Reflection Time

   I enjoyed our whole fieldwork experience; I learned a lot throughout this process. I've never had to design an inquiry-based or cooperative lesson before, so both of those alone were entirely new experiences that have taught me so much. I learned that inquiry lessons follow a process that's similar to the scientific method. I like this lesson plan because it allows students to really think about the information they just learned in a way that helps them apply it to their task, instead of having them just memorize facts. I find inquiry lessons fun because the students have to solve some sort of puzzle and I've always loved puzzles. I also like cooperative lessons because it allows the students to work together, which they typically find to be a lot more fun. It teaches students how to work as a team and take responsibility for at least one part of the activity. Both of these lessons are also very engaging and student-centered, which is another thing that I really like about them.
   I've learned so much more from our fieldwork experience that I couldn't possibly list everything. I've learned a lot about teaching in general, especially because this was my first time teaching in front of a whole class. One thing that I didn't realize was such a big deal was to always have some way to check that every student knows the answer to a question. For example, when you call on one student, thereat of the class should have to give a thumbs up or thumbs down if they agree or disagree. My teachers never did that when I was in elementary school, so it didn't occur to me that it was such a crucial part of the lesson. I think all of the groups did a great job teaching their lessons, particularly when you take into consideration that very few of us have ever done anything like this before. It was definitely a great learning experience for everyone and I think we all gained a lot of useful information from it.