Marquetta Strait February 20, 2013 CU Life Reflection: 3 Being in Claflin Universitys Learning Improvement for Future Excellence

(CU Life), I have truly enjoyed my experience at Mitchell Math and Science Elementary School. This experience has been rewarding because I have not experienced being in a Science Technology Engineering and Math (STEM) based school. The teachers are very energetic and really keep the students motivated and engaged in their learning. In Ms. Blacks third grade class, I taught a lesson on persuasive writing. She split the class into three groups. While I worked with one group, she taught a social studies lesson, and the third group worked on software called Ticket to Read on the computers. The students each had the worksheet Too Much TV! This worksheet wanted the students to take a stance on whether they believed that they watched too much TV. The first portion of the worksheet was to agree or disagree that children watch too much television. I had the students to place their thumbs up if they agreed that they did watch too much TV and thumbs down if they disagreed. Majority of the students agreed that they watched too much TV and gave insight on their reasoning. The second portion of the worksheet is where all of the students had majority of their difficulty. The second portion required the students to think of a question that the other side, their opponent, would ask them. Although I tried to diffuse the confusion, the students still did not comprehend. I steered the students in the right direction and they eventually got back on track. The last portion of their worksheet was to answer the questions that they wrote on question two in

complete sentences. Some of the students had some challenges responding to the questions in complete sentences. I mentioned that I wanted the students to explain in detail in their responses. After a group would complete their worksheet, they were then required to write a paragraph about why they chose to agree or disagree. After the set time was reached, the groups would switch activities and I would be presented with my next group. transitioning. Overall, I believe the experience in Ms. Blacks class went well. The students just had some challenges interpreting the second question. If I were to teach a lesson similar to this, I would probably reword the second question to make certain that students comprehend what is being asked of them. Another activity that can be extended from this activity is for the students to conduct a debate in the classroom on a topic and voice the advantages or disadvantages of the topic. In Mr. Wingards fourth grade class, the students were learning about probability. His The groups had great

anticipatory set was to first ask students if they played cards. He then asked the students to name some of their games, which were Tonk, Spades, and I Declare War. All of this information led up to his lesson. He wanted to know if the students knew the components of a deck of cards, such as there are 52 cards in a deck, four suits, and face cards. He then questioned the students on what were the fraction of red cards versus black cards in a deck and the fraction of each suit in a deck. The students were able to solve that each suit is one-fourth of the deck and that the red cards and black cards are each one-half of the deck. Mr. Wingard also brought up terms that the students had learned prior to the lesson that could be used when discussing probability, such as likely, impossible, and unlikely. The students created examples that went along with the

vocabulary, such as it is impossible to pull a green card from the deck.

After reviewing the components of a deck, he had the students to form two groups. I worked with one group and he worked with the other. For their activity, he had the students to use the chart and predict how many spades, heart, clubs, diamonds, or face cards that they will see. After the students predicted, I placed the deck of cards in a brown paper bag and had the students to pull a card out of the bag. On their worksheet, they were instructed to tally in the appropriate section on whether the card was a face card or an ace. Some of the cards allowed the students to tally more than once. Also, the students had a rectangle grid at the bottom of their worksheet to keep track of how many cards they viewed. After every five cards, I would say Group check. The group check was to make sure that all of the students were being attentive and had the correct amount of tallies on their chart. After each student pulled a card out of the bag, I then asked a series of questions on whether they believed the next card would be a face card or a number card, an ace or a heart, and a spade or a club. I did this to keep the students engaged and awaiting the unexpected in the cards. They noticed how long it took before we reached an ace of spades because the probability was slim. Overall, I believe the experience in Mr. Wingards class went well. The students just had some difficulty remembering that their predictions had to have a denominator of fifty-two because that was the total amount of cards in a deck. If I were to teach a lesson similar to this, I would probably choose twenty cards out of a deck versus using the whole deck. This way, the students really would observe the probability of getting certain cards and whether a number card is more likely to be retrieved versus an ace in a deck.