When I planned my lesson I used a backwards design approach. I knew. that my final lesson assessment would be a test. Therefore, I knew that there

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1 Jennifer Mecca Mini Lesson Written Reflection 1. Design Process and Introduction to My Lesson: When I planned my lesson I used a backwards design approach. I knew that my final lesson assessment would be a test. Therefore, I knew that there were certain concepts that I knew I needed to get across to my students. I chose to do a lecture on PowerPoint to illustrate the main points that I needed to get across. I also chose to give my students a graphic organizer so that I could be sure that they had received the information that I wanted them to learn. I find that this is good because students are required to follow along with the lecture but they do not have to copy down every word and get distracted by writing too much information. I also wanted to include an informal assessment that would require my students to apply the knowledge that they learned. I decided to make an activity where my students got to apply the different types of government to their own made up government situations. By using these techniques when they create their own governments, the students are really able to apply the concepts rather than just memorize the definitions. 2. Initial Reactions to My Lesson When I taught my lesson I really thought that overall things went very well. I felt like I was able to meet my lesson objectives, which were: 1. Identify and describe three types of government; Autocracy, Oligarchy, and Democracy 2. Compare and contrast the three different types of government and be able to list examples of each.

2 I believe that my use of informal assessments and exit slips showed me as the teacher that my students really did master the concepts of Autocracy, Oligarchy and Democracy. In my lesson my students were able to absorb and use the information in lots of different ways. They were able to listen to me talk about the information. They were also able to write down the information through slot notes, which helped them remember the information. And finally they were able to apply the knowledge that they learned when they worked with their classmates to apply the different types of governments to their own made up government scenarios. I believe that in my lesson my objectives were very clear. They were displayed on the board throughout the lesson for the students to see and understand what we were trying to accomplish as a class. I also told the students the objectives at the beginning of the class so they would be informed. One thing I believe I need to work on is my time management. The last time that I taught a mini lesson I was very worried about having too many things to do. Therefore, I went very fast and rushed through my lesson so that I would not run out of time. In order to fix this problem this time, I planned too many things. While my students were working for the entire class time, I did not have enough time to do an appropriate closure I can clearly see growth in myself because I was able to engage the students for the whole time rather than just half the time like I did last time. Even though I still need to work on my exact time management, I believe it is good that I am showing growth. I think that

3 planning will get easier as I get to know my students and figure our how long things usually take them. 3. Reaction After Watching Myself Teach: After watching myself teach, I saw some positive and negative things. First, I still think that the students really did learn the objectives of my lesson. This can be seen through their presentations of their mock governments. The students not only learned the material but they were able to present it in a creative way. I let the students draw their government and use real life examples to make it more real to them. Through their presentations I could tell that the students were not only learning the material, but they were having fun with it as well. On the other hand, I think that because I planned so much for one lesson period some of the time the students felt a little pressed for time. The purpose of the mock government assignment was to allow the students time for creative expression of the material and I think some of this was cut short by the limited time. In the future I would allow more time for the students to fully develop their ideas. I did like how I assigned the different groups the different forms of government. I think that if I had not assigned the students to specific types of government they probably would have all taken the easy road and chosen democracy. But by assigning them governments I was able to cover all the different types. I also liked how I had the groups pre-assigned. I think this made the transition smoother and saved a lot of time.

4 4. Reactions to Comments by My Peers: My peers made some very good comments about my mini lesson. First they gave my warm feedback. One of my peers mentioned that she liked how my lesson was broken up in to different sections. One section for note taking and one for creative expression of the material. She praised my use of this type of structure saying that it was good especially for block scheduling. I agree with what she had to say. In my placement I do have block scheduling and at first I was nervous because I have never experienced or taught block scheduling before, so it is good to know that I have some idea of how to plan for it. She also commented on how she liked the format that I used for note taking. I have seniors this semester; therefore, I know they do not like taking notes. My colleague commented about how she like that the notes were quick and then the students were able to concentrate on a more fun activity that reinforced the material. Another one of my colleagues also commented on how she like the way that I kept the students on task during the activity. During the activity I walked around the classroom to see if students needed help. My intent of walking around was also to make sure that students stayed on task. Another one of my colleagues also liked the way that I assigned the students into groups. I felt like this would help my lesson in many ways. First, it helps the students transition better. It also makes them stay more on task because if they are always working with their best friends, they tend to get off

5 topic. I also think that working with other people helps students prepare for college and the real world. One of my colleagues commented about my graphic organizer that went along with my notes. She said that if I were to use it again, I should make it clearer. My intent was to give the students a note-taking device while still making them thinking about what they were going to have to write down. However, I believe that I left out too much and it was confusing for the students. Before I use this in my student teaching I am going to revise the graphic organizer to make it more useful to the students. Finally, my professor suggested that I should have more guiding questions in my activity. On the board I had a set of questions that my students had to answer when they did their deserted island activity. However, I thought that the questions that I provided them with would keep them busy enough. But I was very wrong. Some of the groups breezed right through the questions and needed more. I was able to think quickly on my feet and orally give them more questions to come up with. However, in the future I plan to have a lot more questions to give to my students. I think that a good way to approach this problem would be to have set of questions that are mandatory to answer and a back up set of questions for students to answer if they need more. I think this would be a great way to differentiate my lesson for different types of learners. 5) Conclusion: what ideas, concerns, and goals are you going to work on within your teaching? There are many things that I think I can work on during my teaching. When I teach this lesson again I am going to make many changes.

