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.
