Student Teaching in London-Fall 2007
 Week 7:  December 3 - December 9

Dr. McDonald and a group of CMU student teachers are currently in the Enfield, England area.  Dr. McDonald is sharing his diary and pictures of the students as they experience student teaching in England.

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December 3 - Andrea Z. and Jessica taught today at Hornsey School for Girls.

Andrea taught her Year 12 Intermediate Business students about brochures.  Students are doing individual research about a business, constructing a marketing strategy and finally a business plan in the acceptable format.  Students used the period to proofread their brochures, make corrections, and print them off to be marked by the teachers.  Andrea provided support and suggestions to the students.

Jessica taught an ICT (Information and Computer Technology) lesson to a year 11 class.  Students have been creating a database on food and now they are ready to evaluate their spreadsheets, label them, and show the functions that have been created.  Jessica instructed the class on to take snapshots of their spreadsheets so that the pictures could be placed into a Word document.  Later in the period Jessica showed them how to show their functions in the spreadsheet.

December 4- Allison and Alecia taught today at Hendon Secondary School.

Allison taught her Year 7 class about different types of cells and their structures.  The starter for the lesson was for students to look at 5 different pictures, try to figure out whether it was a plant or an animal cell, and to describe the function of the cell.  Students then learned about nerve cells, red blood cells, and muscle cells.  The period ended with students looking at slides of cells under a microscope, drawing and labeling the parts of the cell.

Alecia taught her Year 13 Law class and had them prepare for a mock trial that they will be doing over the next week or so.  Today the main figures in the trial were identified and the class had to prepare their opening statements.  Two groups of students were formed, one for the prosecution and another for the defense.  Students had time to meet to apply their prior learning to this new setting.  The end of the period had the two groups sharing their opening statements to the judges (Alecia and her cooperating teacher) and then hearing a critique of their statements.

Allison taught her Year 7 students at Hendon about the classification of cells.

December 5 - Today was off day due to my birthday.  I went to Cambridge with my host family and we looked around Cambridge University, the ancient open air market, the shopping district, and had lunch in a local pub.

Kings College was particularly impressive with its access to the river, the architecture of the buildings, and chapel.

The river running through Cambridge is the River Cam.

The front of Kings College at Cambridge University.

The view of chapel at Kings College taken from
the quad or the banks.

December 6 - Tara and Jenna conducted lessons today at Enfield County School.

Tara taught a lesson to her Year 10 class on the prologue to Romeo and Juliet. In order to remember what happened during the prior class, students did a starter where they talked with a partner about the purpose of a prologue and what they need to be looking for in relation to an essay question they had been given. The class translated the remainder to the prologue and copied down the ideas that members of the class came up with.  The class then looked at what the prologue told them about the remainder of the story.  Students then concluded the period by writing a portion of their essay.?

Jenna taught her Year 13 British Politics class about the influence of the media on elections.  Using some examples from prior Parliamentary elections, a PowerPoint presentation was done on newspapers, telegenic candidates for office, and endorsements of major media outlets.  Students then looked at articles from papers about the influence of the media and the students analyzed how media influences the opinion of people or not.

December 7 - Today was a group excursion to Windsor Castle and Oxford.  We took off from Victoria Station and went to Windsor for the first portion of the day.  Windsor Castle is 900 years old and dates to the Norman period.  It is still an official residence of the Queen.  We toured the State Apartments and St, George’s Chapel before going into town for lunch.

The state apartments are used to entertaining and are not part of the official residence where the royal family lives.  They contain many valuable pieces of art and tell the history of the royal family for the last 400-500 years.

St. George’s Chapel is the place where Henry VIII, Charles I, and George VI are buried. 

Oxford University is divided into 36 colleges with a student population of about 10,000.  We toured Christchurch College, the chapel, the quad, and the Great Hall.  Famous students and instructors at Christchurch include John Locke, John and Charles Wesley, William Pitt, and Sir Anthony Eden.

One of the stops on our Oxford Tour was to Christchurch Chapel. Christchurch is one of the colleges at Oxford.

The quad at Christchurch College which was the first college at Oxford University.

The Great Hall at Christchurch is where students take their meals. Portraits hang from the wall with famous teachers and students of Christchurch like John Locke, Sir Anthony Eden, and John Wesley.

Debbie, our tour guide, telling the group about the
early history of Oxford University.

 

Another view of the Great Hall at Oxford. Another famous students of Christchurch are Lewis Carroll, the author of Alice in Wonderland. Alice was the name of the daughter of the Dean of Christchurch.

We are all bundled up on the streets of Oxford. Not quite Michigan but it was still cold.

 

An exterior view of St. George Chapel at Windsor Castle.
 

A view of the walls and towers at Windsor Castle. The large tower in the middle dates from the Norman period (around 1100 A.D)

An additional view of the exterior of Windsor Castle.

 

The buildings on the left are a portion of the Queen's residence at Windsor. The Queen is usually in residence at Windsor on the weekends.

The changing of the guard at Windsor Castle.

 

The interior gardens at Windsor Castle contain many waterfalls.

December 8 and 9 - Students spent their last weekend in London by seeing sites, shopping, taking tours, or going to museums.