Blog Entry #4
The two service-learning teachers that I am with have shown me how to get students engaged in learning in many different ways. To start, my 6th-grade placement teacher has helped engage students by using collaboration and movement techniques. I am in her class when she is teaching math, which in general is not a very engaging subject for many kids. She uses collaboration to help fight this. This collaboration is mostly done by allowing students to work together on homework sheets. They get to work with their friends and discuss the assignment. I have seen many students learn from their partners and both students benefit from this. My 6th-grade service learning teacher has also shown movement in her classroom. Every week she picks one of the students to be the class "personal trainer". The personal trainer's job is to pick exercises that will get the class awake and energized. If she notices students are looking tired during the lesson, the personal trainer will come up and lead the class in any exercise, such as a minute of jumping jacks. This gets the class ready to learn again. It really keeps all of the students engaged in their learning.
My kindergarten service placement teacher shows engaged learning by doing interactive and memorable activities. Engaged learning is especially important to think about with kindergartners because of their short attention span. A lecture will not keep them engaged or learning. To make the class interactive, my placement teacher does centers. In centers, the students are split up into groups and go around the class doing different activities. One of these activities is drawing sight words in salt. Another one is rolling two dice and then adding the two dice numbers. These activities keep the students very involved in the learning process and they also learn how to learn independently. My service placement teacher makes class memorable by doing many fun activities. One of them that the kids love is growing pumpkins. The students make different hypothesis's about the activity and then get to see what really happens. Every day, the kids love to check to see how the pumpkins are growing. Most of the time the pumpkins even end up flowering! They get to learn all about the plant growing process and the science behind it. I would bet that many of these students will remember this activity and the science behind it for a long time! Overall, I have seen many examples of engaged learning in a classroom from both of my service learning placement teachers and I am excited to include it in my future classroom someday!
My kindergarten service placement teacher shows engaged learning by doing interactive and memorable activities. Engaged learning is especially important to think about with kindergartners because of their short attention span. A lecture will not keep them engaged or learning. To make the class interactive, my placement teacher does centers. In centers, the students are split up into groups and go around the class doing different activities. One of these activities is drawing sight words in salt. Another one is rolling two dice and then adding the two dice numbers. These activities keep the students very involved in the learning process and they also learn how to learn independently. My service placement teacher makes class memorable by doing many fun activities. One of them that the kids love is growing pumpkins. The students make different hypothesis's about the activity and then get to see what really happens. Every day, the kids love to check to see how the pumpkins are growing. Most of the time the pumpkins even end up flowering! They get to learn all about the plant growing process and the science behind it. I would bet that many of these students will remember this activity and the science behind it for a long time! Overall, I have seen many examples of engaged learning in a classroom from both of my service learning placement teachers and I am excited to include it in my future classroom someday!
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