This week at the Outdoor School we had three different two-day trips and a one day trip. One of the trips was from George A. McCall School, another from Andrew Jackson School and the other two were from Skyview. During this week, I had the opportunity to;
- Teach a lesson
- Observe other lessons and new teaching styles
- Work with a different age group of children
- Lead group challenges and option time activities.
Andrew Jackson
Andrew Jackson School is a public Kindergarten through 8th grade school located in the Passyunk Square neighbourhood of Philadelphia. Approximately 75 students in 3rd grade came to visit the Outdoor School for a day trip (Andrew Jackson School, undated).
The usual age of children who visit the Outdoor School is 5th and 6th grade (roughly ages 11/12), it was therefore interesting working with children who are younger, as this provided a difference experience and allowed me to gain a new perspective.
As the children were only here for a couple of hours, we just had an option time, whereby the staff from the Outdoor School offered different activities, and the children have the chance to choose which activity they would like to do. For example, Jocelyn and I offered group challenges. As there were a lot of children who wanted to do this, we split into two separate, where we did the same group challenges but in a different order. I started off with whale watch, then nitro and then finished with mission impossible. The children really enjoyed the challenges, however, as they were so excitable I had to slightly adapt the challenges to fit them. This gave me a different perspective of the group challenges due to working with a different age group of children, and also allowed me to experience adapting challenges to fit the children’s needs. This is crucial to ensure that children are getting as much as they can out of the challenges.
Overall, this day trip allowed me to gain experience working with a different age group of children, which allowed me to develop a different perspective. Furthermore, this also allowed me to adapt the group challenges to suit the children, thus providing with the best and most rewarding experience possible (SPR 1.2).
McCalls
General George A. McCall School is a public Kindergarten through 8th grade school in the Society Hill section of Centre City, Philadelphia. It accommodates children from Society Hill, Chinatown and Old City Philadelphia (McCall Elementary and Middle School, undated).
Approximately 50 children visited the Outdoor School for an overnight, 2-day trip. During this trip, I had the opportunity to lead activities/group challenges/option time as well as teaching lessons. During group challenges, I led one fish, two fish and during option time I led low ropes.
The most rewarding experience which I had during this trip however, was teaching a lesson.
Last week I had the opportunity to observe one of my fellow TN’s teach a pond study lesson, and this week I had the chance to teach it (SPR 3.1). For the first lesson, Jocelyn and I co-taught the lesson. We started the lesson by asking the children what they knew about macro invertebrates, including what they are and if they can give any examples. Questioning the children about their prior knowledge, allowed us to gain an understanding of what the children knew and how we were to lead this lesson to allow the children to get the most out of it (SPR 2.3). This Is supported by Medwell and Simpson (2008) who state that questioning allows the teacher to identify what the children already know, engage them in finding out more, explore any misconceptions and demonstrate new learning. Furthermore, Medwell and Simpson (2008) also state, that if you involve a range of questioning within your lesson, which the children can respond to quickly, then they are more likely to engage with the activity. Pollard and Black-Hawkins (2014) also supports questioning by explaining that it is extremely important to create an atmosphere in which the children are not scared to answer a question as they are worried that they will be told that they are wrong. Instead, the teacher should ask the children to explain their thinking or challenge them further until they are sure that the child understands what they are learning. This something which I adopted in my lesson as I allowed the children to explain their thinking if they were or unsure or if they did not quite grasp the concept completely, rather than tell them “no that’s not correct” and move on to someone else (SPR 2.3).
We then played a game which would help the children put their knowledge into practice and experience a visual representation. For example, the children would pretend to be a macro invertebrate and other children would pretend to be pollution. The children who were the macro invertebrates would try and get across without getting caught by the pollution. However, each macro invertebrate would move in a certain way, e.g. as a dragon fly the children would pretend to fly by hopping, as a whirligig beetle the children would spin around and as mosquitoes they would run as fast as they can. Due to the way, the children would move, it would be easier/harder for the pollution to catch them. This gave the children a visual representation of which macro invertebrates could withstand high levels of pollution, and which needed clean water to survive.
After this, we took the children to the stream where they had the opportunity to look for their own macro invertebrate using the equipment provided. They would then bring them to Jocelyn and I, and we would help the children identify them using a key. Furthermore, each macro invertebrate had a number (1-3) which allows us to see if they can withstand pollution or not, which also allows us to understand how clean our water is on camp.
