Video Reflection #3
Last week I was observed teaching a science lesson by the assistant principal. The lesson was a review of the water cycle. In an effort to get the students more engaged and up out of their seats, they participated in an activity in which they took the perspective of a drop of water and went on a journey through the water cycle. There were dice and numbered cards at each station which would determine their fate as a water drop. Each station represented different locations and thus states of water (i.e. glaciers, aquifer, ocean, lakes and rivers, ground, atmosphere, clouds, etc.). The students had to cycle through 10 times and make note of what happened to them on a water cycle chart. At the end of the lesson a few students were selected to come up and share their journey through the water cycle. Overall it was a very engaging lesson for the students and taking on the perspective of the water drop allowed them to contextualize concepts such as evaporation, condensation, and precipitation in a personal way. When watching the video back later I realized how helpful it was to have more attention-getters in my repertoire than when I started this semester. For example, at one point in the lesson there was a glitch with the computer that caused a video that was a song about the water cycle to jump to something else, which startled us a little! Rather than losing control of the class at that point, I was able to use a musical attention-getter (the Addams Family theme song) to get the class back together and continue moving forward without losing any time or focus. Later in the lesson I was even able to make a joke about it when referencing the video again. I also found that I’ve gotten better at phrasing the directions in a clear and simple way. The activity had a lot of directions, but watching it back it was clear the students were following along and I checked in with them several times for comprehension. The students have really begun to get used to the accountable talk practices and asking each other clarifying questions. I also made sure to use things students said in my own teacher talk to keep them engaged and to connect to what they know. I also found that explicitly stating good listening behaviors or telling the students to all put their hands on their desks before giving key instructions proved to be more effective than other methods I had used in the past. I will be sure to do this more moving forward. In the future, I would also like to work on being more mindful of my body positioning in relation to the classroom and the students. There were several periods of time when I was either writing something on the board or addressing a student question and I had my back to the majority of the class for far too long. While nothing in particular happened as a result in this instance, it is generally preferable to avoid any positioning in which I have my back to students. Overall I felt very positive about the lesson after watching it back and I can see how implementing strategies and techniques from previous reflections has really begun to pay off. I plan to continue these reflective practices, and perhaps recording lessons in the future to gain perspective on areas of strength and weakness in order to continually grow as an effective educator.
Monica Mukherjee's Field Experience 