LOGBOOK TP1

Scroll down for TP2

 

Day 1 (1st of February 2021)

Social Justice (hour 5) - Kristi Ruggles

The class was very informal: students and teacher all sat at the same eye-level in a semi-circle and had a conversation about the topics of the lesson, which were suicide and gender identity.

What I really appreciated about this class is the familiarity teacher and students had, which made the debate feel natural and judgement-free. Such a relationship is vital in order to be able to discuss difficult matters such as those of this class.

Unfortunately, there were some technical issues, which we immediately reported, that prevented us from clearly hearing the debate. Therefore, for this first lesson, I do not have any more details. These technical issues were partially fixed in the next class (hour 6) and will hopefully be eliminated tomorrow by the school's IT department.

​

English (hour 6) - Kristi Ruggles and Taylor Warrenburg

The lesson started with the teacher reminding the students about the topic of the previous lesson (Animal Farm by George Orwell) and immediately afterwards an activity, to assess prior knowledge and engage the students. The activity had this instructions: "Who is this person and what role of leadership do they play in the Russian Revolution? Put the leaders in order from the least influencing to the most influencing". While students were doing the activity, the teachers walked around, monitoring them and discussing the topic. Kristi asked questions such as "You have __X__ as a leader. What do you know about him?" and if the student did not know how to answer, she would ask more questions, to elicit an answer either from that student or from his peers. 

After the activity Kristi gave a short lecture and, while speaking, she was constantly walking around the class, especially near the student who was not paying attention. 

Something I look forward to integrating into my teaching method is the way Kristi speaks and moves: she is extremely enthusiastic and engaging and this is crucial when giving lectures. Her voice volume is loud and clear, while her tone is varied and not monotonous at all; she smiles a lot and uses many exclamations and this makes the students feel clever and knowledgeable, even when they say something obvious. Lastly, she moves around a lot and, most importantly, her hand gestures are very wide. This keeps the students' focus on her and makes the lecture more interesting. I noticed that while explaining a topic, Kristi speaks slightly more slowly than she does when she has a normal conversation, even if her students are all English native speakers. This way, she can better separate words and integrate a varied voice tone, which would not be as effective if she spoke too fast.

The lesson ends with Kristi reading a chapter of the book to the class, while students follow on their own books.

​

Day 2 (2nd of February 2021)

Social Justice (hour 5) - Kristi Ruggles

The lesson started with a discussion about an article students had to read for homework. When a student asked a question, Kristi replied with "That's a really great question!" and elicited an answer from the other students by giving clues and asking other questions. The lesson continued with Kristi eliciting a debate by asking questions.

Like yesterday, Kristi sat at the same eye-level as the students, but this time not in a semi-circle: she sat at a desk positioned in the centre of the classroom, while the students' desks were in casual order, near the wall.

​

English (hour 6) - Kristi Ruggles and Taylor Warrenburg

This lesson was again about Animal Farm by George Orwell and how it relates to the Russian Revolution, with particular focus on the literary device called "allegory".

The teacher gave a lecture while walking around the class and using her voice and gestures in an effective way, just like she did yesterday.

Unfortunately, the technical issues were still a great obstacle and this made it very hard for us to understand more of this class. We will report this problem once more, hoping it will be fixed as soon as possible.

​

Day 3 (3rd of February 2021)

Social Justice (hour 5) - Kristi Ruggles

At the beginning of this lesson, Kristi made the students watch a very informative video about LGBTQ+ rights. After that she and the students had a debate about Stonewall riots, LGBTQ+ rights and students' experiences. They also mentioned the movement of Black Lives Matter while talking about rights.

All the students were very engaged in the discussion, so everyone shared their experiences and opinions, which were all in favour of the LGBTQ+ community. 

At the beginning of the debate, Kristi explained what happened during the Stonewall riots, in order to inform the students who were unfamiliar with such events, and shared her personal experience: she was in college when these took place and witnessed them firsthand.

