Learning Letter

This course as a whole was great. I am really glad I took this course. The assignments we completed required much thought and planning. Every lesson must have a plan and must have been well thought out. With the book talks, our first big assignment, I did mine on “The Kite Runner”. Now, “Kite Runner” is a long book; about 300 pages worth of information and my first mistake was to read this whole book in one setting. Not one of my brightest ideas but I did it. Reading this book in one setting of 6 hours, though I had a sense of accomplishment, was shown through my lesson. There was not as much preparation for this lesson that there should have been but it all worked out. Should have spent more time but it opened the door to other assignments.

            Our other big assignment was our unit plan which I also did using the “Kite Runner”. This was a much different assignment than I had ever done before. Very time consuming and not fun but I also really enjoyed it. Just to be able to see the amount of and planning it takes to go into one day’s lesson and each of the assignments. Made me really think about how I can make this apply to the students. So many hours of planning, typing, and asking questions; so many hours well spent I must say.

            The other assignment was the mini lesson. This was an exciting assignment and really got me to thinking about the theories and stories we read in class. Why they are important and how would I go about communicating the objective to my own students. The lesson plans really helped me see why, as teachers, we are supposed to   plan out every lesson. When teaching this lesson, I had to account for what my students knew and did not know. None would have gone as well as it did without the planning.

            As for my participation in the classroom, I found that classroom contribution plays a lot but does not mean you have to comment all of the time. This course as a whole has been great. I think the discussions, novels, and assignments we did taught me so much. Education requires so many different key parts like TPA lesson plans, novels, and teaching examples and I am glad we got to experience this as a class. I think I learned a lot this quarter and I plan to use what I learned and the texts we read as a teacher in my future.