A Important Part of My Teaching Process
Reflections are a crucial part my teaching style. After each lesson, I write notes and analyze what went well, and what could be improved in the future. Listed below are some examples of the reflections that I made during my time in the Environmental Leadership Program as a member of the Restoring Connections team.
Pilot 5th Grade Lesson 1 - April 9th 2020
Overview: Garrett and I co-taught the pilot lesson so that we could both begin to understand how teaching lessons on Zoom will work. The 5th grade lesson 1 is an adaptation of the spring pre-trip lesson. We began by having some informational slides about the Kalapuya and Chinuk Wawa. Then we transitioned into teaching Chinuk Wawa words to our “students” by playing a recording of the word and then having the students repeat it back. After going through all of the words, we had them do the storytelling activity that we piloted in class winter term. Plus/Deltas: This lesson felt very awkward in comparison to the original in person version. It was more difficult to engage the students virtually and I am not sure if they will absorb the same amount of information in this format. The main critique that we received from the group was that we were covering too much information. We were encouraged to cut down on the number of words that we include so that it is not so information heavy. Before teaching this lesson to actual 5th graders I think that we should cut down on the words on each slide and only teach a few Chinuk Wawa words in this first lesson and incorporate more into future lessons. I think that we should also break up slides a little more so that each slide has less text and more photos. I will look to see if I can use an online version of the Chinuk Wawa app or embed the voice recordings of the words into the powerpoint. We are also going to have the students unmuted while reciting the words back to us so that they are held accountable for actually saying the words aloud. 3rd Grade Lesson 4 - May 7th 2020 Outputs: 18 students & 1 teacher Overview: The topic of this lesson was plant species in the prairie. All of the prior lessons that Katy and Ellie had taught were focused on animal species, so Garrett and I chose to look at plant species so that the students would have a more comprehensive understanding of the prairie ecosystem as a whole. The structure of the lesson was a “Guess the Species” game where we had a series of clues that I read to the students one at a time and then had students raise their hands and guess what plant I was describing. Plus/Deltas: Overall, I left this lesson feeling very confident that the students had fun and learned about prairie wildflowers and how this connected to the focal species animals. Jenny thought that the clues for the buttercup were a bit difficult for 3rd graders. She suggested that I should make sure that the language used in each clue should be appropriate for third graders. Katie added to this comment saying that scientific words are great to use, but I should incorporate them intentionally. She suggested that I bold or italicize new vocabulary words and take the time to have students say the word aloud themselves. Katie also mentioned that she liked the flow of the lesson because the introduction, main lesson, and ecochallenge were all connected. I will try to keep this cohesive flow in my future lessons. 5th Grade Lesson 4 - May 14th 2020 Outputs: 3 students & 2 teachers Overview: This lesson was another species guessing game like the 3rd grade lesson 4. Instead of plants, each of our species was one of the 5th grade focal species: fence lizard, bullock’s orioles, and cougar. As suggested last week during plus/deltas, I had the students read the clues so that it was more interactive and made the students engage more. Unlike the 3rd grade lesson I did not include a drawing activity because we had discussed as a group how the 5th graders may be starting to feel like this is too young for them. Plus/Deltas: I kept the lesson cohesive, with the introduction, lesson, and ecochallenge all connecting. Compared to 3rd grade lesson 4 this lesson felt a little bit less polished. There were fewer students so it was harder to get them engaged. Two of the three students had not yet been to any of the earlier lessons so I spent time explaining what a sit spot is and an ecochallenge and Chinuk Wawa. This ended up being a good thing because the lesson was a little bit short without the drawing activity. I think that instead of just removing the drawing activity, I should have replaced it with something else that had the student work individually for a few minutes. One student also expressed that they did not know how to access the zoom links, so we talked about where to find them at the end with one of the teachers. |