Lesson Plan 

My experience at Wellington was interesting yet informative. For example, this was the most right-leaning school I have taught at yet, as well as one of the farthest commutes I have traversed. Nevertheless, this was an informative experience where I learned a lot about the teaching world. Wellington Middle High is not even 1 year old, meaning that there was a lot of new equipment and student/teacher dynamic. Initially, we were supposed to use the 3-d clay printer. However, because there was nobody who knew how to operate it, we did not utilize it. This caused us to delay lesson planning because we were unsure of what technology we were going to use and learn how to use. Eventually, we settled on using the 3-D printers because there were people who knew how to use it/teach us. We spent another few days learning how to 3-D print and use its software while coming up with a lesson plan. Eventually, we decided on a lesson that involved students creating their own house on Tinkercad (a 3-d printing program) as well as designing their own environment using clay. When we arrived at the school, we had to test our lesson plan to make sure it was probable. This caused another few days of learning and troubleshooting with the printers and software (because the software we learned was different from the school).  After spending a few days figuring this out, we eventually learned the ins and outs of the software and 3-d printer. This was thanks to the dean Rusty, who was able to help us learn the specs of the equipment and programs. Once we were finally done traversing and learning how to utilize the 3-D printer, we introduced our lesson. Our first day went well. The students understood what the objective was and were eager to start sketching their houses. Although most of the students were drawn to Victorian architecture, we still had some diversity in what students wanted to create. By the end of class, most of the students had a house and/or environment drawn. Unfortunately, on the second day, over 75% of the student were gone. This was because it was trans awareness day. This bothered me because not only were most of the students gone, but there was also a shooting threat (the second shooting threat in a matter of 2 weeks) as well as a parent protest that was supposed to take place after school. All for signifying the existence of a small group of people trying to live. Not only that, but the next week was a testing week, so classes would be shortened and, most likely, students' attention spans. When we came back from the testing week, pretty much no one progressed on their work. This caused us to yet again change our plans according to the situation. Instead of having the students start on their environment and/or painting, we had to go back to day 2's plan and have them start designing their house on Tinkercad. Days 5-7 were spent either designing the house or the environment. Over that time frame, we didn't experience too many behavior issues. There were a couple of kids who copied a design off the internet. But those kids who copied didn't show up 5/7 days we taught, so I wasn't really surprised. Our last class consisted of finishing up the work and participating in a critique. Again, we didn't run into too many behavior problems except for a couple of boys who were being utterly lazy. Nevertheless, we were able to conduct a successful critique where students placed their houses and environments together to create a community. We had the students write Glows and Grows on sticky notes that they could place on their colleague's houses. Overall, I consider this to be a very enriching learning experience. Not only was I in a new environment (new building, it being a middle-high and mainly conservative demographic) but also because I was working with new technology. My group called this the Sisyphus project because every time we thought we had it together, our plans would crumble before us. Even though there was a lot of trial and error, I think this is great preparation for the actual teaching world (Where things rarely go to plan). I admit it was a frustratingly long journey, but it feels good to finally be finished and accomplish the goal we set out for. I am glad I had this experience, even though it took me out of my comfort zone.