The teacher sat among the students, so that there would be a friendly, judgement-free atmosphere. This technique really works, in my opinion, as I see the students interacting with Kristi as if she was one of them.

​

English (hour 6) - Kristi Ruggles and Taylor Warrenburg

To assess prior knowledge at the beginning of the lesson, Kristi had the students do two similar activities. The first one was to write on a piece of paper 3 words that described the characters in Chapter 1 of Animal Farm by George Orwell. Some students did it and some did not. The second activity was to write on the desks a 5-word summary of Chapter 2 and all students did it. This is because when they feel like they are doing something "forbidden", students are more motivated to take part in the activity. I definitely want to use this technique with my future students. 

The lesson continued with Kristi asking questions to the students so that they would start a debate about the topic of the lesson. At the sound of the bell, "reading time" started, so the students read one chapter of the book, while the teacher monitored them. This is because many of them have very low reading skills, therefore they need to practice in class in order to improve them.

​

Day 4 (4th of February 2021)

Social Justice (hour 5) - Kristi Ruggles

This class was identical to yesterday's class, just with different students.

At the beginning of this lesson, Kristi made the students watch a very informative video about LGBTQ+ rights. After that she and the students had a debate about Stonewall riots, LGBTQ+ rights and students' experiences. They also mentioned the movement of Black Lives Matter while talking about rights.

All the students were very engaged in the discussion, so everyone shared their experiences and opinions, which were all in favour of the LGBTQ+ community. 

At the beginning of the debate, Kristi explained what happened during the Stonewall riots, in order to inform the students who were unfamiliar with such events, and shared her personal experience: she was in college when these took place and witnessed them firsthand.

The teacher sat among the students, so that there would be a friendly, judgement-free atmosphere. This technique really works, in my opinion, as I see the students interacting with Kristi as if she was one of them.

​

English (hour 6) - Kristi Ruggles and Taylor Warrenburg

At the beginning of this class, Kristi did a recap on the concepts of "allegory", "propaganda", "satire" and on the characters of Animal Farm by George Orwell. After that, she divided the students into 3 groups and they logged in on Google Meet. Kristi created breakout groups, so that each intern could lead an activity with a few students. Kristi had provided us with a few questions we could ask the students in order to have a conversation about the book, but she told us we could ask more if we wanted to. I personally did this, since the students were not very talkative, in order to keep the conversation going.

​

​

Once I ran out of questions about the book, I decided to ask a couple of personal questions related to the topic, in order to make the students link it to their personal lives and hopefully find it more interesting as a consequence. For example, I asked them if they were ever in a situation in which someone used reverse psychology or told things in a very confusing way, in order to make someone else do what they wanted. In this occasion, as the students could not come up with anything, I suggested that maybe this could have happened with a sibling.

At this point, one of the students shared an anecdote about her brother. I tried my best to remember the names of the students, so that whenever I had to ask a question I could name them and make them feel important. If I really could not remember a name, I would apologize and ask the student to kindly repeat it for me. 

After 15 minutes Kristi came back and told me and the students that we could return to the main room.

At this point, Kristi lead an activity in which students had to guess the corresponding allegory of each character. For example, Old Major the Pig is the allegory of Karl Marx.

Kristi would ask question and students would answer out

loud, providing evidence and opinions on the significance. 

At the end of the class, Kristi reminded the students to read 

Chapter 4 for the next lesson.

Kristi's method is still the same effective method as always:

she speaks loudly and a bit more slowly than usual, she

walks around the class and makes great use of hand gestures and posture. She treats her students in a very friendly manner and makes them feel clever and valued. During the activity I lead, I tried to imitate Kristi's way of speaking. Since I find it really pleasant and effective, I thought this would be the perfect occasion to integrate it into my teaching method, as students are already familiar with it.

