My entire BioSite experience was eye-opening and something I will remember forever, but it didn’t just happen overnight. There was a lot of learning, prepping, and planning that went into teaching the 4th graders from Booksin all about our topic in a way that was engaging, easy to understand, and full of information. Everyone involved in BioSite came to weekly meetings every Tuesday for about a month during tutorial. As our instructor, Birit, would often say, the experience was truly a “whirlwind,” as we had to essentially become experts on our topics, and teachers, over the course of just four or five 30 minute meetings. At the first meeting, we got to know Birit, and she explained to us the process and exactly what we were aiming to accomplish. In the trainings that followed, we participated in all the activities that the 4th graders would when they came. Birit taught us and walked us through activities about chickens, compost, and seeds. As she did so, she would give us tips and tricks on how to make learning fun for the kids using a variety of techniques. After we had learned the basics of teaching, it was time to get into our teams and decide what topic we were going to pick. My team and I chose the chickens because that was the lesson that interested us the most, so we knew we could make it exciting for the 4th graders. We had to work together with both our team and the other teams to create a lesson plan and timing schedule that would work for everyone and make the day flow smoothly. We were given a paper to create our lesson plan so that we could lay everything out and decide which team member would lead each part. We also had some creative freedom to do things like make our own unique games to convey the information or create a fun name game to get to know the kids. Once we had our lesson figured out and we all felt confident, it was time to teach some 4th graders!
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