Dan Pickens
EdSe 3205 Gen. Inst. Meth.
Lesson Analysis
Lesson Analysis from My Apprenticeship Site
Analysis and Clarity of Lesson
Plan
I
did my apprenticeship site at
My lesson introduction was well thought out but was not very well outlined on my lesson plan. If I forgot some of it and looked at my lesson plan for a refresher, it would do me no good. It is not very clear what I will do during the introduction, however, it is very clear what the students will be doing during my introduction. Another thing that I should have added to my lesson introduction is some framing questions for the students written out. I had some in my mind, but I did not write them out and I should have. The introduction does a good job of going over past material and also I think it is written out with a clear objective of good classroom management. The introduction does a good job of bringing the students from yesterday’s lesson right into today’s lesson very smoothly. Also, it has very good intention throughout the whole thing; they just need to be written out.
The lesson body is about the same as my lesson instruction as far as it being very thorough on what I am going to do, but it needs to be written out a little bit more. There should maybe be some feeder questions at the beginning of the lesson to get the students into the lesson and motivated. The body had some questions written out in the middle and that was great. I think the lesson is very thorough about what is going to be going on during the lesson and it did a great job out lining a timeline for the lesson body. It clearly indicates that I was going to be using scaffolding for the questions that I asked, visual examples (although not written out what) for the more visual learners, and independent practice for the intrapersonal learners. I think that the lesson body did a great job of covering many of the multiple intelligences which is one of the main things that teachers must include in their lesson body.
The conclusion of the lesson is clearly out of place. The game of bingo, although a good idea, does not belong written in the conclusion. The conclusion starts when you close your lesson. This is at the end of the conclusion in my lesson plan. Bingo is a game that my apprenticeship teacher plays all of the time at the end of the day to assess kids learning and let them have fun, which is why I did it. The conclusion did a good job of wrapping up the lesson taught and answering any final questions that kids had. It said that I was going to connect all of the information at the end but it didn’t say how I was going to do that. A few assessment questions would not have been a bad idea for the conclusions, but I think that it did fine without. The conclusion did a good job at a lead in for tomorrow lesson. All in all, the lesson conclusion, although some of it out of place, did a good job of bringing the material together and closing the kids’ mental filing cabinets.
The assessment portion of my lesson plan was a little brief and not very to the point. It is very straight forward though. One form of assessment was the note sheet with examples that I handed out for the students to take note while I was teaching my lesson. While I walked around during their time to do their assignment sheet (2nd for of assessment) I looked at their note sheet to make sure they understood everything. While I was walking around helping the kids with their assignments I was taking mental notes to see who needed extra help and who was doing great. I was planning on using the bingo game as a form of assessment, but now that I think about it, I cannot put too much on that game since it kind of only plays to the kids that want to yell BINGO in class. So, my last form of assessment is the assignments that I will be correcting the next day, which went well by the way. So, my assessment had most of the essential components that assessment needs and I think it will do a great job assessing my students learning.
Analysis of Teaching the Lesson
Organization of lesson
I thought that my lesson was very well organized and I was very prepared to teach it to four Math 7 classes. I had clear stated objectives and I thought that they related to my material to be taught very well. The bingo game at the end did not have to be played and I was prepared to cut it out if I did not have enough time. Therefore I was very flexible with the time that the lesson could possibly take. Teachers must always be prepared to adapt their lesson to how much time they are given. You never know when there is going to be a fire drill, or the lesson just takes longer because the students don’t grasp the material like you though they would. This is the one thing in the classroom that the teacher cannot control. I was very prepared for the lesson, then therefore, it was very well.
