Reflection
This lesson was a very fun one to teach. I had more fun with this one than I did with any of my other lessons. It was because of the level of involvement and participation from each of the students. Everyone was engaged. My strengths were my ability to motivate each of the students to want to learn more about the reasons for keeping the penny, and the reasons for getting rid if the penny. They were motivated to find specific examples from the text to help prove their point. It was wonderful for me to see how well these students prepared their cases and were able to have an educated debate about the penny. One of my other strengths was being able to split the students up into groups, and yet still keep them on task by circulating and asking questions to guide them in the right direction and to make sure they were getting what I wanted to them to get out of the lesson.
My weakness were making sure I, myself, was staying on topic and clearly stating my objectives. I wanted for the students to be able to take a stance on a given topic, and choose specific examples from the text to help validate their choice. However, I feel like at some points, I was leaning more towards more of an objective of persuasion instead. I need to set clear objectives and follow through with them during the entire lesson. Another critique my teacher had for me was that at the beginning of the lesson, I was clearly nervous, and I stood and delivered the entire beginning portion of the lesson while standing in one spot. Halfway through, she told me I needed to loosen up and move around a bit. Feel more comfortable with the students. After taking this advice, I started circulating the room to monitor groups, and it made a huge difference.
If I could change something about the lesson, I would try to set it up to where the "Yes" and "No" teams are more equally divided. Because out of a class of 20 students, 18 were "Yes" and only "2" were "No" to the penny. Since it was extremely unbalanced, it made it a little more intimidating for the boys who were extremely outnumbered.
Overall, I loved this lesson and the experience I had with the students. It was such a great group! All of them came from different backgrounds and different home lives, they each were different learners at different levels. It was a success and a learning experience for everyone, especially me! I am grateful for having the opportunity to have taught in such a wonderful school and to have them open their doors to me, and for my teacher, who completely opened her classroom to me.
My weakness were making sure I, myself, was staying on topic and clearly stating my objectives. I wanted for the students to be able to take a stance on a given topic, and choose specific examples from the text to help validate their choice. However, I feel like at some points, I was leaning more towards more of an objective of persuasion instead. I need to set clear objectives and follow through with them during the entire lesson. Another critique my teacher had for me was that at the beginning of the lesson, I was clearly nervous, and I stood and delivered the entire beginning portion of the lesson while standing in one spot. Halfway through, she told me I needed to loosen up and move around a bit. Feel more comfortable with the students. After taking this advice, I started circulating the room to monitor groups, and it made a huge difference.
If I could change something about the lesson, I would try to set it up to where the "Yes" and "No" teams are more equally divided. Because out of a class of 20 students, 18 were "Yes" and only "2" were "No" to the penny. Since it was extremely unbalanced, it made it a little more intimidating for the boys who were extremely outnumbered.
Overall, I loved this lesson and the experience I had with the students. It was such a great group! All of them came from different backgrounds and different home lives, they each were different learners at different levels. It was a success and a learning experience for everyone, especially me! I am grateful for having the opportunity to have taught in such a wonderful school and to have them open their doors to me, and for my teacher, who completely opened her classroom to me.