If you are teaching your government class about political parties here is a week-long unit!
I created and used this powerpoint in the 12th grade class I taught in the Dominican Republic. They were learning about U.S. government using Magruder’s American Government textbook. This is from chapter 5. The powerpoint includes the lecture slides, practice quizzes after each section, anticipatory sets, and a group project. My students loved the group project, they were very creative! Check out their work at the link below. Â You can also download the test I created to be given after this unit is taught.
If you have enjoyed reading about my adventures in student teaching, and thought some of my lessons looked good, please consider supporting my efforts!
I am (slowly) putting many of my lesson plans and resources online for other educators to use. I am using the website TeachersPayTeachers.com to showcase and sell my work. My items are mostly priced at $1, but my maximum price is $3. I also have some free lessons in my store!
Why would you buy lesson plans from a brand new teacher? Most of the lessons I have up for sale were taught while being observed by one of my university professors and they all received very good feedback. I taught most of the lessons multiple times each day, and worked out any kinks throughout the day. The 15 day unit plan I prepared was for a History Teaching Methods class, so I worked closely with my professor to develop the unit.
Please let me know if you have any questions or comments on my store or work, I would love to hear from you!
Thank you for your continued support! All proceeds from my lesson plan sales will go toward the Hillary-Needs-to-Pay-her-Student-Loans Fund. 🙂
Somehow time has just flown by and we are heading back to Michigan tomorrow!
Last night we went out to dinner with our professor, Karen, our coordinator Bernadette, and our host moms Adela and Estela. It was so much fun! The restaurant was called El Conuco and besides yummy food there was music and dancing for entertainment. The dancers were so talented, I cannot believe the moves they were doing. The girls were spinning so fast I don’t know how they could stand up after. They taught some of us to dance too. I am an awful dancer and I didn’t want to be the entertainment for the whole restaurant so I joined the band instead. I do really want to take salsa dancing lessons when I get home because it looks like so much fun!
Today was our last day at school, and it was another half day of exams. My students took their Spanish and Sociales exams. I felt bad because I wasn’t much help to them because they obviously study Spanish at a much higher level than I am capable of and I do not know much about Dominican social studies. But, it’s not something I should worry about because I wasn’t expecting to become fluent in Spanish in the short time I’ve spent here. I took 3 years of Spanish in high school and an intermediate course during college, but it has been 4 years since I’ve used it at all, so it took me a few weeks just to get used to the language again. I was looking through some old papers that I wrote for my Spanish 201 class and I was pretty good at Spanish back then, I wish I had kept practicing! I was proud of myself for writing a thank you note to my host family in Spanish though! So when I get home, the plan is to take Spanish and salsa lessons!
Thank you to my host teacher, Ms. Pacheco, my students, everyone at St. Thomas School, my professors, my host family, and of course the other 5 student teachers for making this an unforgettable experience. I will forever treasure the memories made here!
It is funny to think that this time last year I was studying for exams in classes such as Ecology, Education Theory, and Museum Programming and now I am sitting on my balcony in the Dominican Republic relaxing because I have completed all of the requirements for graduation. Graduation is THIS WEEK. And real life is starting Monday since I have a big girl job. How crazy is that?!
My students are under pressure this week too, because it is midterms week. Today the high school students completed their math and social studies exams during the half day of school. Tomorrow there is no school because it is a “study day.” Then another half day Wednesday. If exams were like that in my high school or college midterms would be a piece of cake! Like regular school days, exam days here are very different from what I’ve experienced at home. Students are still pretty talkative even though they are taking an important test. The teacher whose class the test was for would walk around to the different classrooms to answer questions. They were giving a lot of help because students had tons of questions. I felt like I was not very helpful at all today.This is what I accomplished: Helped a girl put her hair in a ponytail because she had a broken finger. Updated my LinkedIn profile. Made the finishing touches on my electronic portfolio. I did not know how to help because if it was my class I would have been much more strict on the talking issue, but I did not want to overstep any boundaries because I realize there is a difference in expectations here. Or maybe I’m just a “mean lady,” as a little boy at the museum once told me when I saved him from running into traffic…
Good luck to all my friends at CMU who are slaving over a hot scantron this week 🙂
Today half of our group of student teachers visited other schools in Santo Domingo. We went to the International School first thing this morning, and wow, was it different from St. Thomas! I really like that it has an outdoor amphitheater, a pool (being built), a functioning library, an art museum, and it is more out in the country. All of the teachers that I met there seemed very nice, and the little kids were just adorable. Today was one of those days where I wish I would have been an elementary teacher instead of secondary. But since I’m a week away from graduation, I better stick with what I have, haha. I go back and forth a lot, I never could decide 100% if I wanted elementary or secondary. Lucky for me, I can have the best of both worlds by working in museum education!
