#AEE 412: Lab VIII - Putting it All Together

On Friday after my 3-day micro-teaching experience, I drove down to Penn Manor HS to complete my 8th lab. For this lab we had to utilize a lesson plan from FFA's LifeKnowledge lessons. I combined portions of two lessons to make one lesson on What is Leadership? and What is service-leadership? I taught my lesson to the CASE AFNR class, which was comprised of 19 students who were mostly freshmen. I really enjoyed my day at Penn Manor; it was a great chance to reconnect with some of the students I already knew and meet some more students that I will teach in the spring. Here are some reflections from my lesson:

Gems

Making towers! What type of leader are you?

1. I used a variety of learning activities. After we learned about 3 different types of leaders, the students participated in a group activity to see what kind of leaders they were. They had to work together in groups to build a tower out of hard spaghetti and marshmallows. It was fun to watch the students work together, see who emerged as leader, and solve the challenges they faced. However, FYI: marshmallows and spaghetti were kind of messy and it was almost too challenging to build a structure with.

2. Most of the questions I asked were thoughtful and engaged the students in the discussion. During our discussions I feel like most of the questions I asked promoted deeper learning and weren't just "yes or no" questions. It also promoted participation and engagement during the PowerPoint.

3. I had students resonate instructions after they were given. After each time I gave instructions, I called on a student to restate the instructions for everyone to make sure we were all on the same page. I found this reduced the number of times students asked questions about what they were supposed to do next.

Opportunities for Improvement

1. There were a few times I provided the answer to a question because no one responded right away. This group of students was on the quieter side and often did not want to respond to my questions. I tried to restate my questions or simply wait until someone responded, but there were a few times I just gave them the answer I was looking for. No matter how awkward it may seem, I can't give them the answer because then that just tells them that they don't have to answer questions. In the future I will really work at restating the questions and waiting until someone answers.

2. Time and pacing. I also included this in my micro-teaching reflection, but that is because I realized this after both experiences. Once again, I had planned for more than what I thought we could accomplish, but I like knowing I don't have to worry about running out of things to do. During the one activity, one group of students finished WAY before everyone else. I went back and tried to ask them more questions to keep them thinking/working, but I definitely should have planned out some questions for them to work on while everyone else was finishing up. Like I mentioned in my micro-teaching blog post, I think in the future I need to be better about including "how much time" in my instructions (or asking the students how much time do they think they need and then negotiating from there) and also planning extra questions for those students who finish up really early. I think I also need to work on determining which activities are highest priority to accomplish before I teach the lesson. That way if I see we're running short on time, I can cut out a less important part so I make sure we cover everything.