another day in paradise

Wednesday October 1, 2008
Today I taught a lesson; I thought it went well for more information check lesson plan reflection.

Friday October 3, 2008
Today Mr. G let me do an in class reading with the students.

So I started reading the passage it was only one page front and back and what I had them do was I would call on the first person then they would read and then after a few sentences they would call on someone else that was everyone had to pay attention and stay in tune with the readings.

For the most part it went well, the problems that arose were students not speaking loud enough and I think I could have done a better job of addressing this issue like taking the time to stop and have them start over louder.

It is important for students to learn public speaking skills because at some point in their lives it will be useful.

Another issue was that this exercise really highlighted some of the students reading levels.

They struggled with words, or mispronounced things and if I had a better understanding of the class dynamics I would have known this would happen.

But this can be beneficial because if forced to read aloud maybe they will want to improve so they aren’t embarrassed.

I should have regulated more the class because when someone was struggling often a few people would jump the gun and say it for them, so I should have prefaced that we need to be respectful of those reading.

But over all it went well, if I had seen the reading before I think I could have done a better job of asking questions throughout to check for understanding but overall it went well.

Monday October 6, 2008
Today we watched a movie in class titled Liberty it was a PBS production and I thought it was a good documentary.

But I am also older and a history buff. I felt that the content of the video was tailored to a more advanced audience and the wording was not at the middle school level.

It was an interesting documentary because they used letters and documents from the time period and had the actors have a sort of monologue of sorts, but the language was really flowery and hard to understand I thought for the students.

Plus many of them were distracted talking with their neighbor or just not paying attention.

The teacher would have been better off if he had a worksheet or something giving the students guidance in watching the film so they had things to look for as they watched.

This activity would have been more productive if there were more structure.