Conrad Johnson

Dr. Diaz

November 23, 2012

Education 491 – Student Teaching I

Reflection on Social Studies Lesson

            Social Studies is one of my favorite subjects. When I was formulating my lesson, I wanted my lesson to be engaging and fun for my students. My lesson was on Native Americans; I focused on the Iroquois Indians. My lesson concentrated on who were the first inhabitants of New York State and why did they decide to live in New York State. My students were engaged into my lesson. Some of my students shared why their family came to America; they shared similar stories. Majority of the students in my class are from Caribbean descent and their families came to America for a better life for themselves and children. I wanted my students to see that many cultures migrate for a better life and the Iroquois Indians were one who did the same.

           For this lesson, I was faced with some surprises. Not only was my cooperating teacher and clinical site supervisor, but another professor of mine and one of my colleagues sat in to observe me teach this lesson as well. Even though I had additional observers, my nerves were not so high. From teaching two prior lessons, I was able to control my nerves. In my lesson, I went over the vocabulary words I wanted my students to learn from this lesson. My students watched a video that gave them an overview on who were the first inhabitants and why they chose to settle in New York State. As they watched the video, they took notes on what stood out to them that they did not know beforehand. After the video was finished I had them turn to a partner and share out anything they wanted to discuss with their partner about the video. While I walked around the room I heard my students exchanging their views on the video. We looked at the population of Iroquois Indians 2000 census. I wanted to illustrate to my students that the Native Americans came here 500,000 years ago and to this current day they still reside in New York State.

              As a class I gave them a poem, “We The First People.” My students read the poem and shared their views on the poem in their groups. After my lesson was concluded, Dr. Diaz informed me that I should have read the poem out as a class. That is something I could have done differently. Students read the poem to gain an understanding on how to formulate their own poems. My students also viewed a map of New York State, covering the six nations of the Iroquois Indians. The map indicated to the students the mass population of Iroquois Indians across the New York State region. My colleague, who also observed me, suggested that I could have showed pictures of Iroquois Indians to give my students insight on how they look. I feel if I would have shown them pictures they would have been able to see how they dress in that culture and see if they dress the same or differently. Hence, the video went over something we all share, the female Iroquois wore moccasin and presently moccasins are worn.

             After my lesson was over, my cooperating teacher was moved by lesson. She was amazed on the various writing pieces the students have done. For the lesson, I wanted them to write personal narratives, these personal narratives are a short story. Two groups were to write a short story as an Iroquois child of the 1600s and two groups were to write a short story as a modern-day child of Iroquoian descent. This is where it got interesting; two groups were to write their own poem on the lifestyle of the Iroquois Indians. The students of 4-401 amazed me with their writing. As I walked around and read what the students wrote I could not believe I was the one who brought their ideas into their writing. As a teacher in training it amazed me to see how my students were creative with their writing. Ms. Pyle collected a writing sample from each group because she wanted to show Ms. Alleyne the amazing stories and poems the students wrote. As a wrap of the lesson my students were assigned a crossword puzzle on New York’s First Inhabitants.

                My students were assessed on a rubric. The rubric assessed the students on their development, mechanics, and ideas and content. Additionally, the anecdotal notes I made as I walked around while my students discussed various things about the lesson helped me to see who understood the lesson and who did not.

              After reviewing my student's work I have selected three pieces of work to discuss. The three pieces were given a grade of explemary (4), competent (3), and emerging (2).