Reflection of the Lesson
The teacher gave me the topic and activities she thought would be best for her students to do. I had to teach the lessons to both the first block and second block, which are two different classes. The teacher had a graduate student teacher working in her class, so I wasn’t given the full hour and thirty minutes I should have had for the first block. During this time the teacher had a school store going on and she was pulling out students who had STEM Bucks to buy stuff. This caused a lot of distractions and lost time during my lesson but it showed me how teaching is going to be full of unplanned situations. With the first block, we almost got through the full guided practice. They wrote their paragraphs but some students took longer than others and I worked with those students in a small group when time was up. The lesson pretty much ended there because the graduate student teacher had to do her lesson. I wished I had more time because I wanted to have a small closure or something to help sum up what the students learned. I made sure to make the needed adjustments for the second block, for the lesson to run more smoothly.
For the second block, the teacher allotted me only 45 minutes to do the lesson because the students were going to have a party at the end of the day. I did not have enough time to get through the paragraph with the students for the guided practice, so instead I summed up the lesson by asking questions and doing a quick review. The students enjoyed the videos and answered the questions eagerly. The students also participated in the lesson by volunteering to read the short passages aloud from the power point and explaining the elements they saw from the practice video. I was not able to fully assess the students learning because both classes did not make it to the independent practice but overall, it seemed they understood the elements. The only troubles I saw from the students graphic organizer is that some students did not quite grasp the element of special words or phrases. Next time I feel that I could better emphasize this element to the students by asking them to locate these phrases right after reading a text. The teacher told me to remind the students that they have learned strategies for identifying answers in their reading. When I reminded students of this, they found the answers a lot easier by highlighting, underlining, and circling key words. Also, the teacher really liked my lesson, as did the graduate student. The graduate student teacher asked me to get a copy of my power points because she liked them so much and felt she could use them. That made me excited because that meant that they must have been of teacher quality work. Overall the lesson went well. The students seemed engaged and I felt comfortable teaching the material. The teacher gave me a lot of good feedback and I know what I can improve upon in the future. This has been a great experience.
For the second block, the teacher allotted me only 45 minutes to do the lesson because the students were going to have a party at the end of the day. I did not have enough time to get through the paragraph with the students for the guided practice, so instead I summed up the lesson by asking questions and doing a quick review. The students enjoyed the videos and answered the questions eagerly. The students also participated in the lesson by volunteering to read the short passages aloud from the power point and explaining the elements they saw from the practice video. I was not able to fully assess the students learning because both classes did not make it to the independent practice but overall, it seemed they understood the elements. The only troubles I saw from the students graphic organizer is that some students did not quite grasp the element of special words or phrases. Next time I feel that I could better emphasize this element to the students by asking them to locate these phrases right after reading a text. The teacher told me to remind the students that they have learned strategies for identifying answers in their reading. When I reminded students of this, they found the answers a lot easier by highlighting, underlining, and circling key words. Also, the teacher really liked my lesson, as did the graduate student. The graduate student teacher asked me to get a copy of my power points because she liked them so much and felt she could use them. That made me excited because that meant that they must have been of teacher quality work. Overall the lesson went well. The students seemed engaged and I felt comfortable teaching the material. The teacher gave me a lot of good feedback and I know what I can improve upon in the future. This has been a great experience.