The overall goal of today's lesson in my assignment was to teach my classmates 31 new terms in a different language provided to me of hieroglyphics in just 15 minutes. I immediately knew that to get my students to learn this material I would have to use a different and effective teaching strategy to obtain my objective.
Planning The Lesson
While planning my lesson, I wanted to include a warm-up/pre-test, a visually stimulating learning activity and then finally a post test to see if my students did learn. I was brain storming different ways of how to learn a new language of pictures. I had thought of adding colors, doing individual work and having my students write on the board as well. For me to be an effective teacher, I put myself in their shoes. I learn by doing, and that can be difficult when learning a new language in 15 minutes, so I grabbed a piece of paper. I wrote down a sentence in English with the words and then translated it to the hieroglyphics. I had an idea. I covered the top English sentence, and then translated the hieroglyphics again. This was a start and now I just had to add more words. One way to do that was to have each person make up a sentence and pass it along to have another person to decipher the sentence. This would then give a communication aspect and somewhat of a hands-on aspect to learning for my students.
Presenting The Lesson
I began my lesson by discussing the importance of communication and then language. I then gave everyone a 'mix and match' sheet with images on one side and then words on the other. I quickly instructed them to match what images match with a word they think would go together. This was interesting because they were confused, and they were supposed to be! This was the pre-test to show that they didn't know anything, which was good. Next I showed the correct images and used my folding paper idea through the classroom. Once we had gotten through most of everyone, I had them attempt to complete a post test.
Self Reflection
I crave being in that teacher role. I know we are supposed to feel outside of our comfort zone, but I am addicted to connecting to my students and I feel at home when I am put into 'teacher mode'. Some things that I could have done better that we discussed was to have a different teaching tactic. I personally think that teaching 31 new words of a new language in 15 minutes is extremely hard. To be completely honest, there is no way I could do that due to some of my learning disabilities. I definitely think that I should have made sure my objective was clear and concise. I also should have added more energy into my teaching lesson. Some things I did do well at included trying to make a dictionary/memorizing lesson into a hands on lesson for different learners in my classroom. I wholeheartedly want to do this again. My lesson wasn't flawless, but without failure, there would be no opportunity to learn. I can't wait for next time!!
Evy,
ReplyDeleteGreat job of presenting this reflection. I appreciate you identifying the need to for explicit learning objectives.
One thing to reflect on is the difference between "Need to Know" and "Nice to Know". I think it is a concept that we struggle with as ag teachers. Just because we CAN teach something; does not mean we SHOULD teach something.
If we view attention and capacity of our students at any one point of time as a finite resource (think sponge that can only absorb so much), than we need to be really picky on what we "pour out" :)
Evy,
ReplyDeleteGreat job of presenting this reflection. I appreciate you identifying the need to for explicit learning objectives.
One thing to reflect on is the difference between "Need to Know" and "Nice to Know". I think it is a concept that we struggle with as ag teachers. Just because we CAN teach something; does not mean we SHOULD teach something.
If we view attention and capacity of our students at any one point of time as a finite resource (think sponge that can only absorb so much), than we need to be really picky on what we "pour out" :)
Evy, I'm glad that you are excited to teach! I think using these little mini lessons is a great way to get your foot in the door and now you have an idea of what not to do and what you should keep doing. Also, I think you have this ability to understand students that struggle because of having a disability yourself (as you mentioned). Use this as a tool to teach them better. Ask yourself what are some obstacles that you've faced and how can you prevent these from happening to your students.
ReplyDeleteAs for your lesson itself, I think you did a really good job with variability and finally wrapping it up at the end as far as leading us to understanding application. Keep on improving!