Effectiveness of the lesson introduction
My lesson introduction went a little bit rough in my first two classes taught because I was a new teacher and they did not have a lot of respect for me yet. Teachers need o develop a rapport with the students before they get the respect of being quiet and listening to the lesson. I tried to chug my way through the introduction, but what I should have done was just le the kids ask the questions about me they wanted to and get that out of the way. That is what I did for the second two classes and it went much better. It took about 5 minutes of the student asking questions about why I am there and what I do, then they respected me enough to listen to my lesson respectfully. The other thing I could have worked on is my attention getter in the introduction, I wish I would have thought of something to really grab the students because I almost lost some of them right away like I did in my first lesson taught. Introductions need to make the lesson meaningful to the students so that they are motivated to learn the material, and I did not do this very well. The lesson introduction did a great job of connecting the old material with the material that we were going to be going over the next day. So, my lesson introduction went pretty well in the first two lessons I taught; however, I altered it up a bit and it went great in my last two classes. This is something that teachers must be able to do, alter their lesson in the middle of the day to make them better.
Transitions from one part of the lesson to the next
The transitions from one part of the lesson to the next were very good during all four of my lessons. I planned so that I would have something to do while I was making the transition from one part of the lesson to the next. From the lesson introduction to the lesson, the kids were handing in their yesterday’s assignments and I was handing out their note sheets to take notes on during the lesson. This was a great transition because there wasn’t any down time and the kids even got to get up and stretch out before the lesson got going. The transition from the note sheet to when I handed out the assignment sheet also went very well because I had them doing the examples on the back of the note sheet as I walked around and passed out the assignment sheet while helping individual students with the examples. Lastly, the transition from the lesson to the conclusion we a little rough. This is because we just got done playing bingo, so the kids were a little riled up. I tried to bring the students back into the material that we were learning that day and close them up, but it didn’t go to well. I should have collected all of the bingo stuff and made sure it was put away before I started my conclusion because a lot of the kids were still messing with the bingo stuff while I was trying to talk. But, the lesson transitions went very well and I think that it is a direct result of how well I planned for the transitions.
Effectiveness of my questioning techniques
Although my questioning techniques were not very well planed out and written in my lesson plan, they went fairly well during my lesson. I used questions and volunteers during my lesson quite a bit. The students were asked to define the words ratios and simplest form. I used an adequate amount of wait time after asking my questions and the students were able to think about the question thoroughly before I called on one of them. I did not ask for non-volunteers first when asking these questions because there are not a lot of correct answers so I did not want to put students on the spot that early in the lesson. I also scaffolded the students’ answers until they got to where I wanted them to. My questioning techniques were very good; however, I think I needed to use more of them to assess my students. If I were to do it again I would use some more framing questions during my introduction and I would definitely use some more feeder questions to bring out any other questions that any students might have. Overall, the questioning techniques that I used were very effective; however, I should have extended and used more questioning techniques throughout my lesson.
Classroom management
Although my classroom management was the thing that I was most worried about, it went very well through all of my lessons. I thought that classroom management was going to be very tough since I did not have a rapport with the students and did not have the respect of all of them yet. However, my cooperating teacher had established a respectful community in her classroom that ensured that students respected anybody standing in front of the class. I think that it helped that she was sitting in the back of the room also. I also believe that the classroom management went well because of how smooth the transitions went because there was not any free time and down time for the kids to goof off. I tried to move around the room, but it was hard because of the way that the room was set up. But, Mrs. Belanger was sitting in the back of the room and I was teaching from the front of the room so that helped with proximity control for the most part. The only time that the class got a little out of hand was after the class played bingo and I was trying to get them to wrap up for the conclusion. What I could have done to fix that would be to make sure that the bingo cards were put away and all of the students were paying attention instead of just trying to speak over them. I think that all in all the classroom management went very well. I think that the most important thing to know about classroom management is to establish a community of mutual respect in your classroom and it will make your job much easier.
Body language and movement around the room
Body language and movement around the room was one of the things that I focused on because I knew I needed to work on it. I worked on not crossing my arms and also, like I said before, tried to move around the room as much as I was able to. I really made sure that everyone in the class could see what I was writing on the board at all times, from anywhere in the room. I thought that I executed all of these things excellently and I am very glad I focused on them because it made my lesson go so much better. I also made sure that I did not point at kids when I was calling on them for an answer; I used an open hand to welcome them to answer the question. A point can be very threatening at times, and also is not culturally appropriate in all cultures. My body language and movement around the classroom was great, and I do not have any critiques for my self at this time.
