Final Blog Posting for the Semester!!!

Reflection of your lesson

How did you (and your partner) prepare?
My partner and I went to the library the day before for a few hours and went over all the information on the handouts and then went through the lesson plan to make sure we knew what we wanted to do. Then, we changed our lesson plan slightly and then we printed out copies of the worksheets and speech.
Explain the objective and assessment measures of your lesson
Students will be able to identify the significance of Martin Luther King’s Speech and the civil rights movement.
Students will be able to answer comprehension questions about the speech.
Students will be able to define words from the speech that they do not already know.
Was your lesson plan executed exactly as it was written?
No, not exactly but for the most part we followed it on cue. We had some interruptions from the students, which caused us to have to leave some information out or just go on a different path to relay the information.
What was the most important thing I tried to teach your students?
The most important thing that we tried to teach our students was the significance of MLK’s speech and how it changed the world today.
How do you think it went?
I feel that I went well especially after the students did the worksheet with the 5 questions that we set forth for our lesson.
What did you learn from your students?
I learned that students get bored very easy and to always get them moving around the room or changing groups. Also I think that you need to isolate the problem students even though all the students had behavior cards to tell them how to act, even the “good” students fed off of the “bad” ones and acted up. If we had separated them, they wouldn’t have been able to draw in the other students.
What would you have done differently?
The main thing that we would have done differently was made the podcast shorter and instead of reading the entire speech just read the “I Have a Dream” part because that was where the students lost interest and starting acting up.
How could you have made the lesson even more effective?
My lesson could have been more effective if we would have made the podcast shorter and could have implemented some sort of hands on learning to the lesson.
What do you think you need to improve or do differently?
The podcast was the only thing that I feel would have needed to be changed.
How did you and your partner plan to use the podcast in your lesson?
We planned to use our podcast to have the students listen to the speech by Martin Luther King and we also handed out the speech for the students to follow along.
Did you use it during the class lesson? Why or why not?
Yes we used the podcast during our lesson so that the students could listen to the speech while we talked about it.
How did your students react to the podcast?
The students were bored because they felt the podcast was too long and they did not pay attention towards the ending.
How do you think it went?
I believe we had the right approach to the podcast but we should have only read the most important parts of the speech and not the entire speech, but I feel overall it went well with the using of the podcast in our lesson.
What could you have done to infuse the podcast into the lesson more effectively? We could have possibly use the podcast a few different times by playing an important part of the speech and then stopped it and spoke abou it to the class, then played another part of the speech and spoke about it and so on.
Do you have any other ideas of how you would use podcasting in your lesson or future lessons?
I feel that students could create their own podcasts and have the teacher play them in class about what the topic is at that time and each student would have to create one throughout the school year. Also I as a teacher could create a podcast for any homework assignments or projects.

Reflection of other classmates' lessons

As we are coming to a close on the semester and all of my classmate’s have taught their lesson plans, I would like to reflect on how they went and what I learned from being a student and watching others teach the class. I feel that everyone did very well and not one person was better than the next. Also everyone used the podcast effectively and it helped the lesson move along and was a vital part to most of the lessons. The main thing that caused most of the teachers lesson to go bad was when their podcast were too long or not working properly and that caused the students to act up.

The behavior cards that Dr. Luongo handed out to everyone were a major factor in most lessons. Some of the teachers were not able to control the class where others were. The teacher who went alone did a great job controlling the class due to the fact that he had to go alone and not with another teacher. Also I feel that the some of the students took the cards beyond what they actually were told to be doing and I feel that even though the teachers were trying their best to control the class, the student knew that nothing was going to happen when a teacher would threaten detention. When I taught with Brandon the students started throwing a tennis ball around the room and when I went to take it from them, they continued to throw it, which wouldn’t happen in an actual classroom. Another instance that I can remember was when a student said she had a bomb and the teacher just froze which would be true in that environment because the teacher wouldn’t have full access to calling the principal or security.

I believe that overall all the lessons went well and everyone did a great job, I felt that it was a great thing to the behavior cards because it helped us be able to feel how it is in a real classroom with students acting up.

The Finale in the Computer Lab

We are now done in the computer lab and will be going back to the classroom on Friday. Today went very well and my partner and I finished our podcast and posted it on PodOMatic. We also set pictures to each podcast to make it look more presentable and neater. Also we came up with 5 questions that will go along with our lesson plan and ask about comprehension of the speech.

5 Questions for MLK Lesson

1.) Do you think this speech influenced the changes that have occurred in the world concerning race? If so, how?

2.) In the podcast we use the term inextricably, what is the meaning of this term?

3.) What do you think Martin Luther King jr was trying to accomplish with this speech? Do you think he achieved these accomplishments?

4.) What feelings do you think people felt as they were listening to this historic speech?

5.) If you were in the crowd to hear thi speech, what do you think your reaction would have been? What feelings would you have felt?

Last Day in the Computer Lab

This is our last day in the computer lab and my partner and I will be finishing our podcast of MLK's speech and then going on 5 questions about the speech to use in our lesson.

End of Day 3 in the Lab

We just finished our third day in the lab and for me it was a disaster, I couldn't get through my part of the speech. I continued to mess up every time by either coming across a word I did not know or just stuttering. My partner finished his part so we have the first part of the speech done and now on Friday have to finish the second part and come up with the 5 questions from the speech. I can't say today went terrible because we did get the first part of the speech done, but hopefully Friday we can wrap it up and finish the speech and questions.

Start of Day 3 with Podcasting

Today my partner and I are going to record the "I Have a Dream Speech" and write up 5 question about the speech. Hope it goes well.

End of Podcasting Day 2

Today in the lab we continued our podcast with our partners and it went a lot better than the first time. We podcasted about our topic and gave a brief introduction to our speech. For next class, we will need to print out the "I Have a Dream" speech by MLK and some background information on him. We continued our learning of podcasting today in the lab and I beleive it will go even better next time.