Week 8 Blog (Current Events + Fieldwork Experience)

Week 8 Blog (October 13-October 17)

Monday (13th): 

Meaghan and Joanne's Current Events Presentation     

(Link Attached)

• On Monday, my partner Joanne and I presented our Current Events presentation. I enjoyed the process of creating this activity because it helped broaden my mind on the concept of research.  I also have a passion for advertising and design; therefore, I found the creation of our group PowerPoint to be quite enjoyable and educational at the same time. For our project, we were given the task of utilizing the Five W's chart (Who?, What?, Where?, When, & Why?) while presenting the class with two news articles found on Newsela (a popular news site). In my opinion, Newsela is a wonderful tool that encompasses such a vast about of news about the everyday world. I appreciate the feedback that Joanne and I received during Monday's class. I acknowledge that we could have expanded upon the wordle in our PowerPoint (pictured above). I would have liked to have gone more in-depth with the wordle; however, I honestly felt that we would not have enough time to finish the lesson activities. Another criticism was a lack of background music in our presentation. Although I do agree that music can be beneficial in the classroom, I felt that it would be distracting and take away from the sole purpose of comprehending the Newsela articles. At the conclusion of our presentation, I came to two very important realizations. For starters, I realized that students sometimes need repeated instruction in order to successfully complete a specified task (i.e., read article #1 for homework). If the students would have read the first article for homework, perhaps Joanne and I would have been able to have expanded upon the discussion of the wordle and how it related to the subject of current events. I also came to the realization that sometimes lesson plans have to be modified to fit the circumstances at hand. Not everything will always go as planned; therefore, a teacher should always have a plan B and be prepared to improvise in the classroom.

THE FIVE W'S IN CURRENT EVENTS

WHO?

• Who is the important subject (s) in the current event?

WHAT?

• What are the important details in the current event?

WHERE?

• Where did the current event take place?

WHEN?

• When did the current event take place?

WHY?

• Why did the current event take place?

In my opinion, the Five W's benefit those learning about current events because they act kind of like a checklist. The Five W's serve as reminders of key details, or facts, to remember within a current event (news article).

The video above contains some background information about the Newsela site, which is pertinent to the study of current events.

Wednesday (15th): 

Fieldwork Observation (Inquiry Lesson)

• On Wednesday, a group of my classmates presented their first inquiry lesson plan to the 2nd grade students at Bishop Dunn Memorial School. The implementation of the inquiry lesson plan was a learning experience for the majority of us, since we are all mainly used to writing up direct instruction lesson plans. I learned a lot about the inquiry process through my observation of the first group's unique teaching styles. I liked how the teachers utilized the "Artifact Bag" project in their inquiry lesson. In my opinion, inquiry is all about investigation and questioning one's thoughts about a particular subject. I think that the teachers did a wonderful job allowing for the students to reflect upon their thinking, both as a group and as an individual learner. It is important for each student to maintain responsibility for the assignment given; therefore, the assignment of roles is critical when dealing with inquiry. All children offer different perspectives on certain key issues present in today's society. With that said, I believe that engagement and creativity are two of the most important elements of any inquiry lesson. Engagement allows for active participation in the lesson and contributes to the student's overall knowledge base. On the other hand, creativity allows for the occurrence of a lively and stimulated classroom discussion. Evidently, an inquiry lesson plan targets cognitive and social development because it deals with thought processes and decision-making conversations. 

Friday (17th): 

• During Friday's class, I learned about a new tool called VoiceThread. VoiceThread is an innovative technological tool that incorporates voice, sound, video, and other images in a PowerPoint presentation. Two of my classmates used this tool for their current events activity. In addition, the girls incorporated two Newsela articles to read. The girls demonstrated the VoiceThread tool and modeled how to distinguish between a fact (circle it) and an opinion (underline it). Their incorporation of this tool really grabbed the attention of the class and kept us engaged throughout the activity. I will absolutely use and reference my newly created VoiceThread account in my future educational career as an elementary school teacher. I think visual and audio learners could really benefit from the use of this tool in the classroom. Visual learners will benefit from the use of pictures and animation in the slideshow. Audio learners will benefit from the oral instruction included within the VoiceThread presentation. 

The video above demonstrates the step-by-step instructions in creating a VoiceThread account. I found this tutorial to be very helpful and wanted to blog about it for future reference. :)

I found yet another great wordle! This wordle describes the VoiceThread tool just perfectly! Enjoy! :D