Lab 1 RTL Teaching Activity Reflection

RTL 1 Reflective Blog

            Today I taught a lesson to six of my peers on Central American Countries and their national mottos. I was definitely nervous to be teaching in front of my classmates, but thoroughly enjoyed learning more about Central America and believe that this was a very helpful process.  

            For this blog post, I will first relate what happened during the lesson. Then I will discuss my initial feelings after the lesson was complete and discuss the learner satisfaction forms. Finally, I will detail some areas I believe could use improvement.  

            The lesson consisted of a Do Now activity to get students thinking about national mottos. Then we looked at a map of Central America and labeled the map using a mnemonic that I taught the students. After this, students worked in pairs to come up with creative ways to remember the countries and their respective mottos. Then the learners completed an evaluation and filled out a learners satisfaction form.

            Initially after the lesson was over, I mostly felt relief! Everything seemed to go well and the students performed very well on the assessment. Out of a possible 14 points, several students had a perfect score for an average of 13.17. I was content that the students had learned something from the lesson, and they seemed to somewhat enjoy it, so that boosted my confidence a bit. I definitely felt that I had rambled at times during the lesson, and could have given more concise and clear directions. I also went over the time by a minute, and should have planned for it to take longer to take the assessment.

            The learner satisfaction forms indicated that the students thought the mnemonic was helpful, and that the transitions between activities were smooth. Students also indicated that the individual and group work was helpful. This was good to read because I wanted to make sure that students were engaged in the lesson and interacting with me and other students.

            In regards to areas where the lesson could have been changed, or I as the teacher could have increased their satisfaction as a learner, there are many lessons to learn. One for example was to simply have the students practice saying the mnemonic themselves. It was written (perhaps too small for students in the back) on a poster, thus reading and repeating the mnemonic might have made it easier to remember. Additionally, two students felt rushed, so slowing down or not including as much in the activity would be helpful. Finally, one learner noted more confidence in myself and the lesson would have helped them as a learner. Duly noted!

            In reviewing the tape, I definitely have several “tells” that I am nervous. I am walking around the room often and played with my watch several times which can be distracting and/or annoying to students. Additionally, while I interacted with a student one on one, it may have been distracting to the other students. Finally, an area of improvement is definitely in giving directions. I would continue to rattle off instructions to students after giving them directions, which is confusing!

            This was a very helpful exercise, and lessons learned can be applied to really any interaction with students in the future!

Well team, we did it, we taught a lesson in front of each other AND a video camera! We are doing great, and I am looking forward to learning more with you all!

Cheers,

-Sb