Internship Week 4

This week, I have incorporated a big goal of mine, not only this year, but the past two years.  In our practicum plan our tutor and participant year, I always wanted to include more hands-on activities.  I have found that most students seem to enjoy these, though not all.  This week I took over Science/SS/Health with one student.  This is a designated time for 40 minutes where I have only one student in the room.  This is the only time I only have one student, so I thought this is a great time to slowly incorporate hands-on activities.  I have noticed this student use a lot of manipulatives to aide her in computation and it really seems to help.  I thought to myself, if this student seems to learn kinesthetically, then why not incorporate more hands-on activities for her so she is able to learn and enjoy through movement in other subjects, just as she does in Math.  This week, I did a personal hygiene/health unit with the student and had a hands-on activity almost every day (it was a short week due to a holiday and a field trip).  I was very pleased with how well the lessons went.  The student seemed to absorb so much. I had nothing to compare her learning with (for example, did she learn better kinesthetically than she would have visually or auditory), but nonetheless she really enjoyed the lesson and gained the main point of what I was teaching.  She even applied what she had learned in conversation the next day and it made me feel very accomplished.  I felt that this will be a great approach to extend throughout the year.  In conclusion, this was a great first week of teaching.  The first couple weeks were observe and assist, but actually taking over one subject allowed me to see the prep work that goes into making lessons valuable and effective.