Well, my microteaching lesson unfortunately not entirely captured on camera, went rather well considering. I was glad to see students analyze the primary documents they were reading and discuss their opinion on violent and nonviolent protest. When I began I was calm and confident and finally used appropriate wait time! And guess what, it works! The students were active and engaged and seemed to really think about the prompts and questions they were given. The beginning portion was
"filmed" twice and the second time was not nearly as affective as the first. I was extremely uncomfortable and nervous. The whole thing seemed contrived and not authentic at all. Which was extremely disappointing because I felt that I had been taught my best lesson yet. I finally was able ot take what we are learning and apply it. The majority of the "indirect" portion of indirect instruction was not captured. Students were not as nearly engaged because at that point, we were running late and the information was no longer new to them. They did not need to analyze the pieces and discuss, but merely try to recall what they previously said. It felt very staged and my performance as a teacher lacked.
What I did learn after feeling very agitated and nervous about the whole thing, was that when we teach we have to overcome our emotions and continue on with the lesson regardless of what we are feeling at that particular moment.
Hi Amanda!
ReplyDeleteI'm so impressed by your projected calmness and professionalism at the front of the room, so brava! Both takes of your lesson were great, but I will agree with you that the original take was much more effective and meaningful. I liked the way that you approached civil rights and nonviolence- it was creative and got students thinking. It is very important to engage students so they are in an environment conducive to learning, and I think that you have this nailed. One of my favorite parts of your presentation was how you hooked us by providing a handout to get us thinking about nonviolence and how we would react to certain situations. With this initial assignment to set up our exploration stage of indirect instruction, we were able to flow smoothly to and from each idea and stage. Therefore, the fluency of your presentation was exact, and it really provided a solid basis for us to discuss as small groups and later as a whole class. Finally, my only critique would be that this lesson plan is ideal for a smaller group of students; we had just enough time to discuss nonviolence and our two separate excerpts. Just keep this in mind if you decide to use this lesson plan in the future (which is a great idea)- you might just want to tweak it for your group of students.
Amanda - so sorry about the technical difficulties you had :( I think you handled it very well! You seemed very comfortable and confidant. I agree with Dominique that the structure of your lesson was great. I like the introductory agree/disagree worksheet - however, while I understand why you would tell students that they don't have to share this with the class, it might be a good idea to come back to the worksheet at the end during discussion and allow students to share their responses and how they might have changed after the lesson, if they want - there's a lot of good stuff in those questions. You did have good wait time during the discussion, good questions too! I thought you could have interacted with us a little more during our exploration time, but then again, I thought I did that too much during my lesson! Also, I am one of those people that needs to see words to really absorb them - so when you read a passage at the beginning and when you shared quotes later, a lot of it was lost on me - you may have students like me in class, so it might be a good idea to either have a handout with what you are reading or to project it on the board. Overall, a great job! Happy holidays and best wishes for 2015!
ReplyDeleteHey Amanda!
ReplyDeleteYour microteaching was great. I loved the lesson. Don't worry about the technical difficulties, in real life the important part is what the students learn and you were able to see that in your "students" even if the camera didn't this time.
With that said, I really like the material you gave and how you brought in ideas about non-violence and violent protests by using many primary sources of real events and quotes from the past. I loved your hook as well, one piece of advice is it might be fun to make that part more of a game. Maybe vote with eyes closed so there's anonymity or move around the room for each, one side if yes one side if no; something like that. All in all, great delivery, sources and a very cool topic, I think you could do a lot with it.
Learning how to keep going is ALSO a valuable teacher skill. Sorry about the technological difficulties, but this was a well-designed lesson.
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