Third grade was up first. They were excellent at taking notes and focusing on what I was telling them through the lesson. Especially for a group of all-but-three eight-year-old boys, the students stayed on task with very little prompting. About halfway through, we did an activity on GoNoodle to take a mini brain break to help them stay focused. I was glad I planned this into the lesson because they definitely needed it! When I got to the portion that the students were practicing searches on their own, the students really struggled with following the directions and replicating the results. After seeing the other groups, I think this is because the students aren't developmentally ready to do this sort of research on their own. Their follow along papers and answers in class showed that they knew what I was talking about, but then they still needed the step-by-step instructions to complete an individual assignment.
The fourth graders were the best to work with. They were excited before I even got started, but were also focused and prepared to do this work. I think these students got the most out of the lesson. These students had recently completed a research project for a wax museum. Their resources were pre-selected books from the library as well as informational websites pre-posted on the library's homepage. This made the students familiar with the research process, but not knowing all the things about how to search on their own. When they got to the independent practice portion, the students could complete the activity with little assistance. A few of the students would struggle with one step or another, but the rest of the table group was really good about leaning over and giving an extra hand or direction. They were definitely the most fun group to teach, and I think they got the most out of this lesson.
The fifth graders were attentive and added great experience and knowledge to the class discussion and lecture. On the other hand, the students thought they already knew what to do with research, so their follow along papers and independent practice was the least accurate of the three classes. When I said this to Mr. Dent, he also suggested that since these students are gifted-labelled they can sometimes act this way with lessons on any day. Despite this, I think that the concepts I was teaching were both well received and well understood. This lesson took the shortest of the three classes, but the students had independent reading they continued once my lesson was over.
Overall I thought that the lesson went well, especially considering I had not taught any third, fourth, or fifth graders before. I would definitely break up the lesson for third graders and make sure the lessons developed over more time and multiple units. I think this way would help the students learn better and more effectively. Clearly, this lesson was best appropriate for fourth grade. I think that all of the students got something out of the lesson, but the fourth graders definitely benefitted the most from this message. By doing the same lesson with multiple grades, I learned a lot about the ability levels of each age as well as the sort of emotional/presentation tactics that appeal more to younger or older students. Even though there are less than three years difference between most of the students' ages, the outlook on learning, social habits, and performance ability were vastly different for each grade level. Mr. Dent's only constructive criticism was the length of the lesson--not that the students were engaged for too long, but that most teachers would be unwilling to "sacrifice" that much of their instructional time to give for the LMS. Especially as the only students that come to the LMC on a regular basis are K4, K, 1, and SPED, I was not surprised by this comment. However, in my own LMC, I will want to make my instruction a regular part of the curriculum and growth for the students year to year.
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