EDG4376 Reflection #20

As always, I knew I would enjoy any class taught by Professor McNair. Yes, his reflections, quizzes, and assignments are definitely a challenging workload, but in the end, more than worth it. It’s a great feeling to get my money’s worth and feel well-prepared for my future academic endeavors. After taking “Integrating Language Arts and Social Studies,” I have become much more knowledgeable in the areas of curriculum integration, the history of the educational system in America, creating unit plans, and creating constructivist and behaviorist lesson plans. But I have to say, most importantly, Joe McNair’s lectures were by far the most influential aspect of the class. I love listening to what Professor McNair has to offer; it’s effortless to get lost in his almost spiritual discussions. Furthermore, it’s almost impossible to walk out of class and not reflect on the thoughts and concepts that were proposed.
As far as my field experience hours at Hibiscus Elementary School went, I had a blast! I worked with Mr. Rodriguez’s third grade TEAM class, and even had the opportunity to conduct a cooperative learning activity with the students for my EEX 3071 class. The children were absolutely wonderful, and I was thrilled to have enough time to get to know each child individually. Mr. Rodriguez’s class was composed of twenty students, and I had never worked with a class that large before. At first, I was completely overwhelmed, especially because I wanted to learn all the students’ names as soon as possible. Furthermore, I had absolutely no idea just how much attention eight years need! The kids were all over me, telling me stories, asking me questions, and seeking out hugs. I spent as much time as I could with each of them, and thirty hours wasn’t nearly enough. I will definitely continue my volunteer work at Hibiscus with “I Have A Dream,” and plan to visit the students from Mr. Rodriguez’s class as often as possible. From my experience in the School of Education at Miami Dade College, I’ve learned quickly that as an educator I must also be a role model. And the more I show the children that I care, the easier it will be for them to care about themselves. This, to me, is the essence of education.

EDG4376 Reflection #19

A little less than a year ago, I thought learning how to use the Miami Dade College School of Education lesson plan format was particularly difficult. Today, I fly through lesson plans with ease. However, the constructivist lesson plan format was brand new to me this semester, and at first, it seemed completely out of my league. I had absolutely no idea what a bridging activity was, what the details section was supposed to consist of, and even how to go about grouping the students! As a so-called advocate of Constructivism, this was an absolutely terrible realization for me! However, I learned a lot from creating the three Constructivism lesson plans, and now, thankfully, feel pretty comfortable with the format. The content area web matrix portion of the unit plan still confuses me, but I know that, in time and practice, I can master that as well. All in all, I think I enjoy creating Constructivist lesson plans even more than the regular ones. I like the idea that the students are grouped together to research and construct knowledge on their own. To me, this is an imperative aspect of education. Cooperative learning activities build social and communication skills, which are vital skills to have in today’s diverse world. Furthermore, group activities reflect what goes on in the world in real life situations. Not many people go through life without some sort of job, career, or schooling where they don’t have to interact with other people on a regular basis. Additionally, I believe that any lesson is more meaningful to students if they are given the opportunity to construct their own knowledge and opinion of the subject matter. Now, although I do not consider myself an advocate of Behaviorism, I absolutely loved creating the Behaviorist lesson plans! Believe it or not, they made sense to me, and I easily understood the concepts of each portion of the template. I thought it was organized and structured in such a way that it made sense for any and every grade level and/or classroom. I truly enjoyed creating a step-by-step procedure and modeling examples. For some reason, I thought the Behaviorist lesson plan format was, by far, the easiest and most pleasurable of all the lesson plans to formulate and construct. However, all in all, I’m thrilled I was given the chance to practice all three formats this semester.

EDG4376 Reflection #18

I thought creating the Constructivist style unit plan was extremely interesting, to say the least. Up until this point, I have only used the Miami Dade College School of Education lesson plan format in LiveText, so not only was a unit plan foreign to me, but a Constructivist unit plan seemed completely alien! Furthermore, I had absolutely no concept of what or who the Yoruba people of Southwestern Nigeria were. I only knew I would have to conduct a lot of in-depth research in order to create a unit plan that actually made sense. I thoroughly enjoyed reading O Se Sango by Professor Joe McNair, and I learned a lot about the Yoruba culture and traditions. I found it extremely interesting that many of the Yoruba rituals are highly secretive, although I have to admit, initially, I was beyond frustrated that my Google search attempts were pointless. However, once I realized that most of the information I needed to research came directly from O Se Sango, I had no problem creating my unit plan. I enjoyed my reading and research about the Yoruba naming ceremony, their bridal bath tradition, and their bridal poetry. Consequently, my lesson plans were about those topics. I just wish I had more time throughout the semester to take my time reading O Se Sango from front to back, but I’m sure I’ll be able to do that at some point. And now I have a pretty good idea of how to create a unit plan in the future when I am in charge of my classroom. I’m just happy Professor McNair went over each aspect of the unit plan in detail, because at first I don’t think anyone in the class had a clue as to what we were supposed to do. He was definitely helpful in assisting the class in this unfamiliar and somewhat frightening task. Moreover, I think it will be fun to construct my units with subsequent topics for my students. As long as I follow the Florida Sunshine State Standards, I am given more than enough flexibility to teach according to my educational philosophy. Additionally, I can have fun in the process and teach what I am passionate about, which will hopefully inspire and motivate my students to learn. In the end, I was thrilled to have been given the opportunity to create a unit plan. I learned a lot from this project, and as a future professional educator, I will definitely have the chance to use what I’ve learned at some point.