Reflection on Microteaching II
When looking back on my first
Microteaching, I was determined to tweak a few things I considered to be my
weakest points. During my first microteaching, I had my lesson plan and I had
my handouts…yet I didn’t really understand what my “enduring understanding”
was, and this awareness helped me out for my second microteaching I believe.
My first microteaching, I was anxious
to organize my “noisy thoughts” and so when I was presenting the material, I
didn’t really have an order to which information should be presented first nor
did I know why I was teaching what I
was teaching, I was just hoping to hit the 10-20 minute mark.
I believe it was through learning
UBD that helped me with my second microteaching. Even though I do believe I
have a lot to learn, it was the fact that “understanding by design” approach
had helped me to figure out exactly why I
am teaching what I am teaching, and then I could work from there.
My second Microteaching I was
interested in approaching the topic of book burning and why Liesel, the
protagonist in The Book Thief, steals
books. When I started with this idea, I started to work backwards—hence the model
of the UBD design. That’s when I became excited to plan, as opposed to just
filling up the time hoping I get all the information in. I was engrossed in
figuring out the perfect “hook”, and I decided to start my lesson with a scene
of book burning from The Book Thief. I
could see my peers engaged while the scene was playing, and that allowed time
for me to organize exactly how I was going to approach the lesson after the
scene was playing.
The second microteaching had taught
me that it’s not about just presenting information, but having a point to it,
and from there you can work backwards. What I enjoyed most about this as opposed
to the first microteaching was that I could use my passion for teaching and
make it fun. I’m getting the hang of it I’d like to think of it.
I really liked the opening with the book burning scene, it really helped set the stage for our discussion. Obviously as a MicroTeaching lesson we didn't read the book, but for a discussion like this, a possible timeline of the book to this point might help even in a normal length classroom. Finally I liked the "story within a story" about the power of words and word shakers - really a neat way to conceptualize the censorship and oppression of Nazi Germany through literature and speech.
ReplyDeleteI really liked the discussion, and how we brought the small story into a larger sense of the book, even when we hadn't read the book. It was difficult to get into the specifics of the book during the discussion because we didn't know the details of what was going on in the book, but we were able to have a successful discussion despite that. Finally, I really liked the movie clip because it got us engaged, and I think videos can be a great way to start a class because people love them, which gets them interested, and they get people on topic.
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ReplyDeleteYou had really good visuals and used them well. Maybe having a handout that had some talking points would help the discussion along. You picked an interesting discussion and did a good job.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed this lesson and the clip for the book thief was a great aid. Perhaps more background information on the book could be helpful but the discussion was great otherwise.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed this lesson and the clip for the book thief was a great aid. Perhaps more background information on the book could be helpful but the discussion was great otherwise.
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