Blog 8: Final Reflection

Our essential question was: How can one foster a positive learning environment for language education? Our initial project design objectives were strong and stayed present throughout our experience. Our objectives were that we wanted to learn how to assemble lessons for younger students, how to support mentees, and refresh my foundations in the French language. They were fairly achievable and I am happy to say that I feel we did achieve most of them. Our mentorship with Mr. Nyborg was solid, and I could reach out to him in the future if I wanted to reconnect with him for career purposes. Though, I feel there might have been some times in which I was doing something beyond my abilities as a teaching assistant such as writing the course description for final comments. It was really interesting to be able to get a glimpse behind the scenes and see how grading works at the school, but I had only been there for about two weeks and did not have a gauge on what they had been learning all year. Still, I enjoyed working with him throughout our project. My engagement stayed strong throughout the project as we stayed decently busy throughout the day. I feel like Rithika and I did not get to actually teach the class material apart from leading activities. By the time we got there, the kids were already in summer mode and had very little time left in the year. If our project had occurred earlier in the year, we would have been able to teach them more, but we learned quickly that our responsibilities laid in cementing their pre-existing skills through practice and engaging activities. I learned that interactive activities foster the most effective learning environment as opposed to a more lecture-based learning style. This lecture-based style is what the students were previously used to, so the introduction of experimental learning seemed to have a positive effect on their ambition and their approach to French learning. For example, some experimental learning activities that we did with them were a scavenger hunt, French media, French culture immersion, Kahoot, skits, team games, and more. I learned about the traditional responsibilities of a teacher and how to better interact with younger peers. My advice to anyone planning a project is to plan way in advance and start communication sooner than you think you need it and make sure you are working with someone you know you collaborate well with. My most important takeaway is probably that I would in fact be interested in teaching in the future, maybe not as an MS teacher, but definitely as an educator of some sort as a backup career option. I want to thank Mr. Nyborg for his agreement and his help throughout the project and Hawken Middle School students and faculty for being so accepting of our presence. 

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/15EgTmdj3GVUOhwwpflpoxkdlCCMPj_qHxC1-pHXlzms/edit#slide=id.g130ca7ffc49_0_55

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