Wild About Micro -Teaching

This week I completed my micro-teaching unit at Juniata High School. I completed three days of consecutive teaching of one class on a subject area.  Each class was 42 minutes in length. Throughout each day, I felt I was able to engage the students in the Wildlife and Fisheries Science course in a unit on Ecosystem Impacts. I am teaching an entire unit on Wildlife and Fishier Science to my Introduction to Agriculture class at Derry, so I felt this was a great introduction and practice before I student teach in the spring. Teaching a large group of students (18 high schoolers) for three days allowed me to reflect on a few things...

Stop. Recollect. Reflect.

Working with a large class presented some challenges, one reoccurring challenge that I faced was student clarity and comprehension. I had multiple diverse learners in my class, including 3 IEP students and 1 ESL, so this challenged me to present content and create understanding for all learners. I felt I failed at this on the second day of micro teaching. I presented students a predator and prey stimulation activity; I had students read the general instructions, and provided time for them to read more detailed instructions. As the class period went on, multiple hands shot up with confusion to what the directions met. I was hesitating to stop class to go over directions again because we were limited on time, as the end of the period was approaching. However, after jumping from pod to pod, and answering the same five questions, I decided to stop the students to recollect and refocus. I learned it was not a bad thing to stop to check for understanding because it can help the whole class understand and not just one person. In addition, I feel this could be a powerful tool that I could use to reflect and present higher order of thinking questions.

Plan. Flex. Deviate.  

Planning truly helped me put all my thoughts together and prepare the material I wanted to present. However, I realized that that being flexible and having the ability to deviate is crucial. As I shared above, I faced challenges, and these challenges caused me to redirect and regroup the student’s attention and thoughts. I did not have this in my plan, but I had the flexibility to create it and create understanding from it. I learned that sometimes your best lessons are created in thoughtful moments of confusion.

Structure. Tradition. Management.  

These three days was just an introduction to what an entire semester might look like, but also the amount of work it will require.  I already have so many intentional thoughts of how to create structure, tradition and management in my classroom for a full semester. Beginning of class procedure such as bellwork, ticket out and other classroom management and practices are just a few things that I want to create. However, I realized that these take time, and are dependent on the teacher and truly conditioning students to think and behave in these ways. I was fortunate to micro teach in a classroom that has solid structure, tradition and management that Mrs. Morgan has created.

General Gems: 

• Flexibility
• Group work
• Variability 
• Content confidence 
• Enthusiasm

General Opportunities:

• Asking and answering questions
• Clarity in explanations 
• Checking student understanding

Learner Satisfaction: 

The forms below provide a little more insight on learner satisfaction. Overall I was pleased with the results, but I also know that I can continue to grow and improve. Also, I learned that students will share some creative suggestions!