​

Day 5 (5th of February 2021)

Social Justice (hour 5) - Kristi Ruggles 

At the beginning of this class, Kristi showed the students some slides of a powerpoint about LGBTQ+ historical development. Afterwards, she had each of them log into Google Meet, so that they could have an individual conversation with one of us interns. I personally had a conversation with a girl about coming out and we tried to find different ways in which her friend, who is still inside the closet, could tell his religious, conservative parents about his sexual orientation. This was really inspiring and a good way to bond with one of the students, which is something I value a lot. The next stage of the lesson consisted of sharing with Kristi what we had talked about.

​

English (hour 6) - Kristi Ruggles and Taylor Warrenburg

Just like yesterday, at the beginning of this class, Kristi did a recap on the concepts of "allegory", "propaganda", "satire" and on the characters of Animal Farm by George Orwell. After that, she divided the students into 3 groups and they logged in on Google Meet. Kristi created breakout groups, so that each intern could lead an activity with a few students. Kristi had provided us with a few questions we could ask the students in order to have a conversation about the book, but she told us we could ask more if we wanted to. My group was even less talkative than yesterday's group, so after trying multiple times to ask questions related to Chapter 3, I ended up explaining the story to the students and asking them about their opinions and real life experiences related to the topics. Unfortunately, they would answer with "yes", "no" or "I don't know" even when I asked them personal questions such as anecdotes about their siblings. Therefore it was really hard to work with this group and I admit that at the end of the activity I was not as satisfied as yesterday, because despite doing my best, this time I could not get the students to talk to me. I understand this can happen, because they may be shy and afraid of judgement, but as a future teacher it is my dream to be able to make students trust me, at least during a personal conversation, and this time it felt like I had failed. For this reason, I asked Kristi for some advice on how to deal with disengaged students and how to bond with them as a class and as individuals. She gave me some examples of things she does, such as hanging pictures and decoration related to her personal life around the classroom, so that students get curious and ask her about them; having background knowledge of each student and allowing them to misbehave when something negative happens in their personal life; taking a walk around the school building with a student who behaves in an unusual way and letting him/her decide whether to talk to her about it or just walk in silence; etc... This was very inspiring and I look forward to learning more from Kristi.

The next stage of the lesson, like yesterday, was an activity in which students had to guess the corresponding allegory of each character. For example, Old Major the Pig is the allegory of Karl Marx.

​

Day 6 (8th of February 2021)

Social Justice (hour 5) - Kristi Ruggles 

The topic of today's class was again LGBTQ+ historical development, so after showing a video to the students, Kristi created breakout groups on Google Meet and I had a conversation about the topic and personal experiences related to it with a student. This time, unfortunately, the conversation did not go as well as on Friday with the other student, because somehow it became pretty awkward and at times unprofessional. The reason why this happened is that the student talked in a way that it was very hard for me to see her as a student, but I saw her more as a peer: in fact she seemed much older than her actual age in the way she spoke and thought. I believe the student had no problem with this, but I personally felt uncomfortable and I will make sure this does not happen again. From this experience I learned that I need to pay more attention to who I am talking to and what I should or should not say in different situations, because some topics are more delicate than others and might jeopardize my image as a teacher if the student is not as open-minded as the one I talked to today. The next stage of the lesson was to share ideas from the conversations with Kristi.

​

English (hour 6) - Kristi Ruggles and Taylor Warrenburg

This class consisted of a written test about George Orwell's book, Animal Farm, in order for Kristi to assess their knowledge and see if they have actually been reading. During the test Kristi and Taylor monitored the students by walking around the desks. After the test Kristi lets the students choose the method of correction. The next stage of this lesson was Kristi summarizing the main characteristics of each character of the book, giving them a personality using her voice and hands. Subsequently she read a chapter of the book out loud, to the class.

