When we began the planning process for our teaching demos, neither Mackenzie nor I had a very clear idea of what exactly we wanted to do. We'd never taught a lesson before, and although we had an idea of what our topic was meant to be, we had no clue about how to make that into an actual lesson. And thus began a period of intense confusion as we tried to find a text that interested us and fit the topic of diversity. Luckily Mackenzie and I stumbled upon Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian and an idea was born!
The comic became the central focus of our lesson and I think its what made our lesson a success.Nearly everyone mentioned how creative the lesson was and one of our peers felt it did a great job of engaging everyone! This was nice to read, especially considering that one of our main concerns was the full engagement of our students.
I think that the main concern our peers had was lack of authority, Apparently there were a few side-conversations going on during our lesson that our students thought we should have stopped. I either didn't notice or felt that stopping them would have drawn the focus away from the lesson. Apparently the focus was on these discussions though, so I think I would have been better served addressing them. For instance, during a part of the lesson where I was instructing two students were conversing while I was talking. At the time, I ignored it, but now I think I would have been better served by walking over and rapping my knuckles on their desk as I continued teaching. It would have re-engaged them in the lesson, without stopping my roll.
One of the better points that was shared with us via the peer-review sheets was that our class discussion was "incredible" according to one student. INCREDIBLE! I loved seeing that!
A little thing that also made me laugh was how divided the class was on my shoes. I got one student who said they were unprofessional, while another specifically mentioned them as being an awesome choice. It just made me laugh a little.
Overall I think our lesson demo went well and I think I definitely know what to work on for the ext one!
I loved working with Mackenzie, I know she's going to be a great teacher in the future. I can't wait to see all of us as teachers in the future actually, I know we're going to be excellent!
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