Alterations+to+Teaching

=Detours During Teaching=

This unit was developed to help students comprehend how and why cultures differ around the world. In order to teach this concept I wanted to connect this large worldly concept with my student's home lives. Adjustments were made to provide more structure within the lessons that I was teaching while still connecting back to my student's home lives. The following is a list of adjustments that I made. Each adjustment is followed by my rationale in each case:


 * 1) **Religion Two Day Changes-** During my religion activity, time became a huge factor. At the end of the second group work phase I had planned on having twenty or thirty minutes where my students could complete work in class. I wanted to do this so my students could begin work and I could check in with each student to make sure that they understood the instructions. What I found, however, was that after I gave the instructions there was between three and five minutes left in class during all of my hours. I was unable to personally check in with each student and find out if they understood how they were supposed to frame the activity. In the end I found that because of this many of my students were confused and failed to write the piece in the correct light. I was able to fit everything within the time constraints but my students were unable to complete quality work.
 * 2) **Freeze Frame-** The freeze frame activity was meant to get students thinking about the agricultural revolution and how it changed cultures around the world. I wanted to include a kinesthetic portion to my lesson in order to reach students who learn best with varied teaching methods. Due to time constraints I was forced to completely cut out this portion of the lesson. In doing so my students failed to get the full value out of the lesson. An idea such as the Agricultural Revolution can be fairly complex for a seventh grade student to understand. Not including this additional layer made it nearly impossible for many of my students to fully grasp the material.
 * 3) **Thomas Friedman- **The concepts that Thomas Friedman lays out in his books can be very complex for younger students. When I first gave this question I found that my students were having a hard time conceptualizing what the question was truly asking. Almost all of my students were having a hard time grasping the idea of how Friedman was saying that the world was flattening. While teaching the lesson I realized that my students needed more of a back story in order to decipher Friedman's main argument. Once I realized this problem I altered my lesson by giving a short history of how the world acted prior to this global age and how it acts now. I then continued my lesson as normal. This short five minute detour gave my students enough of an understanding for them to work through the problem as intended. Altering my lesson made it possible for my students to conceptualize an extremely difficult concept while detracting very little time from the class itself.

Each and every detour that I made fit into one of two categories. The first category has to deal with time management. Each of these detours made it possible for me to fit the material in within a timely manner. My class has a large amount of content that must be discussed throughout the year. Many of my modifications were implemented in order to save time while still allowing for meaningful instruction. At times, however, some of my larger lessons were trimmed down in order to fit within the one and a half week time frame that I was given. The second detour type that I utilized dealt with the amount of scaffolding that I provided. I found that without the proper amount of structure my seventh grade students have a hard time properly deconstructing the material in class.

= = =Teaching the Unit in the Future=

If I taught this unit in the future I would make a variety of changes that would allow my students to construct a much deeper conceptualization of the material. The biggest change that I would make would be to focus more on depth, not breadth. It seemed as if I was rushing through material at an extreme pace. Each concept received very little time for an in depth look. While this overview is sometimes alright, considering that we will be discussing these ideas later in the year, it is far from ideal. The fact that my students failed to do well on the final quiz was quite disheartening and made me realize that the unit was far too rushed. In order for the students to truly understand the material I would need to leave more time for discussion and make sure to spend more class days on the unit as a whole. In particular, I would like to spend another two days discussing religion. In order for students to develop a deeper understanding of the material I would like to include more outside readings and lecture that would form a solid understanding of all five religions. When properly teaching you cannot rush through the material and simply cover the concepts. For instruction to be meaningful students need to spend time discovering the content over numerous classroom sessions.

=Lasting Impressions on the Teacher=

Negative Realizations
Teaching is a profession where each and every action can always be improved. In my unit I found two major areas that I will be able to improve upon because I taught and analyzed this unit. They are as follows:


 * 1) **Scaffolding-** In the future I will work on creating lessons that are friendlier to students who need things to be more structured. Providing simple instructions in the beginning of lessons and activities helps to improve the flow of the class and stimulate discussion of the content- not the rules themselves.
 * 2) **Time Management-** Future units of mine will be better laid out and constructed in a way that teach quality instead of quantity. My lessons need to be well thought out and should not focus on teaching every little detail. My units from now on will focus on teaching concepts and ideas that can be used to analyze individual events that occur.

If I am able to improve upon these two problem spots in my teaching my classrooms will run much smoother and students will develop more in depth thought about the content that I am teaching. After this unit was complete, I realized that my work as a teacher is never done and that I need to continually work to better myself as an educator of our nation's future.

Positive Realization
I have found, that overall, my students love to talk about their home culture. If I am able to continually integrate their home lives into every unit that I teach, the classroom experience will be much better for every student involved. I found that, because the students enjoy the material more, the teaching becomes much easier.