. I collaborated with the resource assistants in order to plan and present my lesson. The assistants also helped students who were having difficulties. The assistants went way beyond to help my lesson become a huge success! Knowing the assistants were going to be in the classroom to help me made a difference in the planning I did for lessons. I think the assistants learned some knew approaches from me, but I certainly learned a lot from my cooperating teacher.
After teaching my matter unit I felt I could have had a better pre-assessment. I could have probably incorporated a multiple choice questionnaire. If students had a difficult time I would have verbally asked the questions while they marked the answers. I would also add more critical thinking questions throughout the lesson. Again, I would not use verbal questioning but a worksheet to check for understanding. I would also add more books for the students to read.