​

Day 7 (9th of February 2021)

Social Justice (hour 5) - Kristi Ruggles 

This class started with Kristi talking to the students about gay marriage and acceptance. She asked us how it is in Europe, so Mitchell answered that in the Netherlands gay marriage was approved in 2015 and gay adoption process is pretty easy as well. At this point, Kristi and the students all agreed that Europe is further than America from this point of view. After this, we were put in breakout groups, each one of us with a different student and we read children's books. The stories were very inclusive of the LGBTQ+ community and the one I liked the most was Prince & Knight by Daniel Haack and Stevie Lewis. The story was about a prince and a knight falling in love with each other and the thing that I appreciated the most was the fact that their families saw it as a normal thing and immediately organized the wedding, just like if it was a heterosexual couple. Therefore, there was absolutely no negativity in the story related to the fact that this was a gay couple and I think this would be a "must read" book for every single child in the world, in order to shape a new generation that sees this as a natural thing. The student and I both loved the book and agreed that it should be read by everyone. Afterwards, since we had some time left, I told the student to take another book, so we read Mommy, Mama, and Me by Leslēa Newman and Carol Thompson. This book was also nice, but not as much as the other one, because there was not much of a story with action and a plot twist, but it was just a description of an ordinary day for a family with two mums. 

​

English (hour 6) - Kristi Ruggles and Taylor Warrenburg

This class was a do-over of yesterday's class. It consisted of a written test about George Orwell's book, Animal Farm, in order for Kristi to assess their knowledge and see if they have actually been reading. During the test Kristi and Taylor monitored the students by walking around the desks. After the test Kristi lets the students choose the method of correction. The next stage of this lesson was Kristi summarizing the main characteristics of each character of the book, giving them a personality using her voice and hands. Subsequently she read a chapter of the book out loud, to the class.

​

Day 8 (10th of February 2021)

Social Justice (hour 5) - Kristi Ruggles 

After this, we were put in breakout groups, each one of us with a different student and we read children's books. This time I was in a breakout group with two students and we read Love makes a family by Sophie Beer. This book was very inclusive, as it pictures many different types of families who all love each other, such as families with gay parents, single parents, interracial parents, etc... After reading this, I told the students to take King & Knight by Daniel Haack and Stevie Lewis, because it was really worth reading and they liked it a lot, indeed.

​

English (hour 6) - Kristi Ruggles and Taylor Warrenburg

This class began with Kristi having the students fill out a survey. After that she immediately put us in breakout groups and we discussed Chapter 4 and 5 of Animal Farm by George Orwell using the questions she had provided.

​

​

​

​

The students in my group had clearly read the book and were pretty engaged, but also wanted to get this over with as soon as possible. This resulted in some awkward silence at the end of the activity, since the other groups were not done yet. Therefore I started asking the students to tell me what their favourite event of the book is so far and who their favourite character is and why. Then Kristi came to check in on us and asked us to discuss the allegory of the character Snowball. Unfortunately I personally did not know the answer, so I took advantage of the time the students were taking to think and I googled it. Luckily, in the meantime, Taylor arrived and gave them a  short explanation, which I listened to as well. From this experience, I learned that I must always be extra prepared before teaching a class, which is something I already knew, but did not actually put into practice apparently. 

The next stage of the lesson was, as always, sharing with Kristi the answers and findings.

Kristi praised the students very often and made them feel good about their work.

​

Day 9 (11th of February 2021)

Social Justice (hour 5) - Kristi Ruggles 

The class started with Kristi discussing the topic with the students while sitting among them. Afterwards she gave them a task and monitored them while they carried it out. Then Kristi allowed the students to ask us questions, which were mainly funny questions. It was really nice bonding with the students in this way.

​

English (hour 6) - Kristi Ruggles and Taylor Warrenburg

This class was a do-over of yesterday's class, but with different students. It began with Kristi putting us in breakout groups so that we could discuss Chapter 4 and 5 of Animal Farm by George Orwell using the questions she had provided. I had two girls, both very nice, but one of the two did not know much of the book and the other one had all the answers already written down. Therefore, it was a little hard to have them think about the questions and have an interesting conversation about the book. I also tried to explain the allegory of Snowball, since I did not know it yesterday, but I did not feel comfortable with the topic and the students did not have a clue about it either. From this, I deduce they either did not listen in class or Kristi has never mentioned it at all. 