After International School, we visited my school. We just wandered around looking at everything, which I haven’t even done yet! It turns out my school has a store, an auditorium, and tons of extra classrooms that I never knew existed! Next the group headed to St. Michaels, but I stayed at my school because I planned to go souvenir shopping with a couple of the teachers after school. We went to quite a few different places to get things for our friends and family back home. It was nice to see some different areas of the city, too! I am most excited for the sweets that I picked up in la zona colonial – dulce de leche and cacao balls.
We have an exciting excursion planned for tomorrow morning at 5am so I am heading to bed! I hope to have some really cool pictures to post from our adventure.
Today my host teacher was out sick so I taught all of the classes on my own! Normally that is not a big deal to me at all, I started subbing in Michigan over 2 years ago, and subbed all the time during my student teaching. Here school is so different, and I knew that I wouldn’t be able to exactly carry out the plans my teacher wanted because I didn’t have the right tools. Luckily she emailed me last night saying she might be out and left instructions for the day so that I was prepared with alternate ideas before I got to school.
Just Kidding 🙂 ….most of the time at least.
Almost all of the classed were supposed to do something that involved the projector – which I have no way to connect my computer to. I asked around the school but was unable to find a good solution, so I came up with other plans. Instead of watching documentaries we discussed study guides and I had a chance to talk with students to get to know them a little better. the 9th graders worked diligently all hour on their World History study guides. Almost all of the the 8th graders claimed to have finished ALL of the study guides for their classes, but I think they just said that because they wanted to chat. One of the boys just kept wandering around blowing bubbles, where he got bubbles I have no idea. We were supposed to play a geography game by projecting a map of South America onto the board, so I had to come up with something else. First, I tried to draw the continent on the board so that they could name the countries, but it turns out I can’t draw. So I found a worksheet in the desk (I hope it was okay to use!) and had the students use that to label the countries and geographic features. This worked well, but it wasn’t as fun as the game would have been.
It was kind of funny that I subbed today, because my teacher and I just talked about how subbing works yesterday. She said that if a teacher is absent, an aide from an elementary classroom will come fill in, but that they don’t really teach. Later, one of the other student teachers and I talked about this and compared it to subbing in Michigan. To be a substitute teacher in Michigan all you need is 90 credit hours of college education (in any degree/major), pass a background check, attend a 2 hour training, do some easy online training modules and then sign up for sub jobs! You don’t need any experience in teaching, and there is no interview. We couldn’t imagine if they did subbing like that here. I’m not sure any of the non-teacher subs would make it through their first day!
Overall, I survived my first day of subbing in the DR! I have always felt that flexibility is an essential part of being a teacher, and it definitely came into play today.
Today my CMU professor came to observe my teaching for one last time. Now that it’s done I have finished all of my college assignments and am basically just waiting to graduate. Of course I will still be in my classroom here and will be teaching government for the remainder of the week, but it feels so nice to have everything else done! I think that my lesson today went well, my professor had some very nice things to say about it, as well as some helpful ideas.
My 12th Grade Government Class at St. Thomas School
One thing that we talked about was how facebook is used in the classroom. I know I mentioned it before, but I still think it is a really good use of technology. Each grade has a private facebook group (only students are added to the group and no one else can see it) where they can talk about class, ask the teacher questions, find assignments, and download powerpoints. Everyone in the states is so afraid of using social networking as a classroom tool, but I see it as a wonderful resource.
