So for this blogpost, we will be writing it together as a group! My name is Hannah Kateusz, but as we switch who is writing what, we’ll keep you updated with names. This week, we were able to volunteer at a local elementary school and participate in a science fair. Our station was teaching about plants and how to plant seeds. There were six different groups of about nine students in each group that would be at our station for 10 minutes, so we had six chances to decide what we wanted to talk about. I know for me, this was a big learning experience. I really didn’t know what to expect when going into this. I knew what we were going to talk about, but wasn’t sure how long each part was going to take. We had our introduction where we talked about the parts of a flower and why it needs the nutrients it needs and then the second part of actually planting. I knew that this was going to take long, but gauging the time that each part would take was what was I was focused on. As each group came by, we were able to tweak what we said and how long we said it. The first go around, we barely had time to plant and we got the update from our professor that we had two minutes left. Then, we didn’t spend as much time introducing the parts of a flower and spent more time planting, but had extra time in the end. It was all a balancing act. It was also great to have had group members by my side. We all worked together and stepped in when someone else needed help and relied on each other.
Hey everyone, Riley here, I wanted to add onto what Hannah has mentioned. I absolutely agree that this was an amazing experience for us to get our feet wet with an awesome group of first grade students. It was not only engaging for the students but for us as well. We were able to work as a team of co-teachers in leading our station at the science fair. This has provided us with an opportunity to grow within the areas of collaboration and individual teaching. While we may have stumbled in the beginning, by the fourth, fifth and sixth groups of students we were able to gain a little more perspective on different approaches; those that worked and those that did not.
As we got around to teaching the six different groups, we were able to identify what worked and what hadn’t. The communication that we had as a team was very useful in determining what changes could and should be made. An example of this comes as we began our first round of students, we realized that too much time was spent on explaining the different parts of a plant and not enough time was left for the students to actually plant their seeds. As a team, we quickly realized what needed to happen; more time needed to be allocated to the actual activity itself seeing as we only had ten minutes with each group. With this simple adjustment, the second group of students went more smoothly, and it continued. By the time we made it to the sixth group of students, we had come to the realization that time management and communication are huge when teaching.
While this was my experience with co-teaching in such a fast-paced environment, overall, I would say it went well. As we followed Hannah’s lead, we were all able to communicate, adjust, adapt and learn together.
Both Riley and Hannah have made great points about our experience with teaching at the Science Fair. This is Natalie Schroker, who was also a part of the group teaching about plants and planting seeds. I really enjoyed this teaching experience because it was different than your typical “in the classroom” teaching experience, especially with the co-teaching element. As Hannah mentioned, we did not know what we were going to expect as we did not have a specific plan to what we were going to be doing. Hannah took the lead on teaching the whole group of students but we were all able to work together to compliment her leadership by adding information to what she discussed with one or two students. I think this worked really well because they were able to share their thoughts and feelings more by getting more individual time with a teacher. As each time went on we were able to work out the kinks and start to see what worked well and what did not. By figuring out what worked best, we were able to focus on what aspects of our topic were the most important and what engaged the students the most.
By the last session we all knew the best routine and what our individual responsibilities were to contribute to our well working team.
One thing I also enjoyed from this experience was how much the students loved the topic and activity of plants and planting seeds. It felt so good to hear some of the students say that our station was their favorite activity because it meant that they learned something meaningful out of it. This inspired me as a future educator because making learning meaningful and enjoyable is something I strive to do in my future classroom.
Hi everyone! This is the last group member here — Alie Morrison. Going off of what Natalie said, I could truly see how engaged and ready to learn the students were. Not only were they actively engaged and participating in planting, but they were having so much fun while doing it. At the end of the rotations, we all gathered as a group: 1st grade students, Millersville students, and teachers and professors. We took time to talk about what they enjoyed, what they learned, what went well, and what didn’t go so well. One thing that really stuck out to me was how one of the 1st grade teachers mentioned that some of his students, who usually have trouble paying attention and staying on task, or even just understanding what’s going on in the classroom, were actively engaged and participating during our activities. He felt confident they learned from us and he thanked us for that. This goes to show that the execution of the activities really impacts the learning and the take-aways for the students. By having a plant to take home and observe while grow, they are able to remember what they learned at our station, about the different stages of the life cycle and parts of a plant, as they watch their plant mature. I think I can speak for us all when I say that we know the students really enjoyed participating in our hands-on activity and will remember what we taught them about plants. Overall, this was such a success and we really enjoyed having this experience, not only to enhance our education, but these 1st grade students too!