Overall, I was very impressed with my classmates' lessons, especially for being everyone's first time teaching a lesson. Everyone had a lesson that commanded the student's participation. Everyone displayed the four parts of direct instruction and asked questions that rose on Bloom's levels of taxonomy. Most of teachers accomadated their lessons well for time, as 15- 20 minutes is much shorter than the average class time. It is difficult to reach objectives intended and practice direct instruction in a short time frame. Everyone modified their lessons well and most came within the time limit.
A notable strength that I saw in two of my classmates was their presentation skills. All of us spoke loud and clearly however, two classmates looked as though they were seasoned professionals in how they spoke! They incorporated proper intonation when it was necessary and captured the students' attention with their tone of voice.
Something to work on for next time would be making sure the board and the teacher are visible for all students. I was blocked a few times by the computer monitor that was not being used. I could not see the examples on the slideshow and could hardly see the teacher's face. This could be an issue when trying to show students examples on the board. The teacher should always make sure they are visible to every student, and every student to them for both engagement and behavior reasons.
Another area of improvement would be getting over the fear of being in front of the room. We were all nervous, however we were in a comfortable environment with peers who are our classmates. When we are in front of 20+ adolescences we cannot show nerves or fear. When we are professionals we do not have the advantage to request hitting the stop button and starting over because we are not feeling the first 5 minutes of our lesson and want to start off differently. I was surprised when this occurred. An important technique to have as a teacher is to improvise. It is like a play where the show must go on, no matter what may be going on in your head. We will have to teach lessons on days when a million things from the outside are running through our minds. We have to learn how to turn all of that off and just focus on the now, what is happening and what you want to happen during the lesson. We have to make the best of our situations even if that means we come up with things off the cuff. We have to be ready to improvise and move on.
