An Educational Adventure in Prague

This week was the Prague Pursuit!!  It was so much fun.  Sara and I were on a team with our friends Bradley and Katharine, who helped us trek through the cobblestone streets and read street signs from miraculously far distances.  The night before, our other friends, Marc, Koki, and Brittany, helped us try and decipher all of the clues to figure out where to go and what to look for; I could not have survived the Prague Pursuit without all of these awesome people helping me.  The only clue that we couldn’t crack Tuesday night was the Big One, the one worth 15 points.  To figure it out, we had to answer review question on things we had covered in our education class.  Let’s just say I have a lot of studying to do before our exam next Thursday.  I was able to help with some of the other clues we had though, from acronym decoding to visual puzzles and riddles.  I found it really interesting how I could sit there staring at a problem for ten minutes making no progress, and then Marc or one of my other friends would take a quick look at it and instantly get a lead or figure out all together – or vice versa.  It really made me realize how differently people look at things when they are presented with some sort of puzzle or problem that they have to solve.  I’m not going to lie, Google search was our number one way of figuring a lot of the clues out, but some of the others we surprisingly figured out from random bits of knowledge we had or from prior exposure.  For example, one of the problems asked us to go find a statue of a man who was a “building block” for Czechoslovakia, while keeping in mind that ATOMS are building blocks in nature.  Remembering that we had seen the statue of the first President of Czechoslovakia the day before in my English class outside of Prague castle, I was able to figure out that his first name was Tomas, fitting the clue.  Once again, my previous experiences helped me figure out what to do in a new circumstance.  One thing I know for sure is that the Prague Pursuit will provide me ample experiences that I will be able to draw from in the future, whether it be how to eat a cheeseburger from McDonalds in less than three minutes or how to survive walking on cobblestone streets for over six hours.

Molly.

This week Sara and I got to teach a sixth grade class about adverbs! It was a really great experience – the kids were respectful and creative, and the school was beautiful. I was nervous about teaching English, being a Math major and all, but it worked out really well. First, we introduced ourselves to the class using a PowerPoint that included pictures and information about where we were from and what we liked. This was probably my favorite part of our lesson because it allowed us to get to know the students and also tell them what it was like to live in the United States. After introducing who we were, we moved on to introducing adverbs. I attempted to act out how a person could walk quickly/slowly or dance silly/fast/slowly so that the kids could hopefully understand through example if they weren’t able to completely understand what we were saying. After dividing the class into three groups, Sara and I asked them to come up with sentences using a list of adverbs we provided them with on the board. We went around and helped each group with the adverbs they were struggling with, allowing us to interact with the students on a much more personal level.

One of the things we’ve been discussing a lot in class lately is behavior – both with the theory of behaviorism as well as social cognitive learning. I was easily able to observe through the behavior of the students in our class that in general, teachers here in the Czech Republic are treated with much more respect than those in the United States. All of the kids are very polite and orderly, but still allow their personalities to be a component of the lessons. I truly felt like all of the students were paying attention during the entirety of our lesson, and I never had to ask more than once for a volunteer. Having stepped in to teach a lesson or two in a regular North Carolina high school and middle school class, I know that kids don’t always take student teachers that seriously or see them as a teacher at all – this is definitely not the case here in Prague. This variance in levels of respect is something that could possibly create a cultural mismatch if it was a teacher coming from the Czech Republic to America, but I feel that because the level of respect increases when moving from America to the Czech Republic that this is not necessarily a cultural mismatch as much as it is an improvement. It was very easy for me to adapt to teaching a class of well-behaved and courteous sixth graders.

In the spirit of adverbs, not only has my stay in Prague pleasantly played out, but my classroom experiences have easily been the most pleasant part of all.

Molly.

This week, Jessica and I taught a 45 minute social studies lesson to 5th graders at a school in downtown Prague. It was quite an experience for me as I’ve never taught in an elementary classroom setting before and not only that, but the students all spoke Czech as their first language. We had just completed readings about differences between students, and particularly Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences. As we were interacting with the students as a class and in small groups I found myself noticing different personalities and picking up on subtle proficiencies that the students exhibited during the lesson. Some of the students spoke English very well, some were eager to answer questions, and others helped the students understand the questions we asked and form answers. I’m glad I was able to bring this knowledge with me to this teaching experience and I look forward to making more informed observations during the lesson Molly and Sarah teach this week at a middle school.

After the teaching session, we took a train to Kutna Hora to visit the Sedlec Ossuary and to complete an exercise exploring the creation and use of memory aids in teaching. We created mnemonics, rhymes, and visual and number associations to help someone remember facts about the town and the church. In a related discussion in class we went into more detail about learning habits and how personal preference and ability affects the ways people retain information that they try to learn. It was fascinating to reflect on my own learning habits through my years as a student and my responses to the Kutna Hora exercise because as a grad student, I have taken fewer exams than I did as an undergraduate, which I associate with study habits like making mnemonics or rhymes. I realized, though, that I have been making more visual connections while I complete readings and research which helps as I recall information to write papers and participate in discussions. Memorization isn’t as important as understanding  larger concepts and their organizational structure when generating an argument or elaborating on something. I do have an exam in my Film class this coming week, though, so I expect to be trying out my mnemonic skills again soon!

This week in Praha we were able to visit the Bee Institute.  I went to Bug Camp for three years when I was in elementary and middle school, so I was especially excited to get to see what they did at a school built solely for studying honey bees and their activities in the hives.  One of the things we touched on in class at the Prague Institute this week was the different styles of learning, and how to accommodate these various styles when teaching.  I feel that the guide we had at the Bee Institute implemented almost every possible style when giving us the tour, ensuring a more fulfilling and engaging experience.  The main way he shared information with us was of course through speech, or auditory methods, telling us in great detail the who/what/when/why/how of bee farming.  We also were given many chances to use visual learning whenever the guide took out different pieces of the bee hive and showed us the various kinds of bees, letting us see for ourselves what tasks they performed as part of their assigned roles within the hive. 

The tour got even better when he let us stick our finger in the honey comb and taste the honey ourselves, allowing us to learn kinesthetically as well.  I have to take a second and say that this was by far the best honey I have ever eaten.  It was so cool to be able to taste the honey after seeing how it was made, where it was made, and who it was made by.  Our guide continued to encourage this hands-on approach when we got to the honey centrifuge, where after inserting one of the combs full of honey, we were able to turn a lever and watch the honey sling out of the comb all over the inside of the barrel.  As soon as all the honey ran to the bottom of the barrel, he showed us that by simply lifting a small lever we could release a stream of honey, just like a faucet.  We were then given some bread and got to have a delicious (and messy) snack – now I fully understand the motivation behind Winnie-the-Pooh’s never-ending quest.

The guide also showed us by example the processes involved in the artificial insemination of a queen bee.  While he carried out these processes, we were able to awkwardly watch a television screen that was hooked up to the microscope he was looking through.  Knowing that we were seeing the exact image that he was seeing was both fascinating and made us feel like we were involved as well.

And this is where I’ll take a second to say that we then got to go to his shed house and play with the cutest baby kittens I’ve ever seen.

Not only did our guide provide us with tasty honey and bread, he also provided us with multiple ways in which to learn the procedures they use in the process of farming such tasty honey.  As a teacher I will have to be just as prepared for my students, giving each a way to learn that is accessible to their personal learning style.  Doing so will allow me to hopefully provide my students with a learning experience as enjoyable as the one I experienced this week, giving them a chance to make stronger connections and to have a higher cognitive understanding.  And on top of that, I now know that the key to motivating my students is to give them  honey and kittens. 

Molly.