End of The Semester

Hello,
Well this semester kinda went by pretty fast. I am very happy about that too. I did enjoy this econ class this semester. I thought our professor was always up beat and taught us new and interesting ways to teach economics. I did have a nice time doing Junior Achievement, I feel as thought it has helped me improve on my teaching skills.

This week is finals week and I am not looking forward to any of my finals. Especially when the weather is so ugly. I am planning on graduating in May and then hopefully getting into the teaching credential program here at SDSU.

Wish everyone luck on their finals and hope everyone has a great holiday.

Danielle

junior Achievement

Last week I did my last two teaching lessons for Junior Achievement. It was a bit difficult because I had to do two in one week. I tried to prepare as much as I could for both lessons but my performance teaching was affected. For the 5th visit, I felt as if I was prepared but for some reason I could not get my point across to the students. I mean it was difficult for me to spit out words, I think at some points I made it more confusing than it really was. I feel as though it was the same thing for the 6th visit. I knew what I wanted to say, and everything I wanted the students to take in but for some reason I had a difficult time explaining it correctly. During my 6th and final visit, I did have a fun time with the students. I thanked them for being such a great group of students and also thanked them for helping me in my future career of teaching. I also asked the students to tell me how they thought I did, and what they thought I could improve on. I got really positive and helpful feed back from the students which made me feel good.

This is all for now...
Danielle

Presentation and Lesson Plan 3

Hello,
I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and enjoyed their little break from school. I want to start off by commenting Mondays presentation. I believe the individual who presented in Chelsea. I thought Chelsea did a great job with her presentation. She had a clear and loud voice. The thing that stood out to me most was her confidence in presenting and positive/excited attitude. I think her energy was great, she did not stand at the podium the entire time, she moved around; which is great. The only thing that I feel could have made her presentation better was her activity. I felt as though if she were explaining it to a class or another teacher they might not understand the procedure and the significance of the activity. Other than that, great job Chelsea.

Lesson Plan 3
I have to say I thought it would be easier doing this lesson plan in a group. I was a little wrong, it was more difficult than I thought. The only hard part was trying to get everyone in the group to meet up and get everyone on the same page. Other than this, I like working with my group. I think after we met up and figured out what topic we would be covering and who would do what it was all up hill from then on.

This is all for now,
BYE

Junior Achievement/Monday Presentation

On Friday Nov. 21 I did my 4th Junior Achievement teaching visit. I am happy to say that I was able to identify all the students by their names by the end of the class. I really enjoyed this visit more than the others. I am not too sure why, but I did. I was not nervous getting started, I just dove right in. I felt very confident and I think it showed in my teaching. The students did a great job with their behavior once again. There are some that I feel are losing interest, but there are still a lot of are still very interested. My goal for next for my next teaching visit is to try to get those kids that I know are losing interest to get their interest back somehow. How I am going to do this is still unclear but I have plenty of time to think about it.

I thought the presentation that was done on Monday was very good. I thought the speaker was very very prepared and knew what she was talking about. I also thought having a student present was good for the class, something new for the class. So good job Allie, I think that is your name.
Bye for now,
Danielle

Lesson Plan 2

I only saw the presentations of the second lesson plan on Monday, not Wednesday. I thought everyone did a better job with their presentations this time around. I thought it was good that most of the students took into consideration about being more creative on their presentations. Most of the students used powerpoint, which provides a lot of different ways to present materials.

I was unable to do my second presentation due to a personal issue, but I took mine in a different direction. For my presentation I did not really go over the objectives and procedure. I decided to make my presentation as if I was presenting it to my class. Exactly how I broke it down in my lesson plan, I did the same in my presentation. At the end I just explained my activity that I had planned for the lesson. So basically, my presentation was more me teaching the class than describing the lesson and activity.

I look forward to everyone 3rd presentations.
Hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving

Junior Achievement

Hello,
So it has been awhile since the last time I have posted anything. So that should mean I have a bit to say on my blog today.
I will be blogging about my second and third Junior Achievement teaching experience. So here I go...

I did my second Junior on September 31, and the lesson I did is titled You Decide. This lesson was intended to for the students to learn about reflective decision-making. The students also participated in a game titled Choose Your Success, in which reflective decision-making is applied to their education and career.

I did not meet my goal I set after my first visit, which was to learn the students by name. It had been a while from my first visit to my second; due to personal problems. So I was disappointed at that, but did not let it bother me too much when I was teaching the class. So I set this goal up again for my third visit.

The students had a lot of fun with this activity, it also helped them a lot with learning the objective of the lesson. I also felt more comfortable speaking in front of the class this time around. I found myself asking the students more questions than I did the first time. I also noticed there were more students asking me questions and speaking aloud in the class this time around compared to the first time.

Overall, I really enjoyed my second Junior Achievement teaching experience.

My third Junior Achievement teaching was on Nov. 14. This lesson is titled Choose Your Success where they also played a game with the same name. The purpose of this lesson was for students to recognize the importance of staying in school and to understand the relationship between education and success in life. I really feel for the most part that many of the students already understood the importance of education in their life.

During this lesson, I felt very prepared. I even used the teaching tips on the side of the guide, they helped me out a lot. I did not remember every student by name but I did come pretty close. The students enjoyed this activity a little more than the others, I assume it is because they were in groups. When the students became more talkative and when they were getting off topic I decided to end the activity. I figured if they were talking about things other than the activity then they must be done.

I am very excited for my next visit, I find myself getting more confident the more I teach in front of the class.

Well this is it till next time
Danielle

Junior Achievement

I started Junior Achievement on Friday Oct. 17th. I am working with 7th graders at Parkway Middle School in La Mesa. I have to admit that I was really nervous at first, eventually the nerves went away. I was also a bit intimidated, the kids were as big if not bigger than I was. I got there a little early so I could set everything up and introduce myself to the kids. After about 10 min I began the lesson. I went over it at home a couple of times so I could be prepared and look like I knew what I was doing. Being prepared helped me a lot, the lesson flowed really well and I did not get stuck in too many places.

The kids at first were at times hard to keep on track, but once we got into the lesson they paid more attention. I realize how difficult it is now to teach an entire class, and try to manage the entire class at the same time. I was happy to see that a few of the students really took an interest in the lesson. At the end of the lesson, I wrote down a couple of things to work on next time. I want to improve with each lesson I give.

I am working really hard on trying to remember the all the students names. I think knowing their name is really important, not just reading it off of a sign. I also need to work on being able to focus on individual students or groups but still keeping an eye on the rest. Overall, I think I did a pretty goodjob on the first lesson. My goal is to improve with each lesson.