A Growing Nation Part 2

Today my group taught an inquiry lesson to the fifth grade class. We brought back our friend Petunia the Panda. Petunia's library had been flooded by the snow storm we had, and all her biography books were destroyed. She needed the fifth graders to help her using their I-pads. Each group was assigned a teacher as well as a person Petunia needed them to research. The students used a WebQuest on their I-Pads to research on approved links. The people they had to research were Samuel Slater, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Andrew Jackson, and Frederick Douglass. My group researched Elizabeth Cady Stanton. The WebQuest was also really easy to navigate for the students and easy to make for the teachers. I am excited to use WebQuests in my future classroom. The students enjoyed writing their letters to Petunia, and Petunia was grateful for all their help.

Wasted?!

Today I attended the Wasted Conference at Mount Saint Mary College. It was very informative for me as a teacher candidate as well as being a Resident Assistant. I can hold informative programs in the Residence Halls, and educating programs in my future school for both parents and students. I learned a lot about how much food actually goes to waste, and how we all take it for granted. The presenters showed me what they do to the waste so it isn't "waste" anymore. Reduce, reusing and recycling will be very important in my classroom.

Come on Roboto. Mr Roboto (Technology)

I learned many different types of technology this semester. Some I enjoyed using and others not so much.

Google forms: I understand how to use it a lot better now from creating pre and post assessments for fieldwork. I am glad I expanded my horizons and stepped outside my comfort zone this semester.

Pinterest: I gathered many ideas for my lesson on this website. Avid Pinterest user. I am very familiar with this website because I use it for lesson ideas and RA boards and door tags.

Powtoon: I was not a fan of using this for my violent weather project from Science Methods. I need to do more research on it before I use it again in front of a class.

Voice Thread: I am very familiar with using Voice Thread because I used it for my science fair project as well as my About Me Project this semester. I will definitely use this audio/visual animation program.

Glogster: I live being able to make collages on the website. When I tried to log on the other day and now says I have to pay.

Thinglink: I love this type of technology that I have used it in other classes for projects. Thinglink reminds me off an upscale powerpoint.

I am so happy I stepped outside my comfort zone and was not afraid to try new types of technology. I am now more familiar with certain websites than I have ever been before.

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!

Today I was able to play News of the World trivia in the library with my best friend Danielle and her fellow Writing Center friends. I read News of the World over winter break so I wasn't sure I was going to remember much of it, but I ended up actually remembering a lot. The questions were a mixture of News of the World, pop culture, and Texas questions. I went to Texas over spring break so I knew a lot of answers about Texas such as the flag, the capital, and the state animal, which is the Armadillo for those of you who wanted to know. My team ended up winning the trivia and won a $25  Visa gift card. My competitive spirits really came out during the trivia. Gina Evers, head of the writing center,  was on my team as well. I had a lot of fun and the school should do trivia more often!                       

DIRECTing the Kiddos with INSTRUCTION

Today was the first day teaching the 5th grade class at Bishop Dunn Memorial School. My nerves were gone because I felt like I knew what to expect because I took Science Methods last semester. I was excited to teach! I knew the content I had to teach and I got to teach along side one of my best friends. We had a lot information to teach and we wanted to do it in a fun way. We had to teach about the Native Americans, Andrew Jackson, The Trail of Tears, The Industrial Revolution, The Seneca Falls Convention, Abolitionists, and Reformers. We thought the best way to review the taught information was by playing bingo. The children had a blast!! Our lesson went very smoothly. I was very confident in my ability to teach. My passion and humor really came out while teaching. We incorporated a lot of emojis in our lesson to make it more related to our fifth graders.

All About Me on e-foilo

All About Me

    My name is Mikayla Zaccaria and I am junior at Mount Saint Mary College. I am a history major seeking dual certification in Childhood and Special Education. I have always had a passion for working with children. When I was in high school, I taught religious education classes to elementary school students for three years. I knew for awhile that I wanted to be a teacher, but teaching my faith to children and doing it well reaffirmed my future career choice. 

    My teachers have always had an impact on my life. One particular teacher made me believe that I have the potential to be great teacher. That teacher is my nana. My nana is my biggest inspiration. I grew up watching her teach middle school science., and love what she did everyday. I hope to one day be half the teacher that she was! 

    I believe that if you love what you do, you will never work a day in your life. I want to be a role model for my students and make an impact on their lives for years to come. I want to inspire my future students and to encourage them to dream big. They can accomplish anything they put their young minds too. My classroom will be a safe place. Home might not be the happiest of places for students, but I want my students to make our classroom their home! 

    I have such a passion for teaching children and can not wait to hit the ground running and start my teaching career! 

     

Introducing Me (Digitally)

 In social studies methods we had to introduce ourselves digitally to the class. I chose to use the program VoiceThread. I was familiar with VoiceThread for science methods but I found it difficult to use. After re-exploring the program I found out it is actually very simple to use. In my digital me I asked the class a series of questions.  I gave the class three choices. If they thought the answer was the first choice, they were to hold up one finger. If they thought it was the second choice they were to hold up two fingers, and if they thought it was the third choice they were too hold up three fingers. To use VoiceThread I uploaded a powerpoint and then recorded over it. So if you were to log on to VoiceThread you would click the plus button at the bottom and there would be options to record yourself, record your voice, and type a message. I was able to demonstrate how to use the features of VoiceThread to my class. VoiceThread can be used by students and teachers in and out of the classroom. I think a cool feature of VoiceThread would be if a teacher was absent he/she can record themselves teaching a lesson. Students can use VoiceThread to make their powerpoints more tech savvy. The best part about this program is that you can comment on other people's VoiceThread's. You can again record yourself, your voice, or type out a message. What I learned from everyone presenting was that everyone's true colors and personalities came out. No one was presenting like a robot. There were lots of laughs and jokes. I also got a review lesson and was more aware not to say "guys" while teaching. I also was more confident presenting because I felt more comfortable and realized that public speaking now comes very easily to me now. Even though I have taken one of Dr. Smirnova's classes before I learned some new technology programs that I will even consider using outside of teaching.