After we walked home from school (it was so hot today!) I relaxed a little and then got to work on some museum lesson plans. I officially start my new position as a Museum Educator on the Monday after graduation (not much of a break for me!) but I am working via email right now. I am really excited for the things that are coming up and I can’t wait to get home to work on new exhibits and play with the little kids! Even though my degree is in secondary education (grades 6-12), I love working with young children and have learned a lot about teaching them throughout my CMU education. A big part of my job will be to align our programs and exhibits with the topics and education standards that are being covered by our local schools, so I’m glad I learned all about the Common Core, Michigan GLCEs, and Next Generation Science Standards in my education classes. I have also learned so much about classroom management during student teaching, so I will be able to apply that to museum programs to make the experiences as enjoyable as possible. I also had my graduation party invitations sent out today, so it is starting to feel like “real life” is coming up really soon!
After yesterday’s adventure of getting back to Santo Domingo, getting up for school this morning was pretty tough. Most of us did not make it down to our 6am breakfast. Thank goodness for pop tarts!
School was pretty typical. Students are starting to prepare for their final exams next week so they are working on study guides. I will be teaching the 12th grade government class all week, which my professor will be observing tomorrow. I think that it went well when I taught that class last Wednesday, so I am hoping for another good lesson! I’m just a little worried, what if the class doesn’t show up? This is actually a real problem here, an entire class just might not show up. Especially if they have a test in the class period before.
I am still pretty confused about the test taking environment here. Every time our students have a test they take way longer than the 45 minute class period to finish it. Because of this, they miss their next class, and the next class we are supposed to have has to wait in the hallway. This would never happen in the schools back home. When the bell rang, my students back in Millington quickly made their way to their locker and their next class to avoid a tardy. Here, the bell means nothing. As a teacher used to more structure, and as a former high school student who earned the perfect attendance award, this kind of stresses me out. I am not sure I would ever get used to it!
Read the article at the link above. CMU is considering changing student teaching from a 1 semester experience to a full school year. I am glad that I was able to share my opinion on this issue. Now I would like to hear what you have to say! Please share your ideas or experiences, I would love to hear from fellow educators. Take the poll below 🙂
Today we taught 6 classes in my classroom. Mondays are our longest days because we have the 11th grade class twice, which is quite strange to me. Some grades we teach 6 times a week, others only 4 times. School schedules are much more consistent in the U.S. Other than that it was a pretty typical school day. Tomorrow is my first observation from my CMU coordinator while in Santo Domingo. I will be teaching an 8th grade geography lesson about Michigan.
Here are some other various observations I have made about Dominican culture:
Though we all work in schools where the families are quite wealthy, there is a lot of poverty near where we live and teach. Every time we visit the convenience store there are little boys asking to shine our shoes for money. We saw one of the little boys pull his backpack out of a McDonald’s trash bin where he had been keeping it safe. (Not in the actual garbage, but inside the door of the cabinet thing the garbage bin is in.) It was so sad, and very eye-opening. There are also two Haitian women who beg us whenever we walk down our street. It is crazy to see such wealth and poverty so close together.
When we walk down the street, men sometimes make comments or hiss at us. Men do not do that at home, so I think it is simply because we are fair-skinned, light haired, and clearly not from around here. We are all glad that there is one male student on the trip.
We have also gotten special treatment at some places. For example, we went on a banana boat ride at Boca Chica and the boat driver got out the nice life jackets for us because we are white. It seemed so strange that he just came right out and said that he only uses the nice life jackets for the white people. You would never say something like that in the U.S! We have heard many different comments about race that are quite surprising.
Oh and the soccer tournament is still going on! We haven’t stayed to watch, but we see a little bit as we are leaving the school each afternoon. They sell Papa Johns pizza, snow cones, and popcorn, and it is televised, so I guess it is a pretty big deal! Go Falcons!
Miss Hanel's Student Teaching Blog 