Overall, though, I am satisfied with this activity. After this, we all went back to the main classroom and, in order to engage the students - who were displaying a very lazy behaviour -, Kristi started joking about the slogan of the book "Napoleon is always right" by singing "Warrenburg and Ruggles are always right!", clapping and jumping. 

This was amazing and I definitely want to integrate it to my teaching method. She never loses hope and always finds new ways to catch students' attention.

​

Day 10 (12th of February 2021) - Last day 

Social Justice (hour 5) - Kristi Ruggles 

We did not attend Social Justice because Kristi forgot to inform us about the schedule change. This, however, was not an issue, as the students had to work on a survey individually anyways.

​

English (hour 6) - Kristi Ruggles and Taylor Warrenburg

This class was a hybrid lesson: students were joining online from home, while Kristi and Taylor were joining online from the school. They gave the students a worksheet to fill out, but the kids were not engaged at all and they were mainly doing other things, such as playing videogames or being on their phones. Kristi and Taylor constantly reminded them to do their homework and to submit it before the deadline, but most students were not even reacting or looking at the computer when she was addressing them. This was very disrespectful and I feel bad for the teachers because there was nothing else they could do in this situation. Despite this, they did not lose their enthusiasm and kept joking with the students and doing small talk with us interns and at times with the kids as well. Some students told us they really enjoyed these two weeks with us and that we will be great teachers. 

 

Conclusions

After two weeks of online teaching practice, I have come to the conclusion that I would definitely like to work on my rapport with introvert students and learn more about different cultures in order to always be appropriate when talking to kids from different countries. As for teaching my own subject, I need to broaden my knowledge of English history and literature, as this is a huge part of my subject field and I do not have much knowledge of it just yet. I also realize my technological skills are limited, as I already mentioned in my SMARTI goals, so I would like to keep working on this factor, in order to always be up-to-date, especially now that technology is being used more and more in the educational setting. I am quite satisfied with my communication with my mentor teacher, but I still need to discover my communication skills with students, as I have not had the chance to do so yet. I am, however, confident that this will not be a challenge for me personally, as I really value communication with my colleagues, teachers and therefore students as well. Lastly, writing a Logbook was a great opportunity for me to keep track of my progress during TP1 and I believe my reflection skills are pretty good: in fact, while observing classes I can easily notice things I want to integrate into my own teaching style and I am capable of understanding what went well and what went wrong during my own experiences doing activities with students. All in all, I am satisfied with TP1 and I hope I can learn even more during TP2, now that I know what I want to keep focussing on.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________

LOGBOOK TP2

Day 1 (19th of April 2021)

Social Justice (hour 5) - Kristi Ruggles

Students sit in horseshoe position, with Kristi among them. She introduces topics of Genocide and Native American Boarding School and gives a handout to each students that has some questions to review the article they read as homework. She asks students if they read it and some did not, but that was required for these follow-up questions. Kristi tells them to try anyway and just read it for the next lesson. While students answer questions, Kristi walks around and monitors them. After that I had some connection problems and when I rejoined, Kristi was discussing the topic with the students. I suppose she was asking them to share their answers. Then she asked them to share their thoughts and personal opinions.

​

English (hour 6) - Kristi Ruggles & Taylor Warrenburg

The topic of the day is writing an essay, with particular focus on the thesis statement. Kristi shares a document to fill in on the board and she lets students give the answers and make up a thesis statement. Students are engaged and interested. After that, Kristi creates three breakout rooms, each with one student and one of us interns, so we can investigate on their prior knowledge and the topic of their essay. 

​

Day 2 (20th of April 2021)

Today everything was exactly the same as yesterday, just with different groups of students.