6 First, I am going to revise my graphic organizer so that it is much more clear to my students. Next, I am going to make more questions for my students to answer during the deserted island activity. I am also going to try to plan my time better. I realize that this will come with more practice teaching; however, I think I can do a better job. When I teach, I also want to incorporate more thought-provoking questions into my lessons. Right now, I tend to ask questions, but they are usually one-word answers. I believe that right now I am still very nervous, but I think if I write questions down before class I can use them and build of off them to make my students think more.

7 Appendix: 1) What is the extent of classroom involvement (e.g. are the same students doing all the talking)? During the first part of my lesson, the class s involvement was very low. I as the teacher was at the front of the room lecturing while the students were taking notes using a graphic organizer. However, as my lesson progressed, all of the students were involved. During the deserted island activity, my students were paired up and had to work on an assignment. Since there were only two students to a group, everyone had to participate in order to make it work. Also, at the end the students got to share their project. All the students got to come up to the front of the room and explain to the class the decisions that they made and why they made them. 2) Are the students engaged in the lesson? How can you tell? What do students facial expressions and body language tell you about your instruction? I believe that my students were very engaged in the lesson. During the lecture the students were all writing down their notes. When my students were sharing their project, they were all very engaged. I let them be creative with their work and therefore there were lots of questions and laughter. This laughter helped to contribute to a relaxed atmosphere. 3) What kinds of questions do you ask? Can all questions be answered with a single word? How long do you wait for responses? Do you ask students to explain and/ or defend a particular answer or approach? Do you ask students to compare or evaluate alternative interpretations or strategies?

8 The kinds of questions that I ask are very basic and can be improved upon. Unfortunately a lot of them can be answered in one word. I believe my response time is good; however, the types of questions that I ask need to be improved. 4) Were there any opportunities for students to ask questions? How would you categorize the students questions (e.g. did they indicate confusion and a need for clarification or understanding and extension)? There were opportunities to for students to ask questions. This happened throughout the lecture and at the end when I had clarifying time. I think that the students understood the material fairly well. Most of the questions were for me to repeat something because the students didn t have a chance to write something down. 5) What roles (e.g. expert, facilitator, co- learner) did you play in the videotape? Was each role appropriate for the situation? At the beginning I played the role of the expert. I was in the front of the room lecturing. However, as the lesson progressed I became the facilitator as the students worked on their deserted island activities. 6) What kinds of tasks did you ask students to do? Did you capitalize on their previous knowledge and experiences? At the beginning I asked my students to sort different countries into different categories. This was designed to use their previous knowledge. After this, the activities in the lesson were mostly focused on the new knowledge learned in the lesson and about expanding and using the new knowledge in a creative way.

9 7) What instructional opportunities did you take advantage of? Why? During the lecture I was obviously instructing my students through notes and new knowledge. However, during the lesson the students also asked other questions and I was able to instruct them through those questions. I also tried to take advantage of any instructional opportunities that I could when the students were working on their projects. I walked around the room and tried to answer questions. 8) What instructional opportunities did you not take advantage of? Why? I could have probably taken better advantage of instructional opportunities during the students activities. While I did answer questions, I think I could have taught a little bit more. 9) What evidence did you see of the students taking intellectual risks? Does the class look safe as an environment for getting something wrong? Do students talk to each other as well as to you? There is a lot of evidence of students taking intellectual risks. When the students were presenting their deserted island projects they had to take a big risk when presenting their projects in front of their peers. If the students had misunderstood the type of government that they were assigned, then they could have been very embarrassed in front of their peers. However, because the environment was very relaxed, I believe the students were okay with taking risks. There was lots of laughter, which suggested that everyone was comfortable with each other.

10 10) Do you push students to take risks, to speculate, to offer conjectures about possible approaches, strategies, and interpretations? During this particular lesson, there were not many opportunities for students to take risks or offer their input. The lesson was pretty structured because of the nature of the material that was being learned. I had to teach the three basic types of government. This material is very set in stone and not really open to much interpretation. 11) Were the learning goals for the lesson clear and achieved? Did you adjust your lesson so every student could achieve your goals? What is the evidence for you answers, both in the videotape and from other sources? I believe that my goals for this lesson were both very clear and achieved. First, I told my students what their learning objective or goals were. I also posted the objectives on the white board for the duration of the lesson. This way students could refer back to them if needed. For this activity, the goals did not really need to be adjusted. There were many ways for different types of students to show their learning and understanding through the lesson. I believe that the students achieved the learning goals because they did a very good job when presenting their projects. The projects were designed to take the knowledge that they used and take them to the next step. 12) Explain how your design and execution of this lesson affected the achievement of your goals? (Think about anticipation in handling student misconceptions, the unexpected questions from students, the unanticipated opportunity for learning you captured, or your planned strategy and its outcomes in the lesson.) I think that the design of my lesson helped the achievement of my goals. The lesson was very open and flexible. Therefore, anything that might have

11 come up would have been handled very easily. During the lecture there was time for questions. And during the activity there was time for students to ask individual questions. If something wasn t working I had the flexibility to fix and adapt to anything that may have arisen in order to better execute my lesson goals.