There were many interesting things I noticed when we went to teach the sixth graders. The first is that it really helped to go earlier to film the other groups because I could see how that age group reacted to things. They really liked activities, movement, and hands on involvement. I think it would have been more helpful to our group if we would have had some sort of participation tool while we were doing the direct instruction part of our lesson. I really liked what the music group did. they gave the students little paper signs that had different types of emotions that come from music and the students got to hold up the sign of the emotion they felt from the music. the students loved it. I think it will be easier for me to teach when I know my students well and know how they react to certain things. then I can shape my lessons around what will engage the class best.

Another really interesting thing was that the girls of the sixth grade class were much more engaged than the boys. This was especially interesting to me because the activities we were doing were engineering activities which stereotypically are more appealing to boys. it was definitely apparent though that the girls were the fearless leaders. My group discussed this and reflected back on our early education. each of us agreed that this was contrary to what we remembered. We wondered if females being more interested and engaged in learning and creating is common in all age groups. It may have just been our teaching, or it could have just been this particular group of boys, but what if it is some sort of societal trend that boys feel like they are "cooler" or something if they aren't engaged. It would be interesting to study....