First Group

The first group to present at Bishop Dunn consisted of: John, Colin, Kelly and Catherine. They had the overwhelming responsibility of carrying the weight of our class, in terms of fieldwork. Almost no one in our class truly had an idea about how the fieldwork would eventually become. We have all worked with students before, and almost everyone in Methods Science has performed fieldwork with Bishop Dunn students in the traditional sense, which means that we work almost one-on-one with anywhere from one to three students at a time for about five weeks. We prepare mini-lessons, or lesson blocks, which cover lessons we will be performing in 45 minute segments with our assigned students. What we were all not used to, by any means, was the idea that we could teach to a whole class.

Dr. Smirnova arranged for us to work with a classroom of third-fourth graders, about 10 total, for an hour and a half. Dr. S broke our class into four groups and gave us lesson frames and examples of what she expected from us. But in reality, none of us knew what to truly expect until we were thrown into the classroom. Colleen, Mike and myself had an insider's peek at the process since we take Methods Social Studies on Mondays with Dr. Smirnova, but science is not social studies.

Therefore, the first group became our leading example. They grappled with this new set of demands and learned by failure and triumph to fulfill Dr. Smirnova's expectations.

And it was a lot.

The group provided excellent activities and the students truly loved every second of it. They loved being scientists and explorers, note takers and taste testers. The first group learned the hard way the standards that Dr. S sets are no joke. They is no gray are or maybe. There is only Dr. S. The first group learned exactly how to conduct a whole class instruction: Direct Lesson, Inquiry and then Cooperative. And within those three lesson is a world of detail. And we all know that the devil really is in the details.

I commend the first group for trying their hand at a difficult task and secretly thank them for all they taught me as I wrote down feverish notes.