Reflection of the Podcast

My partner and I decided to use the podcast we prepared of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Masque of Red Death” as the anticipatory set to our lesson. When we did the podcast of the full reading, it took about 16 minutes. Dr. Luongo suggested that we summarize the reading and incorporate an important quote from the poem. We had already decided to use the podcast in our lesson, so we tried hard and with a summary brought it down to 4 minutes and 36 seconds. This seemed perfect for the lesson so we were confident that the clarity of the podcast and an appropriate graphic representation of the poem would be effective. However, during the lesson, once the first minute passed, I realized that it was still too long. It only seemed shorter probably due to the fact that I kept hearing it over and over again. The students started to look bored after a while. That was not good! I thought about turning it off early, but I let it play since a very important quote was amongst the last lines. I think that it would have been better to summarize the summary and make it to 2 minutes maximum to execute the lesson more effectively. The idea of using podcast was unbeknownst to me, but I realize now that it is very productive. Through its use, one can both emphasize the reading instruction and at the same time be able to watch the students' reactions to the podcast. This helps a lot with class management since reading during the lesson limits student observation time. To improve future lessons when using a podcast it would be essential that the time be shortened to about 2 minutes. This would improve the use of podcast and allow students to maintain focus throughout the podcast and be more productive during the lesson. I really enjoyed using podomatic for my podcast and will continue to use it once I start teaching. CAN'T WAIT!!!

Reflection of the Lesson

On April 9th, Michael and I had an amazing experience. For the first time, I was able to be in front of the class and practice teaching. The lesson that we prepared was extremely helpful in allowing us to follow a procedure and know well what we were going to teach. Off course, life is full of surprises and the classmates who were given cards with disruptive behaviors were somewhat hard to manage. As I said in class, there were 19 students in the class and inadvertently Michael and I split the class management between the two of us. As I was teaching, thoughts came to my mind of whether I would be able to deal with many disruptions throughout the period. This concern was alleviated when Dr. Luongo said “good job” and reassured me that I will be able to handle it just fine. This gave me comfort and helped me to realize that my way of teaching needs to be more assertive, but that it is effective.
The websites enchantedlearning.com and readwritethink.org contain a lot of activity graphic features for lessons in a wide variety of subjects. I know that I will be using these websites once I start teaching. Plot chart and T-chart were used to improve reading comprehension and I was glad to find that it was effective. To prepare the lesson plan, I recalled the discussion Dr. Luongo had about making a lesson that anyone would be able to follow; procedures for science lab protocols are the same; thus, the lesson was done with this in mind. The objectives had to be clear and the lesson had to flow by effectively incorporating them in such a way that should a substitute be present the lesson objectives for the day would still be met.
The lesson objective was to effectively use graphic features as a way to evaluate literary works which was assessed by a short quiz. The purpose of the assessment was to measure comprehension through application of the graphic features as a tool. The lesson plan parts were executed as planned: the story, the plot chart, T-chart, and the quiz. However, the quiz was meant to be done applying the think-pair-share method which was not done because Michael improvised and decided to do the quiz together. I realized that no matter how carefully a lesson plan is made there is need for improvisation to maintain focus of the students. The most important thing I attempted to teach for this lesson is organizing the parts of the story into charts that help to condense the material as a tool to better comprehension and analysis of the story. I was pleased with the feedback after the lesson was done. I heard from someone that said, “Wow, I really did learn something today” which surprised me and motivated me at the same time. Most likely, the lessons won’t all be appraised, but it is very rewarding to hear this. I realized that I really like teaching.
I am very grateful with everyone who participated, especially those with the disruptive behaviors because being exposed to these different scenarios helped me to think what needs to be done in each particular case. I realized the importance of this exercise and feel that it is the most important lesson I learned. The only thing that I would change in the lesson is to apply the think-pair-share method form the beginning of the lesson by asking them to pair up with someone not sitting around them. This would help them keep more focus throughout the lesson to make it even more effective. I would also be a little more prepared to handle the misbehaviors: if anyone walks out always call the office, if I need a volunteer tell them instead of asking, etc. I need to improve being more assertive in teaching so that I could properly guide students and not allow them to overpower me. This will also help to improve the efficacy of the lesson, so that they come ready to be taught.