Gaining our Country's Independence

Gaining Our Country's Independence

The teachers presented the names of the original thirteen colonies through a way that the students would be able to enjoy while retaining some sort of memorization and recognition of the names. The teachers had used a song that states the colonies' names in order to the tune of Yankee Doodle. All of the students were engaged and most of the students were singing along. This was an approach that I found to be interesting and highly effective among this group of second graders, I loved the concept of using a song because it's a way to recite the information while engaging the students into an enjoyable experience.  

     This week's field work experience was impressive and eye-catching. The students learned a lot about how the original thirteen colonies gained their independence from England through the American Revolution and the verification of the Declaration of Independence. Throughout all three lessons, the students were engaged and ready to learn. 

The story telling section that revolved around Paul Revere's ride was an interesting twist to such a wonderful lesson. I didn't expect there to be any type of story telling and by observing the students' reaction to the story telling, they were interested and engaged into learning the content. There was no hard copy story needed for the story telling which was also lovely to see. I first handily observed through this experience that a teacher does not need a hard copy with visuals that support the story in order for the students to show an understanding of the content.

     On the first day, the information was taught through a direct instruction. I was very impressed to notice how much the students were paying attention and the students were quietly listening. It was very assuring to observe how maturely the students behaved throughout this lesson. The students were intently intrigued in learning about this information. I definitely liked how every teacher was involved in the delivery of the information. I also liked the incorporation of different resources, such as music and story telling. I also liked how prepared the teachers were, they seemed ready to answer all of the questions that the students had for them.  

I very much enjoyed the use of acrostic poem with the word, Independence. This was a compelling approach to view in the classroom for a full class cooperative learning lesson. I would have never thought of using an acrostic poem as a type of group project. It's something that I would use in my future practice as an Elementary Educator.

     The Inquiry and Cooperative Instruction were combined into one big lesson. During the Inquiry Instruction, the students were given a problem from a Voki that was used in a previous lesson by the first group of teacher candidates and the students were also given artifact bags that were also reused from the first group's lesson. I thought that this was a motivating and reassuring approach because the students were already familiar with the purpose of each of the materials. The students remembered the Voki and there were no major mistakes or concerns with using the artifact bags, in fact, the students were very engaged into the group work with the artifact bags. During the Cooperative Instruction, the students were instructed to work together to create a class acrostic poem of the word, Independence. The students were again, highly engaged into the class activity. Each group was responsible for a piece of the project and each group was able to present their portion of the writing piece. This week's experience was outstanding and definitely useful to watch.