The Finale

Today group 4, the final group, began teaching. The teacher candidates had to teach about plate tectonics. I completely forgot everything about that topic, until they introduced it today. The students were very chatty today, which unfortunately took away from their lesson a little bit. A lot of their lesson was refocusing students. They did their best quieting the children down, but there was only so much they could do. One criticsm against them was that the teacher raised her hands and everyone instantly quieted down and that they should have done that as well. I strongly disagree with this critic. The difference between a teacher and a substitute teacher, which we are basically portraying in fieldwork, is enormous to a student. There is no student that has the same respect and will corporate the same with their teacher verses a substitute. My peers attempted to use the schools terminology, such as "give me five" but it didn't have the same effect on the students for obvious reasons. Besides the behavior issues which were an uncontrollable event, the students still gained the knowledge the candidates were teaching. The lesson concluded with a critical thinking question which I thought was great. If the student can use critical thinking and come to their own conclusion it is obvious they understood the lesson. Overall every group has done a great job. Some of us it was our first time, others their second but overall everyone shined. I'm very eager to see what our final day of field work has to hold and how group four will finish the show!