GEHS Spirit Week

This week GEHS is celebrating spirit week and our Exploring Teaching class has been participating each day by dressing up.

PJ Day

Cow(girl) Day

Orange for National Bullying Prevention Month

Abnormal Formal

"You're the Teacher" Highlights Day 3

Our focus this week has been on Educational Theories.

     Sierra, Erika and Sabryna taught a great lesson over Benjamin Bloom and his Taxonomy. Students completed a Taxonomy graphic organizer to better understand the different domains and possible student products to implement in their classroom.

            Stefani, Sam and Caitlyn covered B.F. Skinner and Operant Conditioning. They utilized a youtube clip showing his experiment and how it can be applied to dogs and humans. They had students draw a reinforcement and punishment they may use in their classroom one day.

            Tristan, Shelby and Tyler created a lesson over Lev Vygtosky and his Zone of Proximal Development. They created a crossword puzzle using an online crossword puzzle maker to help students learn vocabulary and concepts from this theory.

            Cassie, Casey and Jordan presented a lesson over Erik Erikson. They utilized a graphic organizer chart that students were required to fill out while presenting their lecture. This group also had student’s complete a journal reflection over their own development and passed out a quiz for students to take.

            Sadie, Ashley and Catie worked together on Arnold Gesell’s Theory. They created a powerpoint with fill in the blanks over the major components of his theory.  Students were asked to draw their own dream world or something they fear to relate to his Gradients of Growth.

            This has been a wonderful experience for students they were required to complete a lesson plan, develop objectives, teach a lesson and reflect on how their lesson went.

“A Box of Crayons”: Bully Prevention

Sabryna Anderson constructed our anti-bullying door decoration today. 301’s new door decoration reminds everyone to be respectful, kind and accepting of differences during anti-bullying prevention month. Sabryna had assistance from Tyler Sonneveldt-Gragg who wrote the poem and created the boy on the crayon box and Jordan Krenger who assisted in hanging the bulletin board for everyone in the school to see.

The poem on the crayons is listed below.

Wouldn’t it be terrible? Wouldn’t it be sad? If just one single color was the color that we had? If everything was purple? Or red? Or Blue? Or green? If yellow, pink or orange was all that could be seen? Can you imagine how dull the world would be if just one single color was all that we could see?

"You're the Teacher" Highlights

Happy Friday!

            Students began assuming the role of a teacher today when two of our teaching groups taught their lesson over one of the educational theorists. Alex, Jacklyn, and Lori presented over Jean Piaget and included a great video on his stages of cognitive development in their lesson.

          Alexis, Kaylee and Madison taught a lesson on Albert Bandura and Social Learning Theory. They had students in the class name and illustrate their very own Bobo doll as one of their activities. Check out Exploring Teaching’s creative ideas below.



Exploring Teaching Student's replacing their faces with Bobo Dolls

Kindness is Growing

Exploring Teaching Students are joining in our Kindessgrows campaign. Sabryna Anderson is in the process of designing 301’s new door decoration, “A Box of Crayons” to prevent bullying.

Students are also using social media in a positive way! Check out some of our classes' tweets below:

Being a teacher in training is tough but so worth it! #kindnessgrows @ExploringTeachi

The Grinch's heart is two sizes too small, give a compliment to one and all and watch his heart grow big and tall! #kindnessgrows

I adore this class and I will miss having 1&2 block with all of them next semester! <3 @ExploringTeachi #kindnessgrows

@exploringteachi don't set goals, you can reach higher than that.  #kindnessgrows

Make sure to follow @exploringteachi and #kindnessgrows to participate in our anti-bulling campaign by making October a month of kindness.

"You're the Teacher" Theories

Today kicked off our 5^th unit in Exploring Teaching: Educational Theories. This unit takes a different approach and requires students in the class to become the teacher.

Students were assigned to random groups based on their birthday and will be working together to create a develop a lesson plan, handout, activity, assessment strategy and then teach their 15 minute lesson to the class Friday, Tuesday and Wednesday next week.

            Student projects are over the following educational theorists:

·         Maria Montessori

·         Arnold Gesell

·         Lev Vygotsky

·         Benjamin Bloom

·         B.F. Skinner

·         Howard Gardner

·         John Dewey

·         Jean Piaget

·         Robert Coles

·         Erik Erikson

·         Albert Bandura

Groups were able to choose a theorist and began research and planning the lesson activities today. Students' also gained experience writing learning objectives and completing the USD 231 district lesson plan template for their lesson.

Stay tuned for pictures and highlights from our student taught lessons.

National Bullying Prevention Month Positivity Campaign

Today Exploring Teaching kicked off “National Bullying Prevention Month” by discussing school safety and ways to incorporate bullying prevention in the classroom.
            We began by using “Poll Everywhere” a free online polling website that allows students to anonymously text in answers to questions and will create a woordle, web box, chart of graph with students answers.
            We discussed instructional strategies students can use in their future classrooms as well as practices they can use in their everyday life to stop and prevent bullying.

            Our class will be participating in a compliment campaign this month. Students will write compliments to other students each day, creating a chain of positivity in our classroom community. Each student will be given their final completed chain on Halloween to take home. This instructional strategy will help create a positive learning environment and demonstrate how learning can take place over many days.

            Students are also encouraged to begin using social media positively. We have a bulletin board in our classroom and a twitter count students can tweet compliments at with the hashtag #kindness grows. This interactive opportunity models how students can incorporate social media into the classroom.

Our twitter campaign and bulletin board is based on “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” and its tag line is “The Grinch may have a heart that is two sizes to small… Give a compliment to one and all… and watch his heart grow big and tall!”  Student's can give compliments 4 ways:

1. In person when they see someone showing kindness or doing anything worthy of praise

2. Writing a chain link for someone's compliment chain

3. Pinning a new heart to the Grinch with a compliment 

4. Tweeting out the compliment @exploringteachi #kindnessgrows

Stay tuned to see the impact out #kindnessgrows camping has during the month of October.