Yesterday was my second lesson and I taught a math lesson on more than, less than, and equal to. It certainly didn't go perfectly, but I learned a lot from it. I find a lot of the Lemov techniques to be helpful and plan on practicing them throughout the rest of my field placements to become more comfortable with them. The most important thing I learned from yesterday's lesson is how important setting behavioral expectations both prior to and during the lesson are. I think I will start to work them in to my lesson plans so that I have some sort of script in mind.
As we know, the Kindergarten teachers at SES work on their lesson plans as a grade level team. Although I have only seen the math and writing lessons, I am impressed with their ability to keep them different and enjoyable for the students. As I was reading about Lemov's "J-Factor", I thought about this. It is easy to incorporate joy in to the lessons you teach if they are not repetitive. There is always a great mix of group lessons, games, activities, craft projects, and one on one lessons for the differentiated math groups. Another part of the J-Factor is Us (and them). There is a great sense of belonging at SES. The KB classroom community is a close knit group where and they are often reminded that they are to work together and have common goals. The school as a whole is another community they belong to. When I walk with the class out to the busses in the afternoon, it is great to see the children and teachers greet one another by name, even across grade levels. I love seeing this sense of community!
There are some things at school they don't teach you like, your not completely on your own. It's really nice to find out how each grade level works together to create all the lesson plans for the week together. Can you imagine if you had to do yours and everyone else's part. I also think this offers new teachers great opportunity to learn from more experienced teachers. I have seen the downside of this though... for this type of a system to work you have to review the lessons that other teachers created thoroughly so that you have all materials you need prior to teaching the lesson and so that you understand exactly how and what you will be teaching your students.
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