This was my first week of teaching classes at West Perry High School. As nervous as I was a really shouldn't have been. I spent all this time, almost a year preparing for this moment and the next 4 months. The students walked into the classroom, and... everything went amazing.
My first week of teaching ended up being Way better than I every thought it would have been. I learned the names of most of my students in less than a week. I was well prepared for my lessons, and ended up having a much better delivery than I ever have in my "practice" lessons. Once those students sat down and understood that I was their teacher, all of my nervousness disappeared.
On the second day, I decided I wanted to try a lesson all of my own; not one that I observed from Mrs. Miller or that I took from any of the archives that I have access to. No, a lesson of my own. Specifically, a lesson to help the students understand welding electrodes.
I started the lesson off with a grand total of TWO PowerPoint slides on electrodes. From this point I demonstrated to the students how to use an electrode and finally I broke the students up into groups of 4 and passed out 4 different types of electrodes to each group. The students had the opportunity to get their hands on the electrodes and see how they were made, get a feel for what they were supposed to do. Then, once they had a chance to observe the differences in the electrodes, the students were given a worksheet. They needed to look at the numbers on the electrodes and write down what these numbers meant (all this information was discussed in the 2 slides).
As the students were working, I walked around to each group seeing what they were writing and how they were doing. The students were enjoying being able to actually get to have their hands on the electrodes and practice what they had been learning. At one point. I heard several students saying that this was a great way to start the welding unit off.
Overall, I my first week for all 3 classes went very similar. The students seemed to really enjoy the activities I did with them and learned a lot in the process. I cannot wait to see how next week goes!
Great point to remember Matt...never hear students say.. "That was an awesome PowerPoint", but I always here them say "That was a fun activity!"
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing. I am glad to hear that week one went well. I agree that hands-on activities will engage the students, and they will be more likely to recall the information in the laboratory when needed.
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