Friday September 18th 2009 was our second chance to reteach our mini lesson that was on the first day of class. Since our first initial teaching episode our class has been working each day with Professor Yang and the lab assistance, on the steps to creating a great lesson and a proper lesson plain. During the past few classes we have broken down the components of a lesson and we broke up in groups and each group taught a section in the desired components of a lesson.
During the teaching exercise the goal was to teach a task to the students in a time limit of four minutes. Part of this exercise was to break down our teaching episode by every ten seconds to see how best to manage my time as seen in my time code sheet I need to give less instruction. I choose the task of the overhead throw in soccer. The over head throw is to get the ball back into play when it is kicked out. I started strong with a great hook which enabled my class to get involved in the lesson. When describing the task of the over head throwing I went into to much detail and had to many cues, I should have focused the majority of my time on the activity you can see this in my time coding sheet. Once I split my class into groups of two I had them practice the over head throw. As I was teaching I did a poor job of giving feedback because I was still focused on getting my cues across to my class. I gave feedback to three students, which was very poor I should have focused on the class and not the task. As I was teaching Professor Yang threw a curve ball at me and had one of my students not pay attention and start doing there own thing, then had the student perform the task wrong. During the video it is clear that when the student on the far end of the line on the left side turns around and throws the ball against the wall. Then the student picks up the ball and then starts to perform the task in the incorrect way. As I am teaching I need to keep my focus on the entirety of the class. I noticed the student performing the task incorrectly after the third time and I was able to give him some one on one teaching. During my lesson I should have giving the class a challenge and then once they accomplished what was asked have a new level of difficulty ready.
After my lesson the lab assistance gave me some feedback on the lesson I just taught. The main points of the critique that I received was that I need to be more vocal and that I need to slow down when I am speaking to my class. After watching my video I realized that I need to give two to three cues to the task and then demonstrate and check for understanding. I discovered after my verbal transcription of my lesson that I need to use less slang words. As I was teaching I was still trying to cover information when it was completely unnecessary because I should have been working on feedback. As you can tell by my feedback analysis that did not go as planned. I thought that overall my lesson went good, I had a good hook and I was very enthused as I was teaching.
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Brad,
ReplyDeleteAs you now know, it can be difficult to manage a classroom, no matter how long the lesson is, or how many students are in your class. When you first begin to teach, it seems almost overwhelming to have to implement all the aspects of a quality lesson, as well as keep each student focused on the task. But don't worry, you will get better with this as you continue to teach in the future. The first thing I suggest you use in the future, is to not start the class by saying "today we will be working on soccer." Rather than just saying that, it might be better to just start with the question you asked right after, "In soccer, if an opposing team kicks the ball out of bounds, how do you get it back into play?" That way the students have to think about the answer, and you have also just set up your lesson, to work on the overhand throw in.
As you mentioned, be more clear with your tasks, so the kids are 100% sure of what you are asking of them. Make sure before you send them out to play, you check for understanding by asking them a question based off the cues you gave them. Next time, it may be a good idea to demonstrate with the equipment, or in the case the soccer ball, so the students see exactly how you want them to release it. Also, don't forget to use a safety statement before the students go out to play. As you mentioned before, you want to continue to challenge the students, so they do not get bored with the lesson, and just like all of this stuff, you will get better as you gain more experience.
On the other hand, your positioning was good, you were always looking at your students. Your voice was loud enough and you were enthusiastic about what you were teaching. These are all important steps to delivering a quality lesson. As I said, you will become more comfortable teaching and managing a classroom (students who misbehave) as you gain experience in your young teaching career. We all make mistakes, so try to learn from them, and keep up the good work!