Effectiveness of closure
My closure was probably the weakest part of my lesson, but it was not that bad. I learned from my first couple lesson and got it much better by my final class. Like I have said before, I should have had the kids put all of the bingo stuff away before I started to close up the lesson. Instead I was trying to speak over them and got pretty frustrated in my first couple lessons. I had a pretty well planned closing and once I got to it, it went very well. I asked a few questions for assessment purposes and made sure that there were no major questions about the new material. Then, I introduced them to what they were going to be doing the next day so that they could come ready to learn. I did my best to make sure that their ‘mental filing cabinets’ were not left open and that everything would not be lost as soon as they left the classroom. Closure is my weakest point of my teaching so far, and I am doing my best to get better at it every time. So, although I did have some management problems with the closure, the material was very good and I thought I executed it pretty good.
Different teaching strategies
I did not have the opportunity to get to know a lot about many of the students in class because of my limitations with the class throughout the semester. So, in order to try to reach all of the students in the class I did my best to use as many different strategies when teaching the lesson to reach as many intelligences as I could. I lecture a bit during the lesson for the linguistic learners, wrote on the board and wrote out problems for the visual learners, modeled the examples for the kinesthetic learners, and allowed for both group work and individual work for the interpersonal and intrapersonal learners. I was taught in Dan Glisczinski’s class that a learner has to see or hear a concept or idea at least five times in order to learn it; therefore that is reason I organized my lesson with:
So, according to what I have learned in school, the students in my class should remember the material that I was teaching. Since the material was a little repetitive, I tried to use a bunch of different ways to explain and do the same thing. I also walked around the room when they were doing their assignments and helped out any other students that did not pick up the information from what I had done so far. I did not really have to adapt any of my lesson content, but I did do some adaptation in order to help out my classroom management, the lesson stayed the same. I think that I reached every student and did an excellent job of using multiple techniques while I taught my lesson on simplifying fractions and ratios.
Enthusiasm, confidence, and ability to capture students’ attention
My enthusiasm and ability to capture students’ attention during my lecture was very good during all four of my lessons. However, I cannot say the same for my confidence. I will admit that I was a little nervous to teach my lessons and I thin kit showed through on my first lesson. Teachers must be careful of this because kids can sense fear, and they will take advantage of that is there is not a community of mutual respect in the classroom; luckily there was in mine. I did loosen up a lot in my other lecture and I was very confident by my final lecture. I love to teach math and I love that age of kids. The students gain much more and have so much more fun doing it when the teacher is enthusiastic and really loves what s/he is doing. I am a firm believer of that and I love teaching math to middle schoolers (even though they drive me crazy sometimes).
Anything else I noticed about my lesson and my teaching
I noticed a few other things during teaching my lesson that I have not yet reflected on. I believe that standing by the door and greeting the kids as they come in is a great thing to do, especially if you are a new teacher, and it also helps you get a feel for how the students are feeling on that particular day. I also noticed that examples that you are going to do on the board should definitely be worked out ahead of time so that there are no mistakes on basic algebra during the lesson. One more good thing about my lesson that I noticed was the emphasis on a relaxed and calm atmosphere in a math classroom. It seems like too many times kids get worked up and stressed out over math and a relaxed atmosphere in the classroom would raise their tolerance and give them a better opportunity to learn the material.
Overall summary of what we learned from teaching and from our lesson analysis
I learned much more from teaching this lesson than I could ever write down on paper. The first major point that I learned was the importance of the teacher to be able to adapt their lesson to how the students are that day. The teacher needs to be flexible at all times when teaching a lesson. I also learned the importance of developing a community in your classroom and have it be a community of mutual respect for anyone who is teaching and also for all of the students. This will greatly help out your own classroom management and also any student or apprenticeship teacher you might have. I learned from this lesson that planning is very important and that the questioning techniques that you use and plan to use can make or break a lesson. I learned that I need to be confident when I am teaching and feel comfortable. Overall, I know that I need to work on a lot of things, but I was very pleased with how my lesson went and the feedback that I got from my cooperating teacher.