Haslett+Middle+School+-+Henry+B

Mister B taught our lesson in his second hour, and he allowed us to teach it to his third hour, which was a great experience for all of us. He jumped in at times to help us out but I think we all did well in handling our activities. It was interesting to see Mister B teach what we had prepared for him, and he did a great job, utilizing his numerous years of teaching experience, the kids probably could not tell that he had not prepared the lesson himself.
 * __Field Placement Project__**

Research questions:
 * 1) What is a way to get 8th grade students engaged in early politics, and also help them to understand some of their own beliefs?

While the field placement project asked us to redesign a lesson and have our mentor teacher deliver it, Mr. B encouraged us to be more actively involved in presenting the lesson we designed. On the day of our lesson, Mr. B played a very limited and supportive role and he allowed us to present the different elements of our lesson with minimal interruption. Mr. B helped us transition between lesson elements and add supporting points throughout the class periods. Below is a description of our lesson on political parties as well as our own reflections on how we thought our teaching went.

__**Introduction and Overview of Political Parties - Thomas and Joe**__

__Design__ The point of this part of the lecture was to give the students a brief overview of the original political parties, and then the two main parties today, the Democratic and Republican Parties. We discussed with Mr. Brunnschweiler and we all agreed that it would be best to keep this part of the lesson short and sweet so we aimed for right around 10-15 minutes. I feel this worked out very well because it allowed for the students to get enough of the important information without going to in depth. One of the interesting thing that we decided to include into the powerpoint was the origin of the Elephant and the Donkey for the "mascots" of the parties. Turns out this was a good piece of information to include because in each class a student asked about the logos before it was covered on the slides. We also briefly discussed some terms associated with each party so a conservative is associated with the republicans and a liberal tends to side with the Democrats. This is some of the topics covered in our powerpoint to help set up for the political quiz and then student demonstration.

__Reflection__

I feel that this lecture/PowerPoint went very well for what our goal was with it. The students seemed to stay moderately focused on the lecture for the entire 10 minutes. Really we just wanted to get the students to understand some of the basics of the political parties in order to understand the quiz, and I feel we were able to accomplish just that. PowerPoint lectures can tend to be dry and easy for the students to get off task, but through questioning and keeping it simple sweet, I feel we were more able to keep the students on task. Joe and I delivered the PowerPoint for both the Second and Third Hour classes. ~Thomas

I also thought the introduction using PowerPoint was pretty effective. It was just a basic introduction and history of political parties, but the students seemed interested and followed along without any disruptions. My main concern for this portion of the lesson was time. We need we could not go to long because it would cut into the other activities, but we also wanted to make sure the students understood the information, and that we were not glossing over things. Overall I thought it worked very well, and it ended up being a good introduction for Mr. Wolfe and Mr. Thom's Political Quiz Show. - Joe __**Political Quiz Show - Andrew and Steve**__

__Design__ The point of this activity is to get students to think about where they fall on the political spectrum and for them to start thinking about politics, even though they are only in 8th grade. First, we gave a general overview of the political spectrum, telling them that democrats, or liberals, tend to be on the political "left" while republicans, or "conservatives" tend to be on the political "right." We also gave them a brief breakdown of other parties and ideologies such as the Green Party, Libertarian Party, and the Communist Party. Basically, we just walked them through the quiz, trying to give them an unbiased opinion on the questions so as not to bias the results. The quiz assigns point totals to each question, and the higher the total, the more conservative the student's beliefs are. We made sure to emphasize to the students that the point of the quiz was not to get the most points, since obviously this would taint the results. After we went through the quiz, we had the students add up their total and this number would be used for Scott's activity. Here is the quiz that we prepared for the class to help identify what their political leanings are.

__Reflection__ I think this activity went quite well despite the fact that we were worried that some of the students would have a hard time with this activity because it would be too complex or too mature of content for them. For example, we had a censorship question about whether or not they believed that graphic pornography should be banned; initially we were hesitant about including it in the quiz but Mister B said his classes should be able to handle it and he was right. Overall, I think we did a good job as a group of putting together three activities into one lesson that helped students get a better understanding of politics and how nominating a candidate works. -Steve

