PART II:

In my third visit to the classroom, the environment remained the same as my last few visits, continuing to reflect a positive classroom culture. However, this time all of the students participated in a reflective math worksheet to reinforce their learning. In terms of the environment, both the morning announcements and the initial instruction from the teacher remained the same, providing lose guidelines and freedom to allow the students to invest in their own learning. Through this visit, the admiration that the students had for their teacher, Mrs. Dowless, became more evident than it had before, with students bring her gifts and showing an increased level of satisfaction when interacting with her. Additionally, the class worked on a math worksheet that involved reflection on concepts that they had learned that last month. That activity clearly reflected the elements of project design in Boss’ introduction of Project-based Teaching. Specifically, these students confronted challenging problems through the last month of curriculum, learning the concept of plotting points on a graph. And then, through the design of this worksheet, the students were offered the opportunities to reflect on the content that they had learned, which helps conceptual retention as referred to in Boss Chapter 2.Through this activity, my partner and I assisted the students in navigating through the areas they struggled with. For the most part, the students understood what they were doing, however, there were a few students who struggle that I attempted to help. They were fairly unresponsive when I approached them, and it seemed like the reason was that they did not want their classmates to think that they were not smart. That aspect of the experience intrigued me since in reflection I would have done the same thing at time. Also, as the teacher in that situation, it is a hard situation to confront because you want the student to remain comfortable, but you also want to assist them. I gained a unique perspective through that interaction and discovered a roadblock that I did not necessarily know how to confront effectively.

PART II:

Through my initial three class visits, I have collected some solid information on potential learning activities that I could implement that relate to my team unit. Both of my activities involve the two EL principles of Self-Discovery and Solitude and Reflection. For starter, I decided that I would pursue health as a subject of learning since, after my first visit, the students asked my partner and I multiple questions for about the whole class period with the majority referring to our own healthy lifestyle. Clearly, the students saw VMI cadets as an example for a healthy lifestyle and the specific questions asked showed that the students must be interest in health. So, I decided to provide them an opportunity to learn about the pros and cons of their diets and the exercising habits. After that, through discussion I would offer them tips and strategies to navigate their environment more effectively in order to maximize their health. Specifically, the activity would involve each student copying down their diets from the last 24 hours, sorting them into meals and snacks. From their I they would circle all of the vegetables, fruits, meats and healthy grains that they had listed. After that, they would write down everything that is not circled in a separate list. Through that list development, I would address the issues with the foods not circled, which are mostly likely going to be sweets or extra food that they don’t need. Through explaining how they could exchange those calories, going from the non-circled food to the circled food instead, and then explain how that would drastically change their health. That activity would address diet, but then I would also like to implement tips and strategies for physical exercise. Specifically, stressing the importance of exercise and how to implement it into a busy lifestyle through again having the students copy down their weekly exercise habits and discuss them. Both of these activities offer a chance to collaborate in small groups and as a class to figure out optimal ways to go about both diet and exercise. And to finish off these activities, after the students gain a solid understanding of implementing a healthy lifestyle in their own lives, in groups they will develop proposals, for either the city of Lexington or the principle of Maury River school, that address an aspect of the community or school that needs to be improved in order to promote healthy lifestyles.