Fieldwork: Take One

We had our first meeting with our Bishop Dunn students during last week's class. Two of the students I know from previous fieldwork experiences at the school, so it was nice to see them again. Our class began our meeting with the students by having them take a pretest about the three civilizations they will be learning about. When the students started, they took it seriously - they were trying to answer the questions and were taking time to think about their answers. As they continued, they got sillier, and by the time they made it to the questions from our group (Ancient Greece), had all but given up. One fourth grader answered each question for our part with "I don't know."

We then introduced them to a Kahoot quiz, which they really enjoyed. I think being able to see how their friends were doing compared to their own scores really excited them and brought out a competitive edge. Ancient China opened up the mini-lessons with a presentation about Chinese New Year and lanterns. Becky and I followed them, and introduced the students to Ancient Greek myths and Medusa. Finally, Ancient Rome finished our first experience with mosaics.

I think for being unsure of how many students there would be, or what age group we would be teaching, the night went as well as it could have. The students participated in our lessons and were enthusiastic. I think one thing that definitely needs to be addressed for this group is the seating arrangement. Too many of them got silly, loud, or a little out of hand during the lessons because they were near their friends or weren't taking the program seriously. By sitting them every-other seat, they will have space between each other and will be more likely to work. One of the biggest challenges we always face with an after-school program like this is keeping the students engaged. They have already been at school all day long and we are trying to convince them to listen to us and learn more.

I know there are things that I need to work on for the next time I interact with the students. For example, I need to change some of my language ("you guys," "gonna," "wanna"). My friends at work and at school are keeping tabs on me and are holding me accountable for the language slips. We also need to find a cue for attention that students will respond to. Becky and I have decided to try a verbal cue of "Macaroni and cheese..." "Everybody freeze!" for our full lesson. I think something silly and relateable (who doesn't love mac and cheese!?) will be good for this group.

I definitely want to make sure we use more visual cues. One of the examples Dr. Smirnova gave us was to have a map up so the students could make connections to these locations on a globe. When we transitioned from Ancient China to Greece I told the students we were "going to slide across the globe," and it would have made a huge impact to actually watch the globe slide. Another thing we are going to need to include is time management. Having a timer out so each group got the same amount of time with the students would have been awesome. It also would have kept us from using so much time on the pretest/Kahoot quiz. For our lesson, we are going to use a timer to make sure we don't waste too much time on the direct instruction and give students enough time with their own discovery lessons.