Final Post

Reflection of your lesson

How did you (and your partner) prepare?
We met the day before and changed our lesson plan because watching everyone else lessons we prepared for the worst case scenario. We made a board with classroom rules and a box to put cell phones in the front of the classroom. We also had copies for every student of the poem and questions.
Explain the objective and assessment measures of your lesson
Students will be able to read, listen and answer comprehension questions on The Tell Tale Heart.
Students will be able to write a one minute essay.
Students will be able to work in groups and create an original project based on the story.
Was your lesson plan executed exactly as it was written?
Yes, we followed the lesson plan well from start to finish. Papers that needed to be handed out got handed out and the movie was watched the whole way through with minimal interruptions.
What was the most important thing I tried to teach your students?
The story of The Tale Tell Heart. How the character slipped into madness.
How do you think it went?
I think it went very well, the class was not too bad and when someone acted up we kept going through the lesson and asking questions to keep them focused.
What did you learn from your students?
I learned that lesson plans change and there is always going to be one or two difficult children in your classroom.
What would you have done differently?
Had the movie shorter, it seemed towards the end the class seemed less interested.
How could you have made the lesson even more effective?
Having the students act out a scene from the Tale Tell Heart.
What do you think you need to improve or do differently?
The one minute essay is a great way to see if a student is understanding the material, however for this I think we could have done without it.
Reflection of Podcast
How did you and your partner plan to use the podcast in your lesson? The podcast was used for the questions that went along with the story after the short film was finished. The podcast also went along with a worksheet of the same questions so students can write the answers we discussed in class.
Did you use it during the class lesson? Why or why not?
Yes, we used it for the questions, we stopped it after every question and everyone then discussed each outloud and wrote the answer on their worksheet.
How did your students react to the podcast?
We only used the pod cast for the question part, I think it was something different and if we used the podcast telling the whole story it would not have kept their attention.
How do you think it went?
I think it went well, the class wasn’t too bad and we stayed on track in terms of everything we wanted to get done. We were a bit stricter than the other groups but it seemed to work.
What could you have done to infuse the podcast into the lesson more effectively?
We could have played pieces of the story on the podcast and had the class look for the paragraph or sentence that was just spoken to them on their papers that had the story.
Do you have any other ideas of how you would use podcasting in your lesson or future lessons?
Students could have broken up into groups and done a podcast of a certain part of the story then play it for the class and act it out.





Reflection of other classmates lessons

When starting this assignment, I am sure many thought it was going to be simple considering this is not the first time for many of us in the front of a classroom giving a lesson. However we did not take into account the fact that we would have to team teach, that in and of itself is a difficult task because not everyone has the same teaching styles and techniques. The other criteria we did not take into account until the first group got up to teach was that each of us would get a card with a behavior many students may have in our future classrooms. For example, my card said throw paper across the room, get up many times in the middle of a teachers lesson. These are things we all will experience in a real classroom. Giving a lesson with interruption such as these teach you how to handle yourself in certain situations and know it can happen.
I think the first group that team teaching was caught off guard by behavior cards but handled it well by having one teach and one walk around the classroom. Other groups had one stand in the front and one in the back or split up the classroom and one took the left and the other handled the right side. The class quickly learned that you have to keep your students active and participating through out your lesson or you will loose their attention and order in the classroom. I also noticed that the "students" fed off of each other, after awhile people with good behavior cards were acting up because the other kids were and this escalated quickly. I like that the forth group went along with the class and was not too strict but taught their lesson, by the end of that class I understood the poem they were teaching and still enjoyed the class. The balance they had within their classroom was a good example how a classroom should be taught.
Questions that I would never think to ask such as if a student ran out of a classroom what should one do in that situation came up during our lessons. Also addressing the issue of cell phone use within a classroom and what to do if you see a student texting or listening to music. This project gave us each a taste of what it would be like to teach with a teacher’s aid or another teacher and how to handle students effectively.