This was a really difficult lesson, so I give you a lot of credit for trying to do this. I thought about doing haikus, but I thought it might be too below-grade-level for my area of interest and also it looked like a difficult lesson, but you pulled it off. I always love actually making students create something, so this lesson was great for that. Truthfully, I wasn't in love with those worksheets at first, but as we used them a little more I found them to be really useful tools. Just make sure to make it clear how to use them. Also, I might look at the way you want to do group practice for this lesson. I find working on one poem as a whole group a little tedious, you might want to divide us up into smaller units of 3 or 4. This was a strong lesson and a good microteaching, I applaud you.
Leah, I thought your lesson was well thought out and organized. I do agree with Nathan that dividing us into smaller groups for the group practice might have been more effective. I enjoyed the individual practice and coming up with our own haikus was engaging and allowed us to channel our creativity. It also was a great way to test our knowledge from the lecture. I don't remember if you said what grade level you were targeting. I think it would definitely be a great lesson to teach middle schoolers; however it might be a bit too basic for students in high school. Other than that, I don't really have any criticism and I think your performance for your first Microteach was a success!
Leah, thought the hand outs were a great way to make the lesson easier to complete. I thought it was an effective tool to strengthen your lesson. I agree with everyone that working in small groups would have been better, I can see this being even harder to do as a whole class considering there were only 6 of us. But overall a good lesson that was simple yet effective. Your worksheets allowed everyone to stay on pace and would work well for children around 6th grade.
Leah, I really enjoyed your lesson. I knew what a haiku was, but I never knew how to write one. I liked how you had is do one along with you, then try on our own with the prompts you gave. It felt like an actual classroom lesson. You were very clear on your directions. I know this was a small piece of your overall lesson plan and it was executed very well. For a first micro teaching lesson you sounded professional and clear. Great job!
Leah, your lesson was masterful on multiple counts, in my opinion. You started by writing the structural guidelines for haikus on the board, then asking questions about them. It had been probably 30 years since I’ve thought about haikus so I would not have remembered anything without the prompts. With prompts, I was right in it with you, recalling the method and being able to respond. You even gave us a fun way to count syllables on our fingers. Then you provided an example. It was not an example from a book or some cardboard example that meant nothing; it was a haiku you had written. It was about a raindrop gliding atop a leaf and it was beautiful. As soon as I saw it, I knew my teacher was talented and I could learn something here; I would have signed up for your class on the spot. When it came time for individual practice, you gave us a fresh handout to write on. It made me feel like you expected my poem would be worthy of its own paper. I began constructing my haiku immediately, fingers flying. I used a theme from our group lessons, but somehow it came out rather personal for me, so I would not naturally have shared that out loud with the group. But here you showed your “with-it-ness” that we learned about in CEP. I think you took a volunteer or two, then looked my way and said, “You were working hard on yours”. This gifted teacher who had just shared her beautiful poem with us had paid that much attention to her students. Of course I shared my poem.
Mastery learning – to make teachers of us all. Some will have the gift.
For Microteaching II: We all remember our high school vocabulary exercises, so this seemed like a good idea for a topic. I thought it was good to get the students looking up the part of speech, synonym, antonym, definition themselves and in this day and age you might as well employ their omnipresent cellular devices for something useful. I thought the instructions on the handout were a bit tedious – write all this stuff on the board, write down every idea about how to teach the word to the class, so many presentation options to think about. The actual teaching of the words was straightforward enough and enjoyable enough with just a picture or a story so I guess I would suggest just keeping it simple. You can always use your other ideas on the next vocabulary lesson. (Having said that I realize you probably wanted to show your versatility on tape…which is understandable.)
This was a really difficult lesson, so I give you a lot of credit for trying to do this. I thought about doing haikus, but I thought it might be too below-grade-level for my area of interest and also it looked like a difficult lesson, but you pulled it off. I always love actually making students create something, so this lesson was great for that. Truthfully, I wasn't in love with those worksheets at first, but as we used them a little more I found them to be really useful tools. Just make sure to make it clear how to use them. Also, I might look at the way you want to do group practice for this lesson. I find working on one poem as a whole group a little tedious, you might want to divide us up into smaller units of 3 or 4. This was a strong lesson and a good microteaching, I applaud you.
ReplyDeleteLeah, I thought your lesson was well thought out and organized. I do agree with Nathan that dividing us into smaller groups for the group practice might have been more effective. I enjoyed the individual practice and coming up with our own haikus was engaging and allowed us to channel our creativity. It also was a great way to test our knowledge from the lecture. I don't remember if you said what grade level you were targeting. I think it would definitely be a great lesson to teach middle schoolers; however it might be a bit too basic for students in high school. Other than that, I don't really have any criticism and I think your performance for your first Microteach was a success!
ReplyDeleteLeah, thought the hand outs were a great way to make the lesson easier to complete. I thought it was an effective tool to strengthen your lesson. I agree with everyone that working in small groups would have been better, I can see this being even harder to do as a whole class considering there were only 6 of us. But overall a good lesson that was simple yet effective. Your worksheets allowed everyone to stay on pace and would work well for children around 6th grade.
ReplyDeleteLeah, I really enjoyed your lesson. I knew what a haiku was, but I never knew how to write one. I liked how you had is do one along with you, then try on our own with the prompts you gave. It felt like an actual classroom lesson. You were very clear on your directions. I know this was a small piece of your overall lesson plan and it was executed very well. For a first micro teaching lesson you sounded professional and clear. Great job!
ReplyDeleteLeah, your lesson was masterful on multiple counts, in my opinion. You started by writing the structural guidelines for haikus on the board, then asking questions about them. It had been probably 30 years since I’ve thought about haikus so I would not have remembered anything without the prompts. With prompts, I was right in it with you, recalling the method and being able to respond. You even gave us a fun way to count syllables on our fingers. Then you provided an example. It was not an example from a book or some cardboard example that meant nothing; it was a haiku you had written. It was about a raindrop gliding atop a leaf and it was beautiful. As soon as I saw it, I knew my teacher was talented and I could learn something here; I would have signed up for your class on the spot. When it came time for individual practice, you gave us a fresh handout to write on. It made me feel like you expected my poem would be worthy of its own paper. I began constructing my haiku immediately, fingers flying. I used a theme from our group lessons, but somehow it came out rather personal for me, so I would not naturally have shared that out loud with the group. But here you showed your “with-it-ness” that we learned about in CEP. I think you took a volunteer or two, then looked my way and said, “You were working hard on yours”. This gifted teacher who had just shared her beautiful poem with us had paid that much attention to her students. Of course I shared my poem.
ReplyDeleteMastery learning –
to make teachers of us all.
Some will have the gift.
For Microteaching II:
ReplyDeleteWe all remember our high school vocabulary exercises, so this seemed like a good idea for a topic. I thought it was good to get the students looking up the part of speech, synonym, antonym, definition themselves and in this day and age you might as well employ their omnipresent cellular devices for something useful. I thought the instructions on the handout were a bit tedious – write all this stuff on the board, write down every idea about how to teach the word to the class, so many presentation options to think about. The actual teaching of the words was straightforward enough and enjoyable enough with just a picture or a story so I guess I would suggest just keeping it simple. You can always use your other ideas on the next vocabulary lesson. (Having said that I realize you probably wanted to show your versatility on tape…which is understandable.)