Life Knowledge: Creativity

For those of you that read my last post, you know that last week was a busy one with micro-teaching at Bellwood-Antis. Believe it or not, my week wasn't over by Thursday afternoon! From Bellwood we drove back to campus to get to AEE 413 where we celebrated Dr. Ewing's birthday. (Sorry Dr. Ewing for messing up your lesson plan!) Then after class I hopped in the Honda and made my way to Lancaster.

Friday morning I arrived at the school at 7 am and was ready to conquer! I spent some time with my cooperating teacher talking about unit planning and other logistics. This was able to happen because her prep block happened to be first block. The block went by quickly and then suddenly it was time for her Agri-ecology class. I sat in and observed the class while scoping out the room and putting some last minute touches on my plan.

As the bell rang it was time for a quick lunch where we socialized with some other teachers! I thought this was a bunch of fun even though it was a very short time.

We headed back to the class and I was ready to go. My Life Knowledge lesson was about understanding creativity and using creativity. I began with a class of 17 freshmen who seemed unenthused as we started. I had many activities planned within the lessons and was not going to let that phase me. As I was teaching about the "roadblocks" for creativity I had a lightbulb go off...there was a great way for me to show "being stuck in one thought." I called one of the students to the front of the room that was wearing sneakers and I had him untie them both. I asked him to show the class how he tied his shoe with his right foot and shoe. After he did this I paused and asked what he would do if I told him to tie the left shoe in the same knot but use a different process to get there. The class was amazed! This was really a turning point where I shocked them with a little bit of awe and they really wanted to learn from me afterwards. Even though I thought I may run out of material for 90 minutes, I had plenty and had to adjust mid lesson to fit everything in. One of the kids favorite activities was expressing their creativity and team brainstorming skills to create a new plant or animal species.

I would say that it was a good day. I was happy to hear that some of my best participators weren't students that usually participated. I built some confidence and certainly feel better that my first time teaching in that classroom will not be in January. I look forward to whats next!