Tenth-grade students in the Aspiring Teacher pathway at Harlingen Collegiate High visited Bonham Elementary to practice their teaching skills by reviewing math with third-grade students.
“They all got a math readiness TEK, and they prepared a lesson to teach to our to our third graders,” HCH Aspiring Teacher Pathway Department Chair, Alma Hernandez said. “So not only did they put the lesson together, but they also learned about other lesson elements. They learned about attention getters and celebrations for redirection.”
The lessons focused on helping prepare the third-grade students for their upcoming STAAR test.
“This is the first time they take the test, so we wanted to make sure our lessons were engaging and interactive,” Hernandez said.
Bonham Elementary third grader Faith Cantu was rolling giant red dice on one side of the cafeteria.
“We are learning a lesson about equal to and greater than,” Cantu said. “We get to see which one is bigger or less than or equal to. It’s really fun.”
Across the cafeteria, Harlingen Collegiate High sophomore Cody Lopez was teaching a group of students about shapes.
“They are learning and identifying shapes, and they are having a lot of fun doing it,” Lopez said. “Today, we are playing a bingo game. We are trying to teach them how to identify 3D shapes such as cubes, rectangular prisms, triangular prisms, spheres, cones, and cylinders. And they are also learning the facts about them because once they identify the shape, I am having them tell me a fact about that shape.”
Students in the Aspiring Teacher pathway at Harlingen Collegiate High begin getting hands-on teaching experience starting their freshman year.
“Our freshmen were here before, and they got to read a book to second graders and give them a little vocabulary activity,” Hernandez said. “It’s amazing how much experience the students in our pathway are going to leave with their senior year. Not only will they be able to plan activities, but they will also get that real-life experience of being able to do it by themselves. They are already teaching these activities on their own.”
