Thursday, July 7, 2011

A mistake that I have made and the lesson I learned from it.

I was in my second clinicals during my undergraduate work and was placed in third grade. One of my assignments consisted of me developing and teaching a science lesson. I chose to create a lesson teaching the students about the parts of a bee. I decided that instead of giving the students a picture of a bee to label, I would let them paint a picture of their own bee and then label the parts of it. I only had an hour to teach the lesson. Well, that hour was not long enough to have them discuss the body parts and point them out on a bee diagram, draw their bee, and then paint their bee and label the parts. I over achieved the activity. I did learn to scale back my lesson activities a little. It was chaos trying to get the students to hurry and finish their paintings. The projects did turn out good, but we had to take time out of the next day for most of them to label their parts.

3 comments:

  1. Hi Amy, I think most people can relate to this story. I taught in headstart for only 6 months, but I too can remember starting a project without realizing how much time it would take verses how much time I actually had to complete it. I bet the kids did not mind spending extra time, plus they probably learned the parts of the bee better by doing it themselves.

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  2. Sounds like you were really prepared. You just didn't know that you could have been flexible about how much you completed once you realized you could not do it all.

    Flexibility and teachable moments (even when the moment is as much for you as your students) go hand in hand. The best laid plans can go awry but it is better to have planned than not. Prior planning reduces if not prevents poor performance. I'd rather have too much than be short and flying by the seat of my pants. I bet all the students were actively involved in some way. Kudos for making it through.

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  3. Lauren, I understand . You are not perfect,we make mistake. Just keep a positive attitude and used this experience as a learned tool to improve your planning time.

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