​

Day 3 (21st of April 2021)

Social Justice (hour 5) - Kristi Ruggles

Today I had to lead a class discussion on the Trail of Tears. I started the lesson by showing the students a video and then asked them questions I had prepared in advance. I decided to start with the video in order to generate interest and some mystery, as the students did not know what the lesson would be about. Despite receiving positive feedback on it, I am not satisfied with this lesson because many students were not engaged and did not answer my questions that should have led to a class discussion. Kristi tried to engage the students by directing some questions to specific persons, but this was also quite unsuccessful, so at one point even she "gave up" on it.

After class Kristi gave me tips on how to improve the activity, but this experience discouraged me, so I preferred not to do it again tomorrow, despite the tips. This is because I do not feel competent enough when it comes to delicate topics as I am always afraid to accidentally say something wrong that may sound racist or insensitive.

​

​

​

​

​

​

English (hour 6) - Kristi Ruggles and Taylor Warrenburg

Kristi​ gave the students time to work on their essays, so she told us to enjoy some free time.

​

Day 4 (22nd of April 2021)

Social Justice (hour 5) - Kristi Ruggles

I decided not to teach again, so Kristi did it, using the improved version of my lesson materials, so I could observe.

This is what Kristi planned:

1. Fill out the KWL chart in the document. The students will have the document in their Google Classroom. They only need to fill out the K-Know section and W-What questions. These two parts will be around the Indian Removal Act (Trail of Tears). 

2. Analyze the map. Ask any questions in their KWL chart.

3. Read background information below the map.

4. Watch the video.

5. Fill out the L part of the chart. What did you LEARN?

6. Discuss what they Learned, what questions they had (we can try to answer), and then fill out and discuss the discussion questions on the document. 

English (hour 6) - Kristi Ruggles and Taylor Warrenburg

Mitchell taught a class on Essay Introduction. We prepared this lesson together and tomorrow I will teach it to another class. Even though Mitchell's computer disconnected twice during the lesson, the students staid engaged and waited for him patiently. Once he returned, Sean and I closed our cameras, hoping it would help his connection. Mitchell's lesson went well and, while explaining how to write an introduction paragraph, he used a funny example that hyped the students' interest: an essay about pineapple on pizza! At the end of the lesson, the students got a handout made by Sean and then worked on their introduction paragraph.

​

Day 5 (23rd of April 2021)

Social Justice (hour 5) - Kristi Ruggles

Mitchell and Felix taught Holocaust: German, Hungarian and Dutch perspective. It was really informative and interesting and the students got the chance to discuss their opinions and feelings. I liked that Mitchell and Felix asked the students about their opinions and experiences, so that they could actively participate in this class.

​

English (hour 6) - Kristi Ruggles and Taylor Warrenburg

Today I taught Essay Introduction. I felt really confident as English is the subject I love teaching and in which I feel competent. The lesson went very well and even if I initially forgot to teach the final part on the thesis statement, Kristi told me there was no need, as the students had already gotten a lecture on that topic by Kristi herself.

​

​

​

​

​

​

 

Day 6 (26th of April 2021)

Social Justice (hour 5) - Kristi Ruggles

Mitchell and Felix, again, taught the Holocaust: German, Hungarian and Dutch perspective. Just like last time, the lesson was very insightful and the students got to participate a lot and again I liked that Mitchell and Felix asked the students about their opinions and experiences, so that they could actively participate in this class.

​

English (hour 6) - Kristi Ruggles and Taylor Warrenburg

Today I taught Essay Conclusion. Mitchell will teach the same lesson tomorrow to the other group of students, as we prepared it together. This class went very well in my opinion and, in order to keep the students engaged, I asked them questions such as "what does this mean?", before explaining the concept. After this presentation, Kristi put me in a breakout group with a student, who could not attend the class on Essay Introduction. This student was a bit lazy, so I tried to keep him engaged by asking him many questions. This strategy worked pretty well.

