Lesson 3: Reflection

Lesson three wasn't as successful as I thought it would have been. My intentions for the lesson were to use side shadowing and peer review activities to engage the students in composing their final essay for the course. During the first half of the class, from 9:15 AM to about 10:45 AM students worked on composing an essay about public health. First, we did a group brainstorm about the concept of public health and used that to guide us in the composition process. Wynne and I decided to time them on the first draft. This would create a pseudo exam environment and to help them mentally prepare for the GED predictor the following week.

For this lesson, I'd have a visitor: Prof. Gleason, the L & L department chair. Honestly, I was a little nervous to have her in the class. I felt like everything would do awry as they always do when one is being intently observed. Things did not do as expected and having an "outsider" in the class provided a different P.O.V.  I think I had good classroom presence and engaging activities, but classroom control and focus during the activity was an issue based on the critique of Prof. Gleason who visited the class that day.

I wanted to try teaching side shadowing and peer review as Wynne had in previous classes (without my being present) to see if I could use the same technique in the fall when I would be teaching freshman composition. This lesson also built on essay writing and editing skills along with peer-review and group work skills.

The warm-up activity could have been improved. Based on Prof. Gleason’s feedback 9 out of 10 students were not doing the activity. I was uncertain about this because many of the students had written answers on the activity sheet. Perhaps the activity was too simple or familiar so they were about to complete it quickly. This might have been why they were talking before the allotted activity was complete.

Prof. Gleason suggested making the activity more of a “challenge” in order to keep them focused on the activity. For example, I could have had the students write nonstop for 5 minutes and if they did not know what to write, they could write “I don’t know what to write” until the session was complete.  I think this is a good strategy and will utilize it in the fall.

The class was not as focused during this lesson. As Prof. Gleason noted, the students weren’t engaged with the activities. She even had to point out that a couple students had headphones on in class (even if they weren’t listening to the music).

Wynne and I did followed our usual protocol of walking around the class and helping the students, but Prof. Gleason thought I should have been more vigilant at the front of the class instead.  That had not been our style during the semester and I am still not sure if that would work with this group of students.

I learned from Prof. Gleason’s visit that every instructor has a different method.  In time, I too would have my own methods, techniques, and strategies in classroom management.