Andrew Patterson Practicum Journal Ed 132 My practicum placement is at South East Polk High School in Jake Bartels sophomore

e U.S. government class. So far this semester I have observed Mr. Bartels government class seven times. The way my Drake schedule is set up I observe the students at South East Polk for the last the three periods of the school day. I usually spend one period with Mr. Bartels and then observe two other Social Studies classrooms. By observing three different classrooms it allows me to compare different teaching strategies that cover roughly the same content area. October 19, 2011 6th Hour Hippie History, Elective, Junior Mr. Bartels arranged for me to observe the popular history elective Hippie History. In this class students primarily concentrated on U.S. History and culture from the 60s, 70s, and 80s. In todays class Mr. Schmidt (?) was reading a passage from Tim OBriens book The Things They Carried. Mr. Schmidt read the chapter to the class and led a classroom discussion. He asked the students to try and relate to the character in the book and how they would approach the same problem. 7th Hour U.S. History, Required, Freshmen, Section I The next hour I observed a freshmen section of U.S. History taught by a Drake graduate from 2008. He was having the students work in groups on the computers coming up with a two page spread covering events in the United States after World War I. The students could refer to their notes, textbook, and were also encouraged to find other internet sources. While I thought the project was well conceived having the students work in groups as big as four allowed some students to slack off. Overall I was impressed by what I had observed; the teacher was constantly walking around the room engaging students and guiding their research in the right direction. 8th Hour U.S. History, Required, Freshmen, Section II For the last hour of the day I observed Mr. Johnsons (?) U.S. History class. Mr. Bartels had me observe Mr. Johnsons class because at South East Polk their curriculum director has been focusing on reading strategies. Mr. Johnsons lesson plan focused on the impact of the Model T and Henry Ford. He facilitated a TIPS over how the automobile has changed our lives. The students were then given an article to take home and were instructed to do a 3-2-1 reading strategy. The next day Mr. Johnson said that they would discuss the students findings as group. It would be interesting to see how much Mr. Johnsons students picked up with the 3-2-1 reading strategy and how he transitioned into the next lesson plan.

November 1, 2011 6th Hour U.S. Government, Required, Sophomore, Mr. Bartels This week Mr. Bartels has been introducing to the class the next upcoming unit about the legislative branch of government. He gave the students a unit framework of the major areas that were going to be covered throughout the unit. The unit framework included key concepts and essential vocabulary for student understanding. The original lesson plan for today was for Mr. Bartels to show a video that gave an overview of the legislative branch. The students were going to write a reflection of what they had learned from the documentary. Unfortunately the internet was down for his afternoon classes so Mr. Bartels just had them work in pairs to fill out the unit framework together. 7th Hour U.S. Government, Required, Sophomore, Mr. Bartels The internet was still down 7th hour so Mr. Bartels had the students work on the unit framework packet in pairs. Mr. Bartels and I had talked about when I was supposed to give my lesson plan so today I brought the general outline for the plan. We narrowed down during the class period what I was going to cover (Congressional term limits, election trends of Iowa senators). It was interesting to talk with him about the teaching techniques that I wanted to use and how they were similar to teaching techniques that SEP was trying to implement district wide. 8th Hour Law and Order, Elective, Junior and Senior, Mr. Schmidt Since Mr. Bartels had the same lesson plan for 8th hour I decided to sit in Mr. Schmidts law and order class. The students were learning about the different kinds of homicides, the burden of proof associated with each level, and sentencing guidelines. Mr. Schmidt then guided the class through both local and famous homicide cases and their verdicts. Mr. Schmidt made sure that his thinking was visible by walking the students through the specific details of the case. For the last ten minutes of class the students worked on creating their own court cases and justifying why they belonged to a certain kind of homicides.

November 8, 2011 Today is the last day of my Education 132 practicum. I sent Mr. Bartels my lesson plan late last week we both looked over it and decided that on Tuesday (today) we were going to teach it. The lesson plan deals with congressional term limits, incumbent reelection rates, and term limits. Mr. Bartels is going to teach the lesson for the first six hours of the day and I will teach the last two. 6th Hour- U.S. Government, Required, Sophomore, Mr. Bartels I arrived halfway through the class period like usual and Mr. Bartels was just finishing up with the sharing whip part of my lesson. It was interesting to see how Mr. Bartels took my lesson plan and was adapting it to students questions and responses. It was nice to see someone that is a more accomplished teacher model my lesson before I taught it. 7th Hour- U.S. Government, Required, Sophomore, Mr. Bartels/Mr. Patterson I was slightly nervous when I started to teach the lesson plan. I had observed this hour around ten times throughout the semester but this was the first time that I had lead any significant portion of the class. Overall the lesson plan went well. I quickly overcame my nerves and the students became engaged in the lesson as I used the various teaching strategies in my lesson plan. The sharing whip was the most effective of all the strategies because it forced all of the students to become accountable for their own opinion. 8th Hour- U.S. Government, Required, Sophomore, Mr. Bartels/Mr. Patterson 8th hour went even smoother than 7th. I changed the beginning of the lesson so students could associate name recognition of Iowan Congressmen with time in office. The students were really interested in discussing which factor was the most influential reason for the reelection rates for incumbents. I made sure that I fast mapped vocabulary words and that students used them in all three of their quick writes. Overall my practicum at Southeast Polk was a great experience. My practicum teacher Mr. Bartels welcomed me into his classroom and helped me observe different content areas throughout the building. It was interesting to see how the teaching strategies we are taught at the SOE are used in real life situations.