Lesson: Spanish Missions

Lesson Reflection #1

For my second lesson in my middle school class, I taught about the Establishment of Spanish Missions in Texas. I felt more comfortable teaching this material since my CT had given me the first day of the unit, so it would all be relatively new information to my students, and I had gotten to teach this class before, so I knew what they would be like. For this lesson, I had decided to make a foldable to make an interactive lecture, and spent several hours during the week creating a printout for it to keep the instructions to a bare minimum since they do not usually work with foldables in their class. The finished product looked very professional, even my CT was also very impressed and said she would like to “steal” it from me afterward. As a bonus, my lesson flowed seamlessly into my CT’s lesson, even using the same foldable paper. The students wrote in the information from class on the foldable and used the last tab to draw their mission according to her directions.

            Overall, the lesson turned out to be very successful! The foldable instructions were so easy it took less than two minutes for the students to be ready to start the lesson. I tried using group representatives from thumbs-up confirmation rather than individuals which made it better for the students who were behind, as their groupmates would help them figure out what they were stuck on. This method worked out very well, so I think I will continue to use it in the rest of my lessons this semester. At first, I was really nervous and forgot to have them talk amongst their group before asking for answers, but I caught myself after the first question. I used what I learned from my first lesson, about what attention getting techniques the class knew, just after their first discussion when they continued to talk despite the timer having gone off. It worked like a charm, of course, and the lesson resumed flawlessly. Additionally, I remembered what I had learned about some of the group dynamics and made sure to ask follow-up questions when checking on if group discussions were going well. This really helped the back table (Notre Dame) get back into their conversation that they had given up on within 20 seconds. Overall, the rest of the group dynamics worked really well for this lesson compared to the last one. I also got to the employ the nearness classroom management technique. Since I arrived at Kealing MS, I made sure to get in the habit of walking around the room while students are working. This made it easier and not as odd when I walked closer to groups who were talking when someone else was answering a question. If my nearness did not catch their attention, I would put my hand on the edge of their table and shoot them “the look” quickly while making sure the student answering me still knew that they had my attention. Some students answered very quietly and others started to doze off while others were answering, so I confirmed with my students that everyone had heard the answers before moving on to the next one. At some points, the students were evidently tired, which is very understandable with how early their school day starts, but I was sure to check that everyone was on track. Eventually they woke up about 2/3 of the way through the lesson. To close my lesson, I had the students work with their group to make a three-sentence summary of the three main points we had gone over in the foldable; the purpose, impact, and functions of a Spanish mission. My CT loved the way my ending captured the entire lesson and allowed the students to hear 5 different ways to explain what they had just learned. I then seamlessly handed my lesson off to her, and she had the students use the blank part of the foldable I had made to draw their mission inside of. 

            After my lesson, my CT and I sat down to talk about how it had gone. She surprised me saying that I got perfect marks on the evaluation and only one page of additional notes! We started by discussing how to use wait time when allowing students to think or work. She uses the strategy of thinking “# Mississippi’s” to give them adequate time. Usually about 5 seconds to answer a question before going to the “hot sheet” (which I did at one point!) and 10-15 seconds to write down something. By doing this your brain is preoccupied so you don’t try to rush the students. She gave me the suggestion to start my instructions for group discussion using “when I say go…” so that they would listen all the way through. Then we discussed when to move on from taking notes. She suggested waiting till about 85-90% of the class is finished to move on. For those who are not finished, she suggested having them get the notes from a friend/tablemate or asking to view the slide again later. This then slid into a discussion on how the students are not use to lecture, she only lectures on rare occasions, and they have not learned how to take proper notes yet. She praised me for not putting complete sentences on the PowerPoint as a que for the students that they do not have to write everything down from on the slide. I kept this in mind for my next lesson. Finally, my CT recommended that, in addition to the TEKS, I put a personally made objective in my lesson plan. Her format follows similar to Mrs. Martin’s, but does not include the measurable aspect and is color coded [SWBAT (Bloom’s Taxonomy Verb(s)) the role of (Topic) by (modalities-2+)]. For the lesson we did today, she wrote [SWBAT (Explain & Illustrate) the role of (Spanish Missions) by (Listening, Reading, Writing, and Drawing)]. Additionally, we discussed how we had actually worked our way up through the first five stages of Bloom’s Taxonomy in only 30 minutes!

            This lesson went much better than I thought it would. I was able to use the feedback from my last lesson several times to greatly improve my classroom management and overall lesson. I look forward to teaching my next lessons in this classroom!