__**Closing Activity - Scott**__

__Design__ To close out our lesson, we decided to have the students participate in a visual mapping activity where the students would form a single line in the classroom according to the number (political standing) they received from the quiz. Students assembled with the most conservative students standing on the right, liberals on the left, and moderates in the middle. To no surprise, the largest group of students filled the middle of the spectrum. We addressed this observation by telling the class that their results were very representative of the nation. The largest group of voters tend to be moderates in presidential elections. As the students stood in their place, we asked them to look behind them for anyone else who was at the exact same political standing as them. The point we were making by doing this is that in a system where everyone votes according to their own beliefs and does not compromise under any circumstances is inefficient; if everyone votes independently nothing would get done. We then explained that four political leaders would stand at various points along the line and they would like to have supporters line up behind them. Students were instructed to 'lean' to the left or to the right to stand behind one of these candidates. This created the political parties for our classroom. We then explained the 'would you rather' aspect of politics when it comes to party affiliation. For example, on the liberal side of the classroom were two groups of roughly 6 and 12. On the conservative side, the moderate party had around 15 members and the most conservative around 3. We asked the liberal parties "would you rather" stay as two different parties and watch the conservatives win the election, or compromise your political differences and beat them by joining forces? The two liberal parties merged into one and the conservative parties followed suite. We used this example to explain how the two party system came to be in our current political system. We also explained that third parties are formed when people are unwilling to shift their political standing to the next best option and instead choose to create their own party. For one disruptive student in the second class session, we had him sit down to represent people who do not vote and have to watch everyone else make the decisions for them as they stand by powerlessly.

__Reflection__ Overall I felt this part of our lesson worked well as a closing activity. Having the kids position themselves around the room to actually see the diversity of political positions will probably be more memorable for them than simply taking the quiz and discussing in groups. Also, showing the students the process of moving from individual political beliefs to party beliefs should help them understand why politics have gotten to be as big and influential as they are today. While we didn't have a formal assessment for this lesson, I felt that by the end of this activity students had a better understanding of what the political spectrum is and why political parties make the democratic system more efficient (in theory at least).

**__Field Placement Reflections__**


 * __Monday November 7th__**

We met with Mr. Brunnschweiler at 8 AM to talk about the different strategies he uses while teaching while also briefly discussing the personality of both his 2nd and 3rd hours. He let us know that his 2nd hour class has a few kids that may require more discipline and that his 3rd hour class has more academically-oriented kids. Mr. B had to deal with two students at the beginning of 2nd hour who were misbehaving. He brought them into the hallway and they stayed outside the classroom for the rest of the period. I believe part of this was because he felt they were trying to show him up on our first day in class because after that happened he discussed with us how remorseful the students felt after discussing with them in the hall.

Mr. B's 2nd and 3rd hour classes are starting a unit on the founding of United States after the Revolutionary War. He will cover the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights over the next week or so. For today, Mr. B focused on the difference between a revolution and a reform movement. He wanted students to understand that revolutions, such as the American Revolutionary War covered in the previous unit, develop quickly and usually involve some sort of violent uprising. Mr. B then went on to talk about different reform movements in American history, many of which were current reform movements that the students were familiar with. I think Mr. B will use the discussion and lecture today to relate to the reforms in the US government after independence.

We were able to actively participate in Mr. B's lesson during 3rd hour. Each of us took one of the slides about different reform movements and Mr. B added comments as we explained the significance of each reform.

~ Scott


 * __Wednesday November 9th__**

Today we came in at our more "normal" time, his second and third hour U.S. History courses. Today he's was giving what he knew would be a dry lesson on the Articles of Confederation. He provided the students with a guided note-taking sheet to help them follow around and then also questions that he could use as a mini-activity if needed. For his second hour class he did not have time for them to get to the worksheet but for the third hour class he did have them fill out the worksheet. The way in which he did that was he broke the students down into 5 groups and then assigned each one of us mentor teachers to a group. This was a very nice way for us to start creating interactions with the students in a productive way (just ask Mr. Thom as a student in the class insists he's Henry from "Big Bang Theory").

On of the interesting things I have noticed from Mr. Brunnschweiler is his ability to adopt his lesson on the fly. For instance on Wednesday he realized he took way too much time going through the powerpoint with his second hour class, so for his third he fixed it and cut the length on his lecture. I feel part of the reason he is able to do this is because he knows his students and their personalities very well. Acknowledging the students strengths and weaknesses are a huge part to teaching.

I am interested to see where he goes next and what other techniques or strategies he will bring into the classroom. He seems to have a lot of tricks up his sleeve in being able to engage the students in both "dry" and more "interesting" lessons.

