Assignment 3B: Field Experience

Field Experience

Purpose: Analyze the effectiveness of your plan and the implementation of your plan

Teach one of your One Day Teaching/Learning Plan (any of the five) from your unit plan.

Use the assessment tasks and instructional strategies from your Assignments 2A & 2B.

Report findings from your Pre- Ongoing and Post- assessment tasks.

Reflect upon your teaching experience. Ask yourself: A. What did you learn? B. What would you change? C. What did you enjoy?

Optional: Ask a student to take pictures of you in varying stages of teaching.

Report your field experience as a 10-slide PowerPoint or Prezi, a 750-word essay, or a 750 word Blog entry.

I decided to work with a group of family members and friends for this assignment. Although I was able to observe a classroom this past week, I was unable to implement my lesson plan. I chose to administer Monday’s pre-assessment to my group of five. I opened with a PowerPoint presentation that led into a discussion. I went through the PowerPoint presentation, adding to it as I went along.  I also shared Monday’s post-assessment task with my group of five. Wrapping up the PowerPoint presentation, I assigned homework. The homework assignment was meant to encourage further discussion on the day’s lesson and on the readings and was ultimately meant to promote computer literacy. I decided to use Schoology, an online learning management system (LMS). I was inspired by one of the teachers I observed. It seemed to work really well for her students, so I thought it might prove just as successful in my lesson plan.

My lesson went well for the most part. I felt that I presented the requirements and expectations well enough. However, one of the members of my audience remarked that I should face the audience at all times and project my voice with confidence. It was quite difficult changing the slides at the appropriate time, so in the future I will make the necessary adjustments. It is important to always make the most of a space, and I was not adequately prepared. According to the text Methodology for Second Language Development, it is important to always speak slowly and clearly, and avoid idiomatic expressions with English Language Learners in the classroom (2009, p. 85). I failed to modify my speech to make the language more easily accessible to my English Language Learners and students with special needs. The members of my audience also commented that it might be difficult for some students to access the internet for their homework assignments. One of the members of my audience suggested creating an alternative homework assignment for students with limited access to the internet. It might help to have students with limited access to the internet keep journals that they can hand in at the end of each week. Students can even share their journals with their classmates for more feedback. My audience felt that it was a good idea to have students respond to the readings in this manner.

I know that this lesson plan was not perfect. It was more of a lesson in journalism than an English Language Arts lesson, so I would also like to work on that. I now know for certain that five weeks would be enough to read and discuss To Kill a Mockingbird. I wanted to create a lesson plan that was engaging, but I was not entirely sure how to go about it. I did not want students to merely summarize the major events of the novel, but I suppose that is what I ultimately asked for in this lesson plan. I wanted my students to really consider the historical context of the novel. I really should have developed the research aspect of this lesson plan a bit more. I did not intend to have my students trudge through gruesome and difficult material. I would like to refocus this lesson if possible. I wanted to take a more cross-curriculum approach, but I only managed to move away from an English Language Arts lesson, creating more of a History lesson instead. I know now that I should really consider how I will assess a group collaboration project. I want all of students to participate and to contribute to the final product. I want to grade fairly. I want my students to enjoy working with one another and to connect with the novel on a deeper level, analyzing the themes and characters and not merely summarizing key information. I wish I could have implemented my lesson plan in a formal classroom setting to gather more helpful information, but I did not want to inconvenience the teacher who was kind enough to let me observe her classroom. I was able to create an informative and aesthetically pleasing PowerPoint presentation, but I wanted to do so much more. I did enjoy the planning process, but I was not able to really experience teaching in a classroom setting with middle school or high school students. If I were given a second chance at this assignment I would find another class where I might have the freedom to teach or co-teach or find willing student participants to work with outside of school. I would also like to reconsider my focus for this lesson and perhaps attempt to revise my plan to make it work for a high school English Language Arts class.

References

Methodology for second language development. (2009) National University Ed. Boston: Pearson.

Serdyukov, P., Ryan, M. (2013). The 5-minute lesson plan: A practitioner's guide. Boston: Pearson Learning Solutions.