I can’t believe the semester is already over.  I have had an amazing experience while taking this Methods course.  I feel that I am different because I am finding it easier to take advice and recommendations.  I have learned that I need to be able to identify with students and be reasonable with them at the same time.  The most surprising thing is that students have very little experience with technology in the classroom.  The situation that has made the biggest expression on me when I taught my webquest and many of the students had no idea what a webquest was.  The facts that my students were not really aware of webquests made me want to engage them more with technology.  I feel that the Social Interactive Model (SIM) is the best method for me. I feel like it is also the best method for an elementary setting. Students will not be successful in real life unless they learn how to interact and work in a group.  Forming a social foundation is one of the most important things you can accomplish as a teacher.  If students are unable to work in a group cooperatively there is nothing but trouble in the future.  I have gained an exceptional amount of knowledge from this class.  Despite some issues, I still feel like I learned a significant amount of information pertaining to General Methods.  I am new to MSMC. My first courses were last fall. I have grown significantly as a student since then. This has been the first time that I reflected thoroughly and I feel like it is an incredibly effective method. I will continue to reflect, adjust and make the most of my teaching experiences. This has been one of the most effective courses that I have taken at MSMC. It has consisted of practical, real-world experience that can only make me grow as an educator in this society.

For starters, I must write about my webquest.  I have not taught the webquest yet but I had an interesting experience compiling and creating it.  I followed what I thought was a proper guideline and created the full webquest.  Needless to say, I did not create the webquest in working order.  I made my webquest more like a direct task and not like a game or adventure as was advised.  That unfortunate aspect became apparent when I began my IPM lesson plan.  As I was moving forward on the lesson plan I noticed that my criteria and information were not falling into the frame of the lesson plan.  This posed a major problem for me.  I was forced to revisit my webquest and start over from the ground up.  Undoubtedly, this became a great cause of stress in my life.  I was able to re-work and salvage the webquest which in turn enabled me to create my lesson plan according to the frame.  In the end, it all worked out and the lesson plan and webquest were completed as planned.  I have not taught my lesson plan yet but last year I had a long term leave replacement in 5th grade that gave me my first opportunity to set foot in a classroom on my own.  I was teaching a lesson about the Revolutionary War.  More specifically, I was teaching a lesson pertaining to the advantages that colonists had over the British because the battles were being fought here and not in England.  My students were having a difficult time understanding the idea and concept so I decided to back-track.  I went back to the beginning of the lesson and asked my class to imagine that their neighborhood, the city of Newburgh, was being invaded by hostile forces.  I asked them to come up with some advantages they would have over the invading forces.  Well, just putting it in terms and ideas they could relate to made all the light bulbs go off.  They began to raise their hands and have more thoughtful answers.  It was extremely rewarding to see how I was able to put, what seemed to be, complex ideas, at first, into ideas that the class could relate to.  I feel that relating the question and information to the class made the biggest difference.

This first month has been pretty intense.  There is a vast amount of information that we have covered as a class.  I was previously unaware of the various teaching methods that we have covered so it has been time consuming to take in and grasp all the material.  The models were in depth and interesting but I found the strategies to be the most informative and helpful.  This is probably because strategies are more specialized than models.  I found the instructional framework reading very enlightening because it is “intended to encourage teachers to examine their own instructional practices. Reflection on the use of strategies, methods, and skills may lead teachers to broaden and deepen their repertoires of instructional approaches. Expanding one's repertoire of instructional approaches enhances instructional effectiveness.”  As future educators, that is an extremely important aspect of teaching that we need to explore.  Without that exposure and point of view we may never grow as educators.  This is one of a number of examples explaining why the framework is important.  I feel that why we were assigned the t-shirt project was because it was a good ice-breaker to get in front of the class and it allowed us to share some information about ourselves and our thoughts with the rest of the class.  I always found CBC objectives difficult.  In my curriculum planning class we were expected to have numerous examples of CBC objectives.  I always found them time consuming and not that easy.  I understand why they are used because it provides a clear and detailed account of what is expected.  Co-operative learning is an interesting experience.  I certainly understand why it is used.  It is an effective way of conveying information.  Students do tend to do a little better when learning from peers.