On November 8, it was my turn to teach a lesson to the rest of the class...
I had so much fun!
I always get a little nervous before a presentation, but the size and comfort of our class and the encouraging attitude of Dr. Luongo quickly dismissed these feelings.
I had handed my lesson plan in a while ago, but had noticed that there were a few things I overlooked or mussed, so in order to prepare and have my lesson plan PERFECT for the day of my lesson, I reviewed it, added and took away some things, and modified my activity a little bit.
The objective of my lesson plan was to introduce my third grade classroom to CAUSE AND EFFECT through the story of Stellaluna. I assessed the student's abilities by a lot of teacher observation (kwl chart and activity), as well as a homework sheet that would be graded according to a rubric.
My lesson plan was, for the most part, executed exactly as I wrote it. I did forget to mention some of the consequences if the students did not follow directions or adhere to the rules, but everything went pretty smoothly I think. The student "behaviors" are meant to, and tend to throw the student teacher off, but in my experience, talking to the kids, especially kids who are 2nd grade and up, as if they are adults is much more effective than yelling. During the activity, a lot of the students were whining and fighting with each other, but by going over and talking things out with them maturely, I was able to keep them on task and refocus their attention back to the activity.
The most important thing I tried to teach my students was obviously the concept of Cause and Effect, but I also wanted my students to learn how to work together, especially for this activity. The activity relied heavily on interacting with one another and working as a team, so I really wanted my students to learn the importance of being a productive, respectful, and helpful team member.
Overall, I think the lesson went fantastic. I was a little nervous beforehand, but once things got rolling, I was loving it and actually having a lot of fun. I remember being little and playing teacher and loving the feeling as I was in front of the "classroom" and even though this was much closer to the real thing, I still got that same excitement from it.
My "students" or fellow classmates were a great addition to the lesson. Usually, the rest of the class just plays along even though they are bored to tears and are encouraged to be a good audience and participate. This experience on the other hand was much more realistic as I was forced into dealing with unexpected little obstacles. I learned from this that it is important to always be on your toes, to deal with things as fairly and quickly as possible and to never underestimate your class (in all aspects!)
I think to make my lesson better I could have read over the sentences before the students cut them up. This was suggested by a fellow classmate and I realized that it could have been a big problem. Or instead of doing this I could have explained in the directions of the activity that the sentences must be appropriate, and that as 3rd graders, everyone knows what is appropriate and suitable for a classroom. I also could have talked about the book a little bit more. I know what I wanted to do, and going over it by myself, I brought up more examples about cause and effect directly from the book. The book is a great book to use for cause and effect because there are so many significant events, and I should have discussed the story more to get a feel for their comprehension of the story.
I had planned to use the Smart Board in my lesson as a way for the story to be read aloud to the students with text at the bottom, this way it appealed to both visual and audio learners. I did end up using it because the Smart Board was working (yay!) and I think it went very well. Students seemed engaged in the book, and I also held up the actual book to keep students aware of the pictures as the story was read, so I think they really enjoyed it. I could have also used a PowerPoint or the smart board to show the students what the example of the activity looked like, but I don't know if an actual replica (what I did) was better. I would try it out both ways and see which one worked better and got my point across to the students and brought about less confusion.
I would definitely like to use the interactive aspect of the Smart Board in a future lesson plan. It's a great way to keep kids engaged, and appeals to many different types of learners. Once I become a little more savvy on it, I would definitely love to try it out.
Overall, I think I did a great job. I got great feedback back from everyone, and had a great time doing it. As good of a job as I think I did, there is always room for improvement. I am excited to student teach next semester to get a real feel for being in front of a classroom, and I can't wait to show off what I've learned!!