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

Day 7 (27th of April 2021)

Social Justice (hour 5) - Kristi Ruggles

Today's class was taught by Sean, who used an online tool called MENTI and often referred to previous topics the students have already encountered, such as the holocaust. I liked that he asked many open questions to keep the students engaged. After a presentation of about 20 minutes, Sean had the students fill in a Google document, while Kristi monitored them. Once the students were done, Sean went over what they had filled in. I liked this method, but during the writing assignment there were many long moments of silence, in which Sean could monitor the students by reading what they were typing in real time. This is effective for monitoring, but  I am going to suggest that he asks some questions every now and then, just to make sure the students are not having any difficulties and to remind them of the presence of the teacher, as they could easily get distracted or sleepy.

​

English (hour 6) - Kristi Ruggles and Taylor Warrenburg

Mitchell taught a lesson on Essay Conclusion that we had prepared together in advance. He also briefly went over the introduction and thesis again as some students were missing in my class. In fact, when I taught this class there were only 8 students, while today there were 12. Just like last time, he did pretty well and this time he managed to record himself without being kicked out of the call.

​

Day 8 (28th of April 2021)

Social Justice (hour 5) - Kristi Ruggles

Sean teaches again. His microphone is good at picking up very quiet sounds, even his breathing. We joked about it during the lesson and it eventually became an inside joke among us three. Thanks to this internship in fact, Mitchell and I -who have been friends since the first day of university- have had the chance to bond with Sean. We often share funny pictures and stories in our group chat, as well as helping each other out in case of doubts related to homework, exams or schedules. I am really glad I got to bond with Sean, as my first impression of him had been a little bit negative: during my microteaching lesson in Q1, he did not want to participate and acted kind of like the stereotypical teenager I would normally encounter in a real-life situation. I do not know if he did this on purpose to challenge me or if he just did not feel like it, but I eventually managed to make him do the exercise I had prepared. For months I thought he was lazy and unfriendly, but during the internship I had the chance to completely change my mind about him: I found out that he is a very clever person and a great teacher as well, who is also able to create a special bond with his students and colleagues.

 

English (hour 6) - Kristi Ruggles and Taylor Warrenburg

The students work on their essays: they combine their mel-cons with their introduction and conclusion paragraphs. Kristi reminds them about the existence of Grammarly to avoid common mistakes. She also keeps examples of referencing and citations on the big screen, so that students can see how to do that. Both Kristi and Taylor walk around the class checking on students and helping them when necessary. Whenever Kristi sees someone with their head down, she kindly tells them not to do that or ask how things are going.

​

Day 9 (29th of April 2021)

Social Justice (hour 5) - Kristi Ruggles

Douwe teached a lesson  on the gulag system. He is not originally in our group, but just like Felix he has Kristi as his mentor teacher too.  He started off with a short introduction as the students had not seen him before. At the beginning of his lesson, he introduced the book he got most information from and what inspired him to do this lesson. Towards the end of his class, he asked the students to go into groups and discuss the quote he introduced earlier in his lesson. Mitchell, Sean and I joined a breakout group each and in all honesty I was not very happy about it because I know nothing about this topic. Luckily I managed to do the activity Douwe wanted us to do by improvising. He was in my breakout group the entire time, just observing. He told me I did very well, so I am happy.

​

English (hour 6) - Kristi Ruggles and Taylor Warrenburg

Same class as yesterday, in which students had time to work on their essays. Kristi offered some students to go into breakout rooms with us. I helped a student who has a learning disability with her essay. I believe Kristi chose me to deal with this student because of my kind and extremely patient approach. She was indeed a challenging student, as I had to repeat myself many times before she would actually listen, but I never lost my temper or motivation, as I understood the situation.

​

Day 10 (30th of April 2021)

Social Justice (hour 5) - Kristi Ruggles

Douwe teached the same lesson as yesterday. There were only four students and, as this was our last day, at the end we had an open class discussion, rather than breakout groups.

​

English (hour 6) - Kristi Ruggles and Taylor Warrenburg

Kristi started this class by explaining the learning objectives of the course to the students. Afterwards she gave them time to work on their essays, while Kristi monitored them, as usual, and at the end of the class we went into breakout groups with the students who needed help or feedback.

​

​