July 2008: July Video

July 19, 2008

My first reaction to my lesson was: phew! Whenever I pack a lot into 50 minutes, I am nervous for the lesson, but I am also more on the ball. This lesson easily could have filled a block. I was pleased with my lesson because it built on previous student work. Independent practice was the best part of the lesson. Students were highly engaged in it; they got to work immediately. When I let them loose to work, all their heads bent down, their pens cocked up, and they went to work right away! Transitions were no issue (I had a two-part independent practice), because I pre-paired peer editors. 

I noticed two major improvements in my teaching abilities since my June video. The first is my sense of time management. Not only was I right on track with my LP-projected times, I kept up with them in the real life lesson. I also gave students frequent updates on how much time they had left. The tempo of the class was good, and I frequently announced the class’s agenda- where we were headed and what we were doing next. Still, it saddened me that we ran out of time to conference. I could tell the students would have had it in them to have done more editing and revising. On the other hand, by keeping time tight, it pushed them to really focus and there was no leftover time for troublemakers to do anything with.

My second improvement is classroom management. Even through there were four tardies, I took immediate control of the classroom. My new tactic, writing names on the board, is the most effective. Few students tested me beyond that – they hate having their name on the board. And, I issued writing assignments on the spot: this is an improvement from my June days, when I lost track of warnings and failed to issue the punishment.

There is, of course, vast space for improvement. My instruction was, in my opinion, not very good. I bored myself watching it. Perhaps there is no way around boring instruction. I have no doubt that it was effective, though.  I think I should have shortened it by 3-4 minutes, to give more IP time. Also, my classroom movement was sufficient, but I think perhaps a little more movement during instruction would have been good. The projector is a useful way to keep yourself facing the classroom.

Which brings me to another major point of improvement: right after I dished out warnings, I turned my back on the class and spent about a minute straight writing on the board!! NOT OK! I need to learn the team teach, LP’s, technique of writing sideways, with my front side facing the class as I write.

A third way I could improve, and I cringed as I watched myself doing this, is to give formal directions to students, instead of just making a comment on the fly: “on the rubric page, circle a score, 1 through 4, for each category. Four for good, three for pretty good, two for needs some improvement, you get the idea...” I have to learn that I can’t just give directions on fly. I discovered how I had to clarify myself during IP as I walked around and monitored. This is not their fault, but mine. It would have been better to be CRYSTAL CLEAR directions up-front, rather than to have to keep repeating myself. This should be an easy problem to fix. It will simply require a little more prep.

Finally, my closure came after the bell. In the real school year, I won’t have the luxury of a class that stays put to hear it. I need to be extremely aware of the time towards the end, and not miss the closure (even sandwiched in the middle of IP, if possible).

Since June, my teaching style has evolved somewhat. I think the students get more work done per class period than they used to. At the same time, I don’t think my teaching itself has changed much. I am still passionate about the subject matter. I still use the silence questioning technique. I don’t think I have experimented enough with new ways of doing things. I would like to start trusting my students more to do more work on their own or in live pairs/groups, without me having to give them handouts for every little thing. Maybe that’s a misdiagnosis. But I do think I need to shake up my procedure flow/routine (in my LPs) a bit. Especially since I will be on the block (94-minute periods) in August.

From watching myself, I learned more than anything else that I should experiment with varied forms of guided practice. I also need to learn to instruct more concisely. As my team teacher pointed out to me (with regards to another lesson), Wong states, “the more understandable the sentence, the greater the chance that the student will do what is intended.”  What I glean from that advice and from watching my video, is that I need to refine the quality, quantity  and pacing of my student questioning. I should avoid leading questions and phrasing a question that puts me in a position to pull students’ teeth to get the answer out of them. I should also avoid excessive verbal quizzing of students, re-hashing the instruction material, when that leads to cutting down IP time too much. It’s a hard balance!