learn to teach, teach to learn.

One of the most important things you can take away from field work is what the students teach you. Although the position of the teacher is to teach, we often times are also the learners. Personally, I learned a lot for this group of students during field work. I will definitely take into consideration their comments, and suggestions.
One thing I learned is kids do not like voki's. Voki's are interactive cartoon characters that you can create using a variety of different characters, backgrounds, voices, and have them speak whatever words you choose. Maybe younger students will think they are funny and engaging, but at the fifth grade level, they are seen as annoying, weird, and dumb. As every group did, upon request, we used a voki in our lesson plan. Our voki was "mother nature". This character expressed her concern for fracking on our environment, and asked the class for help. We presented our voki as the "problem" in our inquiry part of the lesson. "Mother Nature Voki"

Aside from voki, the students seemed to like using QR codes and kahoot. Teachers can use both as a form of assessment, as my group did.

QR codes can be useful as an activity that asked students to get up and move, research pre chosen websites, and complete independent practice. These codes can also be used as a form of assessment. We handed each student a QR code and an iPad to scan it with. Each student was either given a question or an answer. Their job was to find the student that matched there question or answer. The pair that match would then be partners for a cooperative lesson plan activity.

Kahoot is a fun, competitive way for students to participate in an informal assessment. Teachers can create their own questions and answers. Students are required to answer the questions in the allotted time. After the students answers are submitted,  correct answer is revealed to allow for immediate feedback which is key to learning.