2nd classroom experience!

The teacher candidates did today's lesson a bit different than the last. Most of the time was spent with the teacher candidates split up into four different groups, so there wasn't much to observe besides the initial review of the lesson.

They started off the lesson by doing a review of the lesson from two days before. Siobhan did a great job of kind of guiding the students towards the answer she was looking for. She also had good positive reinforcement which is always important. One thing I noticed frequently was the teacher candidates reading directly off the slide and looking at that more than the students. I don't doubt at all that I will surely do that when it's my turn, but I think that's one thing that probably everyone in the class could work on. It just becomes distracting when the teacher had their head constantly turned to the slide and reading it instead of just knowing it, but I don't blame them because I bet it's nerve wracking up there!

 I was really happy to see that Kelsey was speaking up more this lesson because in the past one she was a little on the quiet side. She knows the material and I think her questions are well thought out and I can tell the students really like her. She is very sweet to the kids which I know they appreciate.

One thing I really didn't like in the lesson and was really bothered by, was when Alicia called Steve out when he made a simple mistake. Steve said that it was the last slide and Alicia goes "No Steve, there's one more slide, this isn't the last slide". Honestly I thought it was rude and embarrassing. I know Alicia is very outgoing and outspoken, which I really admire when she's teaching, but I think she could've found a different way of correcting him, such as "Oh no Steve, there's one more slide! Simple mistake we all make them!" or just not have corrected it at all because he would've realized it after there was another slide.

When the teachers broke off to work with their groups I really could only observe Alicia and Siobhan. There wasn't much to really observe besides them give out jobs, but something comical actually did happen which I thought Siobhan handled great. A man's last name that they were reading about was Sexting, of course the students said Sexting and cracked up that it had the word sex it, typical fourth grade mind! Siobhan handled the situation very well though she said "Come on we're adults here right? We're going to be producing a movie soon! We need to act like adults then!" I thought that was great because the kids stopped laughing and got more serious, she didn't engage in their laughter and didn't laugh too which was really mature and appropriate of her.

I can't wait to see the next group of teachers teach!!