Activity: My activity involves mathematics, where in this case the teacher would be teaching fractions. The teacher would lecture the students and give examples of what fractions look like and how to find them in the board. After the teacher was done with their lesson, the students would then complete a hands-on activity to solidify what they had just been taught.
My new activity would be the same idea, but the students would be involved in the lesson, not just doing an activity afterwards. They could start out the lesson with individual whiteboards and write out the fraction as the teacher was writing out the fraction, emulating whatever the teacher was doing. This way, the student would stay engaged in the material being taught and they would hopefully be able to replicate what they are doing with the teacher when they get on their own that night when doing homework. After the lesson, they could then do another activity, this time involving m&m's.
Each student would receive a bag full of different m&m's, and then would have to figure out what fraction of each color they had. This time, the students would be writing the fractions on their own and the teacher could walk around and help anyone who still had questions or was having trouble with the lesson.
Reflection: The main idea that I used from the hapter of social cognitive theory was the idea that modeling what your students should be doing is a great teaching tool. It allows the students to see how to do the work properly, and it can help keep them engaged in the lesson. All of this can lead to a better understanding of the topic at hand. I used this idea to change my activity a bit, so that the students would now be interacting more with the actual lesson, instead of only doing activities after the lesson was over. This way, the students are also able to follow and repeat exactly what the teacher is doing, so that they can be more successful at the problems later. Also, by using a type of candy, or something similar to that, the students will be more engaged in what they are doing and be more motivated to finish their work.
Your model reflects the reading really well and your activity seems very engaging for the students. I enjoy how you use white boards, for something different than just pen and paper. I also think it is cool that you use an object that the students enjoy and will make them excited with the m&m's. Modeling what your students should be doing is a wonderful teaching tool and is talked about a lot in the readings. I think it would have been a little more insightful if you had added more ways to make your modeling effective. I know that the m&m's are a great way to keep the children motivated but adding more on how you personally would keep the students motivated. In the reading it discusses different types of reinforcements that can be used to keep children motivated and paying attentions. Maybe just adding into the lesson description that you would give the whole class extra m&m's if they focused during the lesson would have given a good reinforcement to pay attention to the behavior they are modeling. Your activity seems well thought out along with your reasoning, I just thought adding that little detail would encapsulate another aspect of the reading. Good Job!
ReplyDeleteJust as you said in your reflection, I do think that it is very important for the teacher to act as a model for the students to mimic. In the reading it talked about how students are more likely to mimic a behavior if the model is someone who is higher in status. As teachers, we see first hand what different children are doing well at or not so well. We can use this knowledge to do certain behaviors purposely for the students to imitate. I think that engaging the students more is a great idea however, sometimes modeling with candy can get a little out of hand. From experience, younger students are going to be focused more on the m&m's or whatever other candy you have rather than the lesson. Older kids are going to be more cooperative but I think that candy is not something you would want to use everyday or even every week. It could be a reward for the students if they do well on the fractions the entire week, they can play a game using candy. This way, they are learning with their reward and would see it more as a reward than as a lesson. It would also help them want to do better or set goals for themselves to do good or practice so that they can earn this reward. Overall, I think that you're model did a great job at grasping the reading and you activity reflects this as well.
ReplyDelete