Small group lesson reflection
I feel like this mini lesson went very well. Even though it was only a small part of a full lesson, it served well to build my confidence and connection with the students. My strengths during this mini lesson were my “teacher talk”, (by that, I mean changing the way I talk and using different, easier vocabulary for 9 year olds compared to speaking with my peers) and being able to explain aspects of the lesson in different, relatable ways to the students. One of my weaknesses is learning a balance between praising and encouraging students to answer questions without being unclear about which answers are actually correct.
In this group, I had about five or six culturally diverse students. They were African-American, Hispanic, and Caucasian children. Their reading/writing levels were a little above average, and they were very eager to learn and to get the “right” answer. I enjoyed working with this small group because I was able to get to know their names. I learned from my professors that this is an essential key to success in a classroom, knowing all your students names, backgrounds, etc.
With every lesson, there are things that could be improved. If I could change something about the
lesson, I would have spent a little longer giving students time to make inferences on their own before jumping into the lesson and moving right along. Also, I would have cut the paper differently, and made it a little bigger. In my original format, the papers were folded. One side was the cropped photo; on the back was the answer. One of the students guessed my first picture because she saw the answer. Students shouldn't get the right answer because they peeked at the teacher's answer key, and in the same light, the answer key shouldn't be so obvious. This is another part of the lesson I would try to improve.
Overall, this lesson went well. It was actually very fun. I loved seeing the students not blindly guessing the photo, but they started their sentences with “Because of the _____ in the photo, I infer_____?” They were such engaged little students!
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