355 Field Experience 2/23/12

Today was my second day at Cortland Christian Academy (CCA). Today there was a kindergarten and first grade class that I had the chance to observe. I was surprised to see a fellow Cortland student there teaching the class so that was a pleasant surprise. The Cortland student taught a lesson on basic jumping, almost if not the same lesson we did on one of the first days of 355 lab. The tasks and activities in the lesson were very good and seemed to be very effective. Some of the students already had the ability to jump rope, but some of the students in the class made good progress in their ability to jump rope. The management of the classroom was pretty good, but the students were still off task at times. I believe many of the behavior management issues stemmed from the lack of structure in the classes up until this point in the year. The students do not always listen closely to the teachers instructions so it can be difficulty to keep the students attention and they tend to be off task. Overall the lesson went very smoothly and one thing that I thought was great was the Cortland student had set up an activity for the end of class. The students already knew what they activity was and as soon as the Cortland student said the name of the game, the students went right to where they were supposed to be. I think an end of the lesson activity can be good incentive for the students to cooperate and be good during class or else they will not get their reward of the activity.