The First Day of School {Lab}

"What's the soundtrack of your life?"

After our first lab I set four goals for myself to focus on improving for the First Day of School lab. To improve my teaching ability, I revisited and evaluated my goals below.

My goals for this lab were:
1. Filter and control my energy throughout the lesson
2. Conduct a practice run prior to teaching
3. Before deciding on a teaching method for the lesson, look up examples on external websites
4. Slow my pace of speech down

Goal #1:
This goal was where I really focused on improving for this lab. For the first day of school I wanted to have a balance of seriousness while introducing my expectations, procedures, and consequences in addition to cultivating an upbeat, comfort, and fun atmosphere for my students. I deem this goal accomplished for the day, but one that I cannot forget because of my personality. [Also, one minor detail that I noticed was my caffeine intake. Last time I started my day with coffee, and I am not an everyday coffee drinker, and making one small decision like that made me jittery and amped up. So for this lab I had no coffee and it helped a lot.]

Goal #2:
If I am being honest with myself, I did not stand up, time myself, and deliver my lesson plan like I would present it in a class. This lack of preparation was noticeable when I could not formulate the right questions or transition smoothly. I did read through my lesson out loud which was a step more then last time, but I want to be prepared because I expect my students to be and I do not want them to lose out on opportunities to learn.

Goal #3:
This was fun to do and extremely beneficial. I did not get my lesson idea from doing this, but it help kickstart my creative juices. Watching a First Day of Class video from a past student was helpful because I was able to read the comments and watch a teacher perform verses reading words on a document. This goal was met.

Goal #4:
This goal was unmet. This was one area where I only slightly improved from week one but have a lot of room for improvement.

So this week...

I went into this week's lab with a mindset of trying to incorporate all of the ideas, strategies, and modalities we have learned in AEE 412 into the lesson. It was difficult to incorporate everything into the 15 minute class I taught so I am very excited to implement this lesson into my Leadership unit. Speaking of which, I developed my first full lesson plan which took a lot longer then I thought, but understand the importance of detail and completion of the entire lesson plan. In preparation for the lab, the detail of my lesson plan was beneficial, but as soon as I started to teach I got lost in it and went from memory. For next week I need to adjust my layout so that I can locate what I need in my lesson plan when I teach from it.

After watching my video and reading some of the written feedback I was impressed with the accuracy of my peer and teacher evaluations. My reaction after lab was that I feel uncomfortable in a classroom setting with students staring at me. When I looked at the students while talking a stumbled on my words and questions. An observation I made from watching my video was that my clarity in directions was weak. For Activity 2, my explanation was all over the place and high school students would have stared at me blankly.

Some other external feedback that was given was to:

- State my objectives

- Use signal words to direct students to an action

- Slow my pace of speech down

I knew half way through my lesson that I forgot to state my objectives and I made the decision to not knowledge them and believe that hanging them on the wall would be good enough at that point. I am not sure I made the right decision though? Also, using signal words is not a concept that I ever considered before, but after watching a fellow classmate utilize that tactic in her lesson and execute it successfully, I saw the power behind it.

If I could re-teach this class I would focus on my public speaking 101. The pace of my speech and my hand gestures need to be slowed down and controlled. I think with slowing my pace of speech down I would take the time to be more clear in giving directions, it would eliminate some of the filler words, and improve the fluidity of my transitions. Something I picked up from watching the video that I did not realize I did was that I say my students names when addressing them or calling on them to answer. I found this to be very positive for the atmosphere I was trying to cultivate.

Next week is the interest approach lab. If you are reading this blog and have any great ideas that have worked for you, I would enjoy hearing them! For the Interest approach lab my goals are:

1. Slow my pace of speech down
2. Utilize my hand and body gestures effectively and at appropriate times
3. Practice my lesson one time before I present it
4. Think about and incorporate the minor details that make a lesson function smoothly (Ex. action words, e-moments)