Would you want to be a student in this class doing this activity? Why or why not?I would like to be a student reading Tusk, Tusk because it is “fun” and clarifies the causes and effects of the otherness in To Kill a Mockingbird. However, the student work was not made to sound important or challenging, and I might have gotten bored. I would also need clearer instructions as to what I was supposed to be doing.
How do you look and sound in the video?Overall, I look and sound calm, though it would be better if I showed more enthusiasm, and some of my body language (touching my hair, etc...) made me seem a little nervous or uncomfortable. Also, I would benefit from projecting my voice more, especially when turning to write on the board while talking.
What are you doing in this lesson? I did a lot of questioning throughout the lesson. I also modeled the types of notes I wanted them to be taking on the conversation and coached individual students during the seat work portion of the lesson (cut from video). Though participation was high, I would like to transition to a more student-centered format, in which students are asking questions and interacting with each other to solve problems.
What are the students doing? Overall, the majority of the students seemed to be paying attention, especially during the whole-group discussion. There are some quiet students who continue to be hard to engage, and I need to work on getting them to participate. The students listened and answered questions. There was laughter during the reading of the picturebook (perhaps to reduce teacher talk time I could have gotten a student or students to read this story to the rest of the class). Throughout the lesson, they also wrote - taking notes and creating a letter from the point of view of one of the characters we discussed (cut from video). During the independent work (cut from video) is when I noticed students getting off topic. The students directly in front of the camera, for example, were chatting about grades and other classes. One student asked another, "What are we supposed to be doing?" While he would have known what to do if he had been paying attention, it is my job to command that attention, and I need to find ways to make my lesson more engaging. In order to make the class more student-centered without the students losing focus, I think I will need to make independent work clearer and more challenging. Ultimately, I want students to be active participants in the lesson, not passive observers.
Would you want to be a student in this class doing this activity? Why or why not?I would like to be in this class doing this activity because it combines kinesthetic and social learning, allowing students to interact with both the text and each other in an active way. Staging the scenes also allows students to an opportunity to perform and watch each other perform, which is entertaining and contributes to an environment in which students feel safe laughing at themselves and each other (in a friendly way).
How do you look and sound in the video?I believe I sounded fairly comfortable in this video. There were moments when my voice trailed off at the end of a sentence or I lost my train of thought. At these times, I didn’t sound nervous, but the inflection in my voice became questioning, which my undermine my credibility in the eyes of the students. Something else I noticed is that I often stop mid-sentence, especially while giving directions, to answer student questions. I would like to continue to work on getting students full attention before I speak and saying what I need to say before fielding questions. One way to help make this happen is to carefully plan what I am going to say so that I am only asking for their undivided attention when I have something important and intentional to communicate. Overall, however, I think my confidence in front of the classroom has improved since last semester.
What are you doing in this lesson? In this lesson, I am doing a mix of things. The lesson starts out as somewhat teacher-centered, as I respond to students answers to text-based questions. I explain the tableaux assignment and then incorporate student volunteers as I model what the students should be creating with their groups. While the students are working on their tableaux, I spend some time circulating throughout the classroom to both check their homework and offer coaching as they prepare their scene.
What are the students doing? Throughout the lesson, students are mostly attentive. Though there is some side chatter while I am talking, they appear to be on task in their conversations with their groups. They are both creating and writing down descriptions of what they are creating. They are also asking and answering questions. There are minimal disruptions.
What differences do you see between your fall video and this one?In addition to what I have mentioned above, one of the biggest differences between my fall video and this video is that there is much more student-to-student interaction in this video than in the fall video, during which I spend most of my time in the front of the room presenting and then mediating the discussion. Even though this lesson was much more student-centered than the one in the fall video, I still spent a lot of time setting up the activity and giving directions. Transitions were also slow. I would like to continue to work on being clear and direct in terms of what I want the students to do so that they can spend more time learning and less time getting ready to learn.