LifeKnowledge Lesson

So much teaching in the past two weeks!!! I believe I probably had the most dramatic change from micro teaching to my LikeKnowledge lesson in regards to demographics in the classroom. At Central Mountain I taught 9 senior boys. For my LikeKnowledge Lessons I taught two periods of 8th graders, the first one had 25 students and the second one had 17.

My lesson was on being prepared and planning effectively. I said when I picked this lesson out during the study night in Ferguson, this is pretty much the pot calling the kettle black, as I am not always the most prepared person. But, I made my copies, got my materials, read and re-read and re-re-read the lesson plan, and made a PowerPoint for the day. As I left my house at 5:20 in the morning I realized that I never asked if I would be able to use a PowerPoint while I was there, ( see this whole prepared thing) and thought that I would be okay since I remembered seeing smart boards and they typically have PowerPoint. Well, they have never used a PowerPoint in that room before so I wrote my slides on the board, and went along with my lesson plan.

I met the students at the door and handed them note cards that they could make into name cards on their desk so I would be able to call on individual students. I gave them my name and said that I would be student teaching there in the spring and started with the lesson by going over the objectives. I generally followed the lesson plan provided on LifeKnowledge and if you wish to see what I taught you can find it here on the link https://www.ffa.org/documents/learn/MS047.pdf. I do not feel like going through word for word what I did.

This class was huge with 25 students, probably the biggest I have taught by myself. There was also a very chatty and ants-in-his pants boy that was squirming in the back row. I called on him a lot for examples and also had to individually bring him back on task while I was walking around to see what the students were doing.There was also one point when the class was working together and was especially chatty, but it was time to move to another part of the lesson. I tried to get their attention once, but it didn't work so in my teacher voice I said "ONE, TWO, THREE, EYES ON ME" which was quite effective. One student repeated me under his breath and probably included an eye roll, but if they would have been paying attention I would not have to revert back to childish sayings. While this worked really well for me in this classroom, I feel that if I had tried that with the senior boys it would not have worked at all. This is where understanding your audience comes in.

The second class went much better than the first one. There were less students and I changed a lot of the things that did not work in the first class. I had the students read off the board and think more in depth about some of the activities that we were completing. The office kept calling kids to the office though while I was teaching and I was glad Mrs. B was there to respond to the voice coming from the ceiling.

There is a funny story from this class. I had the students write three ways to be prepared then I had them go around and initial each others reasons. When I was walking around the classroom and seeing what everyone was going one girl stopped me and asked if I would be mad that her initials are BS, I said "No, BS stands for Best Student right? So I really like your initials." She giggled at me and was like nooooo that's not what it stands for! I said ummm that is what I think it stands for, and I kept walking around the room. This kind of reminded me of our lab sessions because I say a lot of weird things when I am acting like a student, especially to Caleb.

Mrs. B completed a review on me by keeping tract of when my transitions were and completing a "glows" and "grows" for the things I did well and the things that I need to improve on. It was really nice to see how I changed my lesson from the first class to the second class.

For "grows"...

I need to make sure I have everyone's attention before giving directions
Clearly define "silently" for students
Don't turn my back on them when asking for a response
Make student helpers
Make everyone participate in class discussion
Countdown for transitions
Wait for students to listen.


"Glows"

Good wait time
Handled age group well
Got a student who never answers her to raise a hand and volunteer a response
Very willing to adapt as needed
Learned from one period to the next and adapting
Patience and understanding with students


I am glad that I completed my LifeKnowledge lesson so soon after the Central Mountain lessons because they went much better. I also felt more comfortable with this set of students since proximity control actually worked. I know that I have a lot to learn as I continue with this whole teaching business, but I am ready.