Bailey Reflection 2

Reading Lesson Reflection 2:

What did you notice about your students’ participation and learning in relation to your objectives?

They both fully participated by listening to the book, having a short discussion about the book, completing the graphic organizer, and asking questions.  The students did have difficulty with the graphic organizer, because they were supposed to come up with four main ideas of the book and give details about the main ideas.  They did not understand the difference between the main ideas and what the details were supposed to be.  I know this because they asked me, “What is the difference of the main idea and details?  Is the main idea like a topic?”  I modeled another example and explained that in class they have to write letters and stories, and are supposed to add extra detail to make a picture for the reader.  Then they understood what it meant by main idea and detail, and were able to work together to finish the graphic organizer.  The students came up with great ideas and wrote down short, listed notes for the detail since there was not a lot of space for them to add all the details they thought of from the book.  The students used word-learning strategies from the previous lesson to help them understand parts of the story.  Also, the graphic organizer was used to show that they comprehended the text and remembered many details in the book about U.S. presidents.  The students went above and beyond by telling me more ideas and details that were in the book, but they did not fit on the graphic organizer.

What were the strengths and limitations of your lesson for supporting your students’ learning?

The strengths of this lesson include that the students worked well together.  They asked me, “If we finish this can we draw on the back?”  They each came up with two main ideas and helped each other figure out as much detail as possible that was in the book.  They were both able to recall a majority of the book, but only some of it fit on the graphic organizer, so when they were finished I allowed them to draw on the back of the page for a short time.  Also, it was good only working with a small group rather than the whole class for this assignment.  These students have done similar work, but not the same exact graphic organizer that I used for the lesson.  It was confusing for the two students I chose to understand what the organizer was asking for them to do.   They needed extra time to go over the organizer and asked me to explain my model again, but then they understood what they were to do.  It may have been more chaotic if this was done with the whole class, since I have not seem them use a graphic organizer like the one I had.  The limitations of the lesson include that the directions were not on the graphic organizer.  Both of the students like to read and do not mind having to read over the directions themselves to see what they are supposed to do.  Furthermore, I could have given more instruction about what “main ideas” and “details” are to help avoid the confusion of what to write.  I have heard the MT tell them to put many details in their writing, so I thought they understood what that meant.  Once I explained it to them by comparing it to what they do in their writing, they had a better sense of what was being asked. 

What did you notice about yourself as a teacher? What questions do you have? 

I learned that even though I have heard my MT use certain words (like “details”) with the students that the students may need further explanation to remind them what it means.  I was able to quickly come up with an explanation and compare it to another activity they do often in their class.  This is why it is good to know what their curriculum is, so teachers can bridge words or other ideas between classes or activities.  I also noticed that as long as the students are staying on task, then I let them make certain choices.  Even though I was supposed to read the story out loud to them, they asked to read the book aloud.  I let them take turns reading the pages aloud after I had read the book aloud first.  I wanted to read aloud first because that is how I did it in the previous lesson about word-learning strategies.  This way if the students did not know the meaning to a word in the last half of the book, they would be able to hear me read it aloud while they could think about what other word would fit in place.  I did not have a problem with the students wanting to read the book, but made time for them to do so after completing what needed to be done (If you finish this… then you can do this).