For the next lesson, I had the opportunity to teach it alone. As previously mentioned, science is an area of the curriculum which I have not had lots of experience with (until now) and are not confident in (SPR 2.1). Therefore, this was me taking a risk and stepping out of my comfort zone. The lesson went well however, and I felt extremely comfortable when teaching it. This allowed me to increase my confidence levels, and therefore I now feel more confident in this area of science and in teaching it. I also now feel more confident in teaching another science lesson, hopefully as many as possible (SPR 2.2).
Furthermore, during this trip, I also had the opportunity to be involved with the after-meal entertainment. As previously mentioned, I am not confident in standing up and performing songs or dances in front of people. However, being involved with the entertainment, allowed me to improve my confidence in performing in front of a big crowd. This will be helpful when it comes to teaching performing arts in later life.
Overall, this trip allowed me to improve my confidence in teaching science, have the opportunity to teach and lead lessons/activities and also improve my confidence in performing in front of people (SPR 1.2).
Skyview
Throughout this week, two groups of approximately 80 children from Skyview Middle School, visited the Outdoor School for two individual two-day trips. During their trip, I had the opportunity to observe and assist with various lessons, observe new teaching styles and lead a variety of activities for option time and group challenges (SPR 1.2).
At the start of each Skyview trip, I assisted in leading big group games and also had the chance
The rules of Nitro
to lead a station for group challenges once again. For the first trip, I led The Log, and for the second trip I led Nitro (please find the instructions for Nitro in the attached image). Leading stations allowed me to meet most of the children on the trip and begin to form relationships with them.
Furthermore, during the Skyview trips I also had the chance to observe and assist a variety of lessons; low ropes, the farm* (sustainable agriculture and organic farming), pond study* and animal adaptations*. This was the first chance I had since the first few weeks to observe all the lessons, as I was moving onto teaching them. Observing and assisting with the lessons allowed me to develop and build upon my previous knowledge of these lessons, meaning I may be comfortable in leading different lessons during the remaining time I have here. Furthermore, during these lessons I also had the chance to observe a variety of different teaching styles (SPR 2.3). One of the most significant ones, was Greg’s. Greg was teaching pond study, however, in comparison to another TN (the one in which I used as an example to help me teach my pond study lesson earlier in the week), he teaches it completely different. Greg focuses more on the pollution of the water, rather than macro invertebrates. From observing both variations of the lesson, I have decided that I prefer Greg’s way of teaching. Focusing more on the pollution of water and showing the children different areas of polluted and non-polluted water around the camp, rather than playing the game, puts the task of finding macro invertebrates into perspective and it therefore makes more sense as to why we are carrying out the activity. Therefore, if I have the chance to teach this lesson again, I want to be able to adapt the way Greg taught it, into my teaching style as I believe that this is the most effective way of teaching this lesson (SPR 1.2).
Moreover, when teaching the lesson, Greg also adopts a different tone of voice, compared to what I do. When explaining the first half of the lesson, Greg is much more calm, slower and has a softer tone, whereas I am more excitable and fast paced. Naturally every teacher has a different way of teaching, but I believe that for this lesson, being more calm and relaxed is more effective. Especially when it comes to dealing with distracting behaviour, this tone of voice is more effective as the children do not feel like they are getting told off or sanctioned as Greg would simply say “hey buddy can I just regain your attention for a few minutes”. The children reacted to this really well. Keeping calm, would also help keep the children calm and there were less distractions and behaviour problems due to this. Once he would get to the activity of finding macro invertebrates in the stream, he would then change his tone to be more excitable, to get the children excited for what is to come. Therefore, I would like to adopt this into my teaching style as I have seen the benefit it has (SPR 1.2).
Overall, this trip has allowed me to observe a new teaching style which I would like to adopt, observe a variety of lessons which has allowed me to develop my scientific knowledge and also lead a variety of activities and games (SPR 1.2).
In reflection, this week has been extremely valuable for me and I believe that I have learnt a lot. It has allowed me to teach my own science lessons, lead a variety of activities, develop my scientific knowledge which was one of my aims of this placement and observe a new teaching style which I believe would be beneficial for me if I was to adopt it when I next teach lessons (SPR 1.2).
*** To read the lesson plans/overviews for these lessons, please visit the attached links;
References
Andrew Jackson School. (undated). [online] Access via: https://jackson.philasd.org/. (Accessed 6 May. 2018).
McCall Elementary and Middle School. (undated). [online] Access via: https://mccallschool.org/frontpage/home/. (Accessed 6 May. 2018).
Medwell, J. and Simpson, F. (2008). Successful Teaching Placement in Scotland: Primary and Early Years. 1st ed. Sage Publications.
Pollard, A. and Black-Hawkins, K. (2014). Reflective Teaching in Schools. 4th ed. London: Bloomsbury, pp.174-200.
