Lesson # 4 Reflection

This was the fourth lesson Grace and I taught about Japan, and this week we taught economics. We started this lesson by having the students partake in another blooket review. The students really enjoy this activity because of how interactive the website is. The students were able to review the previous week's key terms to refresh their memory. After the students reviewed the previous week's key terms, we taught them twelve new vocabulary words. We taught these words by giving them another key term sheet that they could add to their key ring, and doing a matching game. After the students took some time to arrange the words, definitions, and corresponding pictures to each other, we moved on to the picture sort activity. The picture sort activity was extremely interactive and all of the students were engaged. We instructed all of the students to go to the rug before we started the activity. For this picture sort activity, we had the students perform a movement game to make it more interactive. We showed a picture of either a good or service to the students. If the students thought that it was good, then they would go to the left side of the rug. If they thought it was a service, then they went to the right side of the rug. After the students gave their reasoning, one of them was chosen to paste the picture onto the goods and services chart. After this activity, the students remained on the rug for a brain break. As the students and Grace were doing the brain break activity, I was setting up for the role playing game. Once the students got back to their seats, they each had a bag of yen on the table. I explained to the students that they all have 1200 yen to spend. I read off each item on the shopping list, and they got up one at a time to do their shopping. Each student got the same amount of items to ensure it was fair. After the students got their items, they calculated how much money everything they bought was. After this activity was completed, it was time to get going. We cleaned up the area and said goodbye to the students.

There were both strengths and weaknesses to this lesson. I feel that the biggest strength of this lesson was student engagement. All of the students were actively participating because of all of the movement and hands-on activities we had. As for weaknesses, there were quite a few. The first weakness in this lesson was the number of vocabulary words that were given. The students had a hard time learning all of the vocabulary words, because there were so many. In one of my other classes, we learned that it is best practice to teach 5-8 vocabulary words at a time, depending on the grade. When the students participated in the matching activity, they got very overwhelmed with the amount of words. On top of being overwhelmed with the words, they were confused about the picture matching. Matching the pictures was the most confusing for them, because it was difficult to find pictures that really captured the essence of some of the words. For example, it was extremely difficult to find a picture for the word subsistence. The students were very confused by this and one student in particular got a little bit worked up. There were a lot of words for them to sort, and they were unable to finish. Another weakness in the lesson was running out of time. We had to skip over the primary source activity, so that we could get to the role playing.

All of the students met the objectives that were addressed in the lesson. The first objective reads, “By the end of the lesson, students will be able to analyze a primary source related to goods or services by completing the I see, I think, and I wonder chart.” This standard was not addressed in this lesson, because we did not have enough time. The second objective reads, “By the end of the lesson, students will be able to identify the difference between goods and services by completing a picture sort and a movement game.” The students met this objective because they all participated in this activity. They all did a great job explaining their reasoning for their answers as well. The final learning objective reads, “By the end of the lesson, students will be able to identify how governments provide goods and services in a market economy by taxing and borrowing through discussion and by playing a role playing game.” The students met the objective because of their participation. They also asked great questions about yen, and why everything was so much more expensive in Japan. I explained to them about currency, and how Japan just uses different currencies than we do.   

I learned a lot from this lesson. One of the things I learned is that it can be difficult to hold students' attention on a holiday such as Halloween. The students were very excited, and were making comments about it during the lesson. However, our students were still actively engaged and well behaved during the lesson. Another thing that I learned was that teaching too many vocabulary words in one lesson can be ineffective. Instead of really focusing on a couple of key words, we focused on almost every subtopic in economics. The students were getting some of the terms confused with each other and got frustrated during the matching game.

This experience will influence my teacher identity in a couple of ways. When I am a teacher, I want to listen to my students' ideas and take them into consideration. We did this for the blooket, and it has been a big hit each week! I want to be a teacher that really listens to their students, and makes them feel heard. This experience will influence how I plan, teach, and access in the future in a variety of ways. For the next lesson, I will be sure to continue to plan interactive activities. As for teaching, I will teach students concepts more in depth, rather than briefly touch upon a bunch of topics all in one lesson. The students were getting needs and wants confused with goods and services a lot. Next time, I will provide instructions that make it clear on how to differentiate the two. As for assessing, I will continue to do formative assessments. Formative assessments are great because they take a lot into consideration, rather than just an amount of questions a student gets right.