Hannah Reflection 1

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

I noticed that my students had difficulty paying attention and participating during my lesson.  Part of the problem was where we were sitting in the school.  For my reading lesson I took the students out to a table in the hallway.  From the table the students were able to see other children on the playground and were often distracted by what was going on.  I did not anticipate that this would be a problem since students are use to working in the hallway with adults and have even worked at the table with me before.  In addition, the students have never listened to a story before where they were not able to see the pictures as the teacher was reading.  They could not handle listening to the story and waiting until the end of the lesson to take a picture walk.  To try and accommodate their learning needs I began showing them every other page of the story.  When I did not show them the illustration they shared their visualizations with the group.  They were able to create and describe their visualizations.  At the end of the lesson students were able to draw pictures of what they visualized during the reading.  Sarah drew a picture of the main character with stripes like an American flag.  While she was presenting her illustration she explained that the little girl’s stripes changed colors.  Isaac drew a picture of the main character as a pill, an event that occurred during the story.  Both students met my objectives, describing their visualizations and drawing pictures of one of their visualizations.

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

My lesson had strengths and weaknesses.  One strength of my lesson is that my objectives were very open ended.  Visualizing allows students to picture whatever they think the story is saying.  There is no right and wrong visualizations, different students could see many different things with the same story.  In addition, once I began showing every other illustration both students found the story interesting, helping them to create vivid visualizations.  Although the students enjoyed the story it did have a disadvantage.  The story was very long and it became difficult for the students to create visualizations that were not very similar to previous visualizations.  If I was to teach this lesson again I would introduce the comprehension strategy with poems instead of a long story.  The teacher could model with one poem, have students practice visualizing with one or two poems, and then allow them to draw an illustration for a different poem.  Using different poems would also ensure that students were able to create different picture in their heads instead of describing a very similar visualization multiple times.  If I was to use poems I would consider using Shel Silverstein because students often enjoy these poems and they offer many interesting details to visualize.  Another strength of my reading lesson was the size of the group.  Working with only two students allowed me to give one-on-one attention and focus on the learning needs of these students.  I was able to tailor my lesson to what the students were having difficulty understanding to ensure that they learned how to use the comprehension strategy.

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

I noticed that I was able to change my lesson plan on the fly.  I was not fixed to what I had planned, but instead I was flexible.  It is an important skill as a teacher to improvise and change the lesson to meet the learning needs of the students and the learning environment.  If teachers are locked into what they had planned to do for their lesson they may not accomplish any of their learning objectives.  Instead students may become distracted, uninterested, or confused.  I was able to recognize that what I had planned for my reading lesson, not displaying the illustrations, was not working for my students.  I improvised and began displaying every other picture of the book to improve my mini-reading lesson.  By being aware of my lesson, lesson objectives and students while I was teaching my lesson I was able to rearrange my plan and meet my lesson objectives.  After teaching this lesson I have a few questions:  Would the lesson be more effective with poems?  How could I adapt this lesson to be a while class lesson?  Would I have to change anything in the lesson to teach it to lower achieving students?