Well Done, Group 1!

                                    
On Thursday, Group 1 taught their direct instruction lesson.  Before I talk about it, I just want to applaud them and say congratulations!  You all were the first group and kicked off our space adventure! Overall, their lesson which was about the sun, moon, earth and patterns in the sky was a very good lesson.  The teachers engaged the students throughout the lesson by asking the questions and checking for their understanding.  When Katie, the teacher who did the introduction began asking the students questions, the fourth graders seemed very knowledgeable about space and what they were going to be teaching them.

Throughout the direct instruction, group 1 was teaching the students about rotation and revolution, phases of the moon, the eclipses, and constellations.  This group had a lot of things to talk about during there direct in only one hour, so considering the amount of material and time limit, they did a very good job.  They used a lot of techniques during their lesson to help the students better understand what they were learning such as turn and talks and how to tell the difference between a rotation and a revolution.  Kristen demonstrated this difference with her hands and had the students do it as well.  I think this was a very effective way for the students to remember this because I know the difference can be confusing sometimes!

Also, the guided practice that group 1 did was a wonderful idea.  They used sentence strips that the students had to fill out the correct word in.  At this part, the students were very excited and started to get a little loud, but the students did very well with this activity.  The idea of using the sentence strips will definitely be something that I will use in the future.  It is a very flexible activity, can be used to assess the students, and go over key terms and ideas.


On Tuesday, Group 1 then taught their final lesson which was an inquiry lesson.  They first did a short review of what the students learned previously with them and then they quickly got into their lesson.  I absolutely loved the challenge group 1 posed to the students and how they did it.  They used a voki weather woman to tell the class that the seasons in their city got mixed up and she needed their help to figure it out.  The students were then given a template to work off of and clues to try and figure out what season it actually was. Voki is a program that uses an avatar that can talk by just typing the text in or actually having your own voice added.  This is a great program to use in your classroom to incorporate technology and invite students into a lesson.  Now, you can start creating your own voki here!

The students were very engaged during this lesson and had to focus on the clues to figure out what season it was.  They got to think independently and then collaborate with their group about what season they think they got and why.  At the end, I think it would have been perfect if the students got to share their investigation results and evidence with the whole class.  It would have been a change in what the students were doing the whole class, they would have been held accountable to have all of their information to back up their results, and it is always good to practice public speaking!

Overall, Group 1 did great job! They spoke in their teacher voices throughout both lessons and for the second lesson, they considered the feedback everyone gave them and they applied it.  Well done, group 1.  Now it is on to group 2!

P.S.  I will add more pictures from the group's second lesson when they are posted!