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Lesson 1 Reflection
Feeling:
Monday, Mar. 09, 2009, 10:33 pm

For my General Methods class, we have to spend 30 hours observing in a classroom. Part of our requirements for the class is that we teach four half-hour lessons. We taught for the first time today. We teach again on Wednesday; the third lesson is next Monday (the 16th), and the fourth and final lesson is the Wednesday after that (the 18th - my 21st birthday). Writing the lesson plan was really hard; I just finished writing my second lesson plan, and it was harder than I thought, too. For each lesson, we have to write a reflection at the end of our lesson plan. Here's my reflection for my very first lesson plan:

Overall, I felt that the lesson was very hectic and unorganized. I felt like I was jumping from one thing to the next like a chicken with its head cut off. I felt disoriented the entire time. I felt like I couldn’t keep up with everything that was going on in the classroom. I felt like I didn’t know my lesson plan well enough – I was constantly looking at it and read off of it verbatim; this contributed to my feeling of not being organized or “with-it,” because I was constantly looking down at my paper and I felt like I wasn’t aware enough of what was going on in the room. I didn’t give them enough time to work on their pictures. I took too much time showing them my pictures. I think that was my biggest failure in the lesson – I didn’t give them enough time to create good pictures for me.

The kids seemed to stay with the lesson pretty well. Of course there were plenty of comments about what we were doing, but they seemed to be paying attention pretty well. They watched very closely when I did my initiator, and were very quiet while I was drawing the houses on the board. Of course there were some comments about what I was drawing, but I expected that, and there weren’t nearly as many comments as I expected; the comments that were made were also made quietly, for the most part. The students were very interested in the pictures of the different types of houses that I displayed on the screen. This was one point where they seemed to get a little too excited, and it seemed like I had trouble keeping them quiet and listening to me. Overall, though, the students were very well-behaved. I didn’t seem to have any discipline problems, besides the children being a little chattier than I would have liked at certain points during the lesson.

The time passed very quickly. I felt like I had enough material prepared for my half hour. I just didn’t feel like I stayed on top of things well enough and that I didn’t know my lesson or what I wanted to say well enough, which contributed to my feelings of inadequacy and stress. For a first lesson, though, I think it went very well, and it definitely could have gone a lot worse. So, overall, I’m happy with how the day went.

Needless to say, I'm looking forward to finding out if things will get progressively better with each lesson I teach. I'm thinking that it will take me quite a few lessons to get the experience needed to really feel comfortable with my teaching. But that's how it is with anything, so I'll just have to push on through and perservere.

For those of you who are in my cohort and have taught your lesson: HOW DID IT GO?????

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My Last 5 Updates
It's Summer! # Tuesday, May. 12, 2009
Slacker # Thursday, May. 07, 2009
Lesson 4 Reflection # Wednesday, Mar. 18, 2009
Lesson 3 Reflection # Monday, Mar. 16, 2009
Lesson 2 Reflection # Wednesday, Mar. 11, 2009