Reflections on the best and worst lessons from FE1
Lesson that went well
I believe the social studies joint with art lesson went well. The students were doing heritage and identity in social studies, learning about live in early Canada and ancient civilization. Therefore, we did an art lesson about weaving, getting the students to create and art work while learning about how textiles were weaved in the past and now. It was a very hand on learning experience.
I was proud of my planning and scaffolding of the lesson. The activity can be a bit tricky so I broke it down to each step. While planning I came up with easy simple instructions for students to follow.
I was also proud of the classroom management. I didn’t have any issues with students off task or distractions etc. I feel this was because, planning of the lesson was very detailed and I took into account how tricky the activity can be. I gave students instructions one step at a time and gave them interesting cues to do when they are done to let me know they are ready to move on (Eg. Put a finger on your nose, hands on top). As I waited patiently for every student to do the step so did the students. All the instructions were short clear and every student were aware of what was excepted of them.
I knew the lesson went well as students were all on task and completed the task well. Which meant the instruction were given well. All students enjoyed it and took home extra materials to do at home and came back next day to tell me they did more weaving at home and taught their family and bought more materials.
During the activity students were also engaged in conversations about the task of weaving, and asked interesting inquiring questions. “this would have taken them so long.’ “how did they make large one?” “they didn’t have cardboard in the past, what did they use instead?” Also during the end of unit refresher quiz, every student got questions about clothing right. This showed that they learnt what I wanted to teach them and retained it because it was taught in a fun, interactive, creative way (Top of the blooms taxonomy pyramid).
This lesson taught me the Blooms taxonomy is actually accurate. Also classroom management starts in the planning. If planning is done well and in depth and taken into account the students needs the lesson, how ever complicated can be carried out with ease and be an enjoyable experience for both the students and the teacher.
Lesson that didn’t go so well
The math lesson on parameter didn’t go as well as I hoped. I planed a lesson to teach parameter using hands on activity with building blocks. I was excited about the lesson. I handed cards with set lengths and asked the students to work in groups to create the land outline using building blocks and then calculate the parameter.
Firstly, due to some timing delays my lesson was cut shorter. With this in mind, I went into a rush mode and went through the instructions quickly and didn’t follow the plan as closely.
While using visuals aids of building blocks may be a good practice I felt for this lesson at this time may have been a hindrance. In hindsight, I realized the task may have been a bit advance for the stage the students were at. Most of the students were only introduced to parameter one lesson prior thus lacked understanding of measuring parameter. Thus this activity led them to incorrectly calculate the parameter (students counted the blocks, didn’t count the length of the corner blocks twice).
Due to lack of proper instructions and understanding of parameters, many students became frustrated and were off task. I also didn’t think on my feet well. When I saw most groups with same mistakes or students off task, I should have bought the class together and given further instructions and made sure students were on task.