~ Thomas


 * __Monday Novemver 14th__**

Today we came in for 2nd and 3rd hour, during which the class spent time focusing on The Bill of Rights. He told us that they have a test on Friday over the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution, and that the Bill of Rights was the last thing going on the test. He started the class by having the students listen to a power point driven lecture about the different amendments that make up the Bill of Rights. Mr. Brunnschweiler did a nice job of tying together what the founding fathers might have been thinking with how to apply the Bill of Rights today, such as comparing the right to bear arms for people to be members of militias in revolutionary times, and the right to bear arms for personal protection and hunting today. Each of us were able to present a slide and give our own examples of how the Bill of Rights might affect us.

He then split the class into groups of 5 and had them do activities where they were given scenarios and they had to apply the proper amendment to each scenario. After that the student was told that they were the judge and had to decide what to do in each situation. This activity worked in some groups and faltered in others, as some groups seemed to lack some motivation on this Monday morning. After the classes Mr. Brunnschweiler discussed with us how he might adapt the lesson from class period to class period. He said he might cut out or trim down some of the group activity to help both with time management and the effectiveness of the lesson. He thought the students might get more out of it if it was a little easier.

- Joe

__**Tuesday November 15th**__

This week Mr. B wanted us to come in on Tuesday instead of Wednesday because of Junior Achievement speakers coming in, so it was a little bit different view of his class than what we've been used to. When we usually come in for second and third hour, today we were in for fifth and sixth hour, and it was definitely a different feeling. In the morning the kids are definitely more laid back, still a little tired although involved and interested in the class. For the last hours of the day the students are definitely a bit more rowdy and at least in my opinion, much more involved in the class. We got to see how Mr. B. handles a classroom full of eighth graders who just ate lunch and are ready to be done with school, and he did so pretty flawlessly. When someone was acting a little too wild, he immediately got them to tone down their behavior and relax without doing anything unnecessary or overreacting.

Perhaps the best thing about today's class was Mr. B's interaction with the kids. You can really see that he knows his students and has relationships with them which is great to see. There was one girl who was quite OCD and Mr. B. would always walk past her desk just to turn her pencil bag so that it wasn't straight and he did this because he knows the girl and she's able to handle to teasing. I felt like this really humanizes him to his students and to us as interns. He also keeps the troublemakers in check better than any teacher I've seen by including them in class and letting them talk but making sure they know when they're getting out of line.

One of the things that Mr. B. did this week that was probably the best experience I've had in a classroom to date was randomly assigning a slide in his lecture for us to teach in the middle of the lecture without any warning or preparation. I'll be honest, government is easily my weakest area and the fact that today the lesson was on the branches of government, I was a little bit worried about being able to say anything worthwhile without preparing. I could have done better, but I feel like I got the basics across to the class which is what's important right now. Today was a great class where I felt I was pushed and forced to think on my feet in front of a class in ways I've never had to do before, and I'm looking forward for this experience to continue.

-Andrew

__**Monday November 21**__ Today, Mr. B introduced the issue of slavery, and for the first part of the class he lectured about slavery, including some of its worst aspects. He was able to tell the students the harsh realities of slavery while still keeping it not too graphic for the 8th grade audience. The students paid close attention to the lecture and it seemed as though they gained a lot of knowledge and a sense of the brutality of slavery. After the lecture, which we were able to partake in during the second class period, we watched Roots. For the first class, we were able to watch Mr. B teach, and then for the second class he let each of us teach a few slides which was a good experience for us to practice speaking in front of the class.

Roots is a movie that has some mature content and Mr. B sent home parent permission slips to make sure that parents were okay with their children watching the film. Mister B also warned the students before the film started that there would be mature language (the n word) and that students should take this very seriously and know that this is an unacceptable term to use today. The students handled the film very maturely and I think Mr. B helped set the stage for this by preparing them for the mature content.

Overall, we got to see how film can be used as a vehicle for student learning in the classroom and I thought the class went very well.

--Steve

__**Wednesday November 23**__ No class for Thanksgiving.

__**Monday November 28**__ Today was a typical day in Mister B's classroom, we were able to observe him teach the first class while we were able to jump in and get more active in his lecture in the second class. What I really like about Mister B that he tells us a lot of things that go on outside the classroom and things that teachers always need to be aware of in terms of parents, the politics of teaching, etc. -Steve

__**Wednesday November 30**__ No school because of snow day.

__**Monday December 5th**__ Today we came in early to go over our preparations for the lesson that we will be teaching on Wednesday. We divided up the work so two of us will do the lecture, two of us will go over a party identification quiz with the class, and one of us will do an activity with the students at the end of the class. In class, the students continued watching Roots so it was a bit of a slow day for us.

__**Wednesday December 7th**__ We led our lesson on political parties today. See information at the top of the page for more details.