Survivng the 5th Grade

If you have read my other blog posts, you will see that my very first post was about how I was assigned to teach 5th grade this semester and how extremely upset I was and also took you through my first day of being in the classroom. Well, after almost 3 months of being in 5th grade, I can tell you that my initial fears and doubts were proved wrong! Fifth grade scaries are not so scary after all!

Throughout the semester, I taught four lessons; two in Social Studies, one in Mathematics and one in Science. Some went well and others did not but my students stuck with me even in the hard times and pushed through! But my feelings about this semester did not come from my lessons but my groups of students in general. Getting the experience of teaching 5th grade content was awesome and I learned a lot of new things but my students made the biggest impact.

If you read my first post, you know that before this I only had experience with younger grades (K-2). Whenever I thought about 5th or even 4th graders, I thought about big, scary, rude, not-loving, and basically over being in school. I felt that the younger kids still loved their teachers and respected them while 5th graders probably had gotten over that adoration of their teachers. Again, I was completely wrong in this thought. Not only were my kids sweet, caring, and willing to learn but they also grew extremely attached to me. So attached in fact that on my last day one student latched onto me and wouldn't let me leave, he had to be peeled off by the classroom teacher.

From this experience I now know that I am able to teach at a 5th grade level, by that I mean content at this level and being able to effectively go through a lesson with my students. And I also know that I can connect with students of that age group. I never thought this would happened but to be honest I almost cried walking out of that 5th grade class on my last day! Now, I have received my internship placement for next semester and I am back where I wanted to be in Kindergarten *yay!!!* but I will really miss those 5th grade kiddos and hopefully again someday I will have an opportunity to teach at that level.

 

Importance of TPACK

For my Educational Technology class this semester, we have learned a lot of way to effectively use technology in our teaching. Of course in today's world technology is a key part of our everyday lives so it make sense that technology would be too! One of our main and final assignments for the semester is a little thing called TPACK. Now, if you're like me you may never have heard of this before. This was brought up all semester but I never really had a clue what is is. In simplified terms, it is basically a lesson plan or a way of thinking that helps you organize a lesson in a way that ensures that you implement technology. If you still need more help this article breaks it all down!

So, you still might say "Why is this so important?". Well in my own words I am going to explain why I think it is important. I asked that same question in the beginning of this because it seemed like a lot of work for a simple outcome. However, in the long run it was really worth it! Our professor broke it down for us into steps. We had to think about what we wanted to teach, how it connected to technology and Bloom's Taxonomy and Learning Theories (all the good stuff). It was basically a Six-Step Lesson plan with just a little extra thought behind it. In the end, completing this assignment helped me see all the different parts that need to be included in lessons- thinking about your students and how they can specifically benefit from your teaching. It is all good and well to think about using technology in your lesson but if it is not used effectively or in a way that will actually benefit your students, is it really being used correctly? This TPACK assignment helped me see that sometimes you can plan to use technology but if you don't map it out and think about all the ways it is tangled into a lesson, the use of it might just be a flop.

All in all, this different type of lesson template made me think about things I may have never thought about before. Technology is a key part of our learning today and it is important to be used in teaching so our students know better how to use it in the future! This means not just the teacher using the technology to present or make things but also having your students use it too!

 

Picture: TPACK Image