Cause and Effect
Reflection on Second Video Lesson
The first thing that I see differently in this lesson is that my confidence level is much higher than it was at the beginning of this semester. I have begun to establish myself as an educative figure in this class. This first clip shows how I opened the lesson, and more importantly how I addressed the little distraction in the back of the room, my camcorder. At this time in the year I have made more than two recordings of the class, so I knew that it would be a problem when I brought it out for this lesson. I wanted to just go ahead and bring up the elephant in the room, in hopes that I could get the class to focus on what we were doing, rather than making funny faces to the university.
In this clip I am also introducing the lesson. My lesson is to teach about cause and effect, and how we can use that in stories. The story that we start off reading about is on windmills. Then we move in to how to use cause and effect, understanding cause and effect and then using it with the story that we have been reading for the past week. We start off at the end of this story, before the lesson actually starts.
In opening this lesson I recalled what they had already read about windmills. I then prompted them to think, as we read the last part of the story, about what happened to windmills and why it happened, hoping it would get them to start thinking about cause and effect.
The next clip is the part of the lesson that I need to work on. While I was taking my classes on instruction, I had learned about this diamond that sits in the middle of the class. It it is a symbol that is used to represent the areas of the class that tends to receive the most attention from the teacher. In this clip, pay attention to the right hand side of the screen. It is a young girl that has a problem paying attention and staying on task. You will notice that she at first walks across the front of the class to get something from her bag. It took me a second to realize that she was heading that way. The portion of my video assessment highlights how the middle of the class got the most attention, and the corners got almost none. That is until the grand finale with this particular student and then another student who got her named called when I decided to pull sticks.
As the viewer should realize, I quickly stressed how I felt when my attention was directed to this problem area. "Oh this is going to hurt me," is the phrase that I used to stress my concern over how this would look in my portfolio. I thought briefly about editing this part out and trying to focus on the rest of the video. I quickly changed my mind when I realized that this is a learning experience and that I should not ignore this issue, but address it and grow from it.
On the contrary to the last video clip, this one highlights what I thought went very well during this lesson. The lesson was on cause and effect and I wanted to do something different then reading my lesson out of the text book. I wanted to branch out and put together something that was fun, engaging, and really connected with the class to have them understand cause and effect.
This part of the lesson went very well. There is one of the students in the class that decided to be a little inappropriate with what I was asking. In order to quiet that student I decided not to pay him any attention, or give him the reaction I think that he wanted. It worked well. He tried to blurt out another inappropriate response, but what he got was a lecture from his peers about what they thought of his outburst. I think by having the class come up with their own cause and effects, I gave them the opportunity to play with the lesson, and really understand what a cause and effect is. I checked their understanding with a quick paper relating to the book and a few extra scenarios. They were to find particular causes and their effects. Each member of my class did an outstanding job with their paper, so I believe that the lesson was an overall success. Even for the two on the right.
In order to continue to grow, I decided that I will make sure to direct my attention to the whole class. I have since made that adjustment, and continued to "pull sticks." I can say that I haven't had much problems with people sleeping in my class since. What I have done to make sure that my focus was not just in one area is to make this pendulum type motion in front of the class. I move from side to side, throughout my instruction, so that the diamond shifts to cover the whole class while I am teaching. I have definitely realized that teaching is a process that continually grows along side of my experience. While my class has that diamond shape sitting in the middle of the class, my cooperating teacher works more with a square. Maybe, if I am lucky enough, I will become as effective as her and will be able to make engaging the class seem effortless.
In order to continue to grow, I decided that I will make sure to direct my attention to the whole class. I have since made that adjustment, and continued to "pull sticks." I can say that I haven't had much problems with people sleeping in my class since. What I have done to make sure that my focus was not just in one area is to make this pendulum type motion in front of the class. I move from side to side, throughout my instruction, so that the diamond shifts to cover the whole class while I am teaching. I have definitely realized that teaching is a process that continually grows along side of my experience. While my class has that diamond shape sitting in the middle of the class, my cooperating teacher works more with a square. Maybe, if I am lucky enough, I will become as effective as her and will be able to make engaging the class seem effortless.
