Our Turn

My group- 

Group 4 

Direct Instruction 

The time has come that it was our turn to teach a lesson to the 5^th grade Bishop Dunn students. Our instruction for the lesson was direct instruction. We designed our lesson to teach the students about Pocahontas and John Smith during the time of Jamestown. We figured this would be two important fun historical figures to teach, since these are two historical figures students are very familiar with. 

We started our lesson with our anticipatory set questions. Our questions were based on the students’ prior knowledge they had previously acquired from the other groups. Once our short discussion was over we began the lesson!

We wanted to introduce the students to a biography map, show them how to listen for important facts, and include them in their biography maps. To demonstrate this I read a passage and Erica modeled how to fill in the biography map my listening and recognizing important facts from the passage. The students really seemed to grasp the flow and how the biography map works.

Next, Corey gave direct instruction about John Smith. He really engaged the students during instruction by his humor and tone of voice. Corey made sure to check for understanding by asking the students multiple choice questions during his instruction.  The students really demonstrated they understood the content they were given, since the class was able to score a 100% on all the multiple choice questions. During instruction, the students were given a biography map to fill out on John Smith. Erica and I made sure to walk around the room and assist students with any help they needed. Amazingly most of the students were successful at filling out the biography map independently. Some students needed assistance, but Erica and I were right there to keep them on track! 

To end our lesson we gave the students a fun vortex true and false game about Pocahontas and John Smith. The students really enjoyed this. Amazingly, all the students were able to match the correct facts with the correct person! The students really proved they understood the content they were presented with, and mostly importantly it stuck with them!  

Overall I would have to say our lesson went very well. Students seemed to be very interested in learning about the historical figures John Smith and Pocahontas. The vortex activity was very successful. Students were excited to play, and were very successful in completing the vortex activity with 100% accuracy! In my opinion, our lesson turned out to be successful!!