Field Experience Connection:  This week we were given content at random and asked to do a reflective teaching lesson with our peers.  I was given content regarding Medieval castles and its parts.  The objective of the activity was to teach my peers to label 14 castle parts, understand the main reason castles were built (for protection), and know approximately when the castle model we were looking at was built.  The information was handed over to us in a manilla folder with no other directions except to design a 20 minute lesson. 

The initial response I had when I opened my folder was a bewildered, “Castles?”  I suppose I had expected it to be something more relevant to one of my two concentration areas.  However, after thinking about it, I thought that the point of this activity was to see how we developed and executed a lesson.  Good teachers know how to teach any content – just not familiar content.

I began to read carefully through the provided material when I started the planning process.  What was the objective of this activity?  What was being assessed?  How could I frame this for my peers to understand the activity?  These were the main questions that I had asked myself before designing any lesson.  I determined the learning targets first based on the provided assessment.  Students would need to be able to label 14 out of 14 castle parts; students would need to understand that castles were used for protection; and students would understand that this particular castle model was built in 1100 AD.  It was important for me to make sure that my lesson curriculum was aligned to the assessment, because according to Fenwick English, author of Deciding What to Teach and Test, “without alignment, there is nothing fair about testing” (p. xi).

I then started framing my lesson.  I decided that I needed to hook my colleagues and then give them a mini-lecture on castles.   I decided to introduce the lesson by posing a question in which I felt my peers would relate.  The question was: “Have you ever been in a situation where you felt awkward and started to put your emotional walls up?  Where do you think the saying “putting up walls” comes from?”  While teaching the lesson, I paused between questions and allowed my peers to throw out suggestions.  I then segued into how people usually “put up walls” to protect their emotions and related it to how people who built castles with many walls did so for protection.  I then briefly talked to them for two minutes about the history of castles and then explained the learning targets.

In planning, I had thought about how I was going to be able to teach my peers fourteen castle parts in fifteen minutes.  I thought about how I would learn best and then thought about how other people might learn.  I tried to design an activity that would try to accommodate all learners.  I designed a magnetic board of the castle layout.  The parts of the castle were then on little magnets, so the part could be placed on the magnet board in the appropriate spot.  I then thought about how my peers would know where these parts should go besides just using rote memory, so I decided to provide an auditory explanation of the function of each of the parts and “model” by placing each part on the magnetic board as I talked about its function.  I thought this would help the auditory and visual learners.  After I finished my modeling activity/explanation, I allowed my peers to work in a small group to label the magnetic board of the castle with the magnetic castle parts.  I had strips of paper that hinted of the function of each part to prompt my peers’ memory as to where the castle part might be located on the board.  I thought that physically placing the magnetic parts on the board would be excellent for the visual and kinesthetic learners while reading the description and part names while searching would be good for auditory learners.  Once all parts were correctly matched, then the group matched the parts without the prompt.  This shows how I scaffolded the activity – using modeling first, then prompts as my peers worked on the group activity the first time, and allowing peers to complete the activity independent of any prompts the second time prior to taking the assessment.

The results of the assessment showed that my peers did fairly well.  The lowest assessment score was 12/16.  The assessment was not the only basis for my teaching reflection – the learner satisfaction form was most important to me.  One of my peers thought it was not necessary for me to teach about the function of the castle parts if they did not have to learn it for the test.  I knew beforehand that the function of the castle parts was not going to be tested, but I decided to design the lesson in this way because some students might be able to use this information to think through where the castle parts were located once they were given only a blank diagram.  Another student mentioned that the mark placed on the diagram for where the parts were to be placed were not exactly in the same spot on the assessment.  Again, this was true.  The mark on the practice diagram was very close to the same spot but not exactly as on the assessment.  Perhaps, I should have made the practice diagram exactly the same as the assessment diagram; however, I felt that the students should be able to identify the part regardless of where the mark was located.  Otherwise, I thought that students were only memorizing and forgetting rather than truly learning.  What do other teachers think and do?

Overall, I was relieved to have finished the reflective teaching lesson.  It is much harder to teach to your critical colleagues than to teach younger students.  I felt that it was tough to have your teacher persona on when teaching to someone your own age.

In my cooperating teacher’s classroom, my teacher makes teaching look completely natural.  I believe she mostly uses direct instruction to teach her students; however, she ensures that the direct instruction has a balance of teacher- and student-centered activities rather than only teacher-centered, which is sometimes associated with direct instruction.  Students are constantly switching from whole group instruction to cooperative learning groups that reinforce what was being taught.  Classroom discussion is also prompted by “think‑alouds” that seem as natural as having a conversation with a friend in a coffee shop.  It appears so natural that one would think that no planning was involved, but upon closer inspection, one would see the tons of books with interactive teaching strategies which has helped her build up her arsenal of teaching tools.  Her eleven years of experience has allowed her to almost automatically know which strategy would be best for the content.  I am excited to have the opportunity to learn from a teacher who really understands pedagogy.

Research/Text Connection:  While reflecting on my castle lesson in respect to the research, I found that the hook and background history on castles would be considered a mini-lecture, since it only lasted a few minutes.  Powell (2005) states that, “inattention may fill a middle school classroom after 10 to 15 minutes of one person talking” (p. 213).  Keeping the lecture brief allows it to be more effective, so I was correct in structuring a mini-lecture rather than reading all the information that was included in the packet. 

I also decided to model how to match the parts of the castle on the diagram while talking about the castle part’s function.  Powell states that, “when coupled with a mini-lecture, a demonstration complements auditory learning with visual stimulation” (p. 213).  Rick Wormeli, as paraphrased in Powell, “acknowledges that mini-lectures used in conjunction with other strategies during a class period are effective instructional tools” (p. 213). 

In addition, I used cooperative learning, which is a “flexible and powerful tool for grouping students to promote collaboration” as well as setting learning objectives and providing feedback, which is the “process of establishing a direction for learning and then providing an explanation of what students are doing that is correct and what they are doing that is incorrect” (p. 212).  I feel that I did a pretty good job of designing and planning a lesson once comparing my strategies to the research in Powell’s book, Introduction to Middle School.  I will continue striving to get better with each lesson I plan because I know that ineffective teachers are those who assume they know it all already.

Personal Connection:  Designing a lesson is tough work.  There is a lot of deep thought that goes into designing a good lesson.  Thinking back to when I was a middle school student, there were only a handful of teachers who I can remember had great lessons that truly engaged us.  Most of my middle school career was full of lecture, textbook questions, and worksheets.  I wonder how many of my middle school teachers truly put thought into their lessons.  Or, perhaps some of my teachers showed up to class and decided what they were going to do for that period on the fly.  It makes me angry to think that some students are exposed to teachers who do not spend the time thinking and planning.  It is really an injustice and shows how our education system is not always equal.  My goal is to make middle school education better for the students who I will teach and try to motivate others around me – teachers and students – to reach their highest potential.

Future Teaching & Learning Connection: The learner satisfaction forms that I gave to my peers following the castle lesson really provided a lot of feedback.  It showed me that some of my peers learned better in some ways than in others.  Teaching to an unexpected “class” of peers was tough in order to target the lesson directly to their learning styles, but as a teacher in a regular classroom it might be a bit easier once you have worked with your students closely.  It would be interesting to see how students would respond if a teacher gave them a learner satisfaction form.  Would they have constructive criticism?  Perhaps I will give students this opportunity to voice their opinions when I teach my unit.

References.

English, F.W. (2000).  Deciding what to teach and test: Developing, aligning, and auditing the curriculum. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Powell, S.D. (2005). Introduction to middle school. New Jersey: Pearson Educational, Inc.