Curtiss Hall, Sept. 17, 3:40 pm
Context, lesson objectives, and lesson outline
With respect to the preestablished schedule for English 150, this observation occurred during the initial stages of assignment 3. Prior to the lesson Abram observed, my students had just submitted assignment 2, and I had asked them to read or watch some examples of news profiles before coming to class. The intent of this assignment was to help students become familiar with the news profile genre to aid them with successful completion of assignment 3. These profiles were also to be used as a basis for an important learning activity during class.
The primary learning objectives for the lesson were twofold: 1.) to familiarize students with the profile genre and 2.) to push them to begin to think a little more critically about the connection between their chosen campus organization and ISU’s mission statement. Below is a link to the detailed lesson plan that was used to fulfill these learning objectives.
Personal Impressions of lesson implementation.
Although there were certain aspects of my lesson that could have been improved, I feel its implementation was generally successful for at least two reasons. First, through the use of an effective jigsaw activity not only did I help my students maintain active engagement in the learning process, I was also able to help them discover important features of the profile genre that they could later use to successfully fulfill requirements for assignment 3. As indicated in the lesson plan, the purpose of the jigsaw activity was to help students process and summarize news profiles that they had either watched or read before coming to class. To facilitate this process, they were given a list of guiding questions that served to both improve the summary of their assigned profiles as well as pinpoint features related to content and organization that they could eventually apply to their written profiles of their chosen campus organization. On the whole, these guiding questions seemed to fulfill their purpose, prompting students to engage in valuable analysis of the news profiles they had read before class. They were then able to use their analysis to summarize important details of their assigned profiles for other students who had not yet read or watched them.
A second reason I feel my lesson was relatively successful is that I was able to help my students make connections among the profiles they read, ISU’s mission statement, and the profiles they were assigned to write for assignment 3. I used two different methods to accomplish this goal. One of these methods involved asking the students a set of follow-up discussion questions after the jigsaw activity. In addition to prompting students to think about the similarities and differences they noticed among the news profiles they had discussed during the activity, these questions also forced the students to think about how they would use what they learned from the profiles to write their own profiles for assignment 3. Requiring students to reflect on the features of the sample profiles that were most applicable to assignment 3 solidified the jigsaw activity’s value while simultaneously placing the students in a better place to begin drafting their third assignment.
Another method I used to specifically help students make connections between ISU’s mission statement and their assignment 3 profiles was to include a set of research questions near the end of my PowerPoint slides. The purpose of these research questions was to push students in the proper direction with respect to the type of information they should be gathering to write their assignment 3 profiles. For example, one of the questions prompted the students to think about whether the purposes and goals of their chosen campus organization aligned with ISU’s purposes and goals as established in the university’s mission statement. Above all, this question forced the students to realize that the profile they were to write was not simply a description of their campus program, but, rather, a more critical depiction of the program within the broader context of ISU and its mission statement.
Reactions to Abram’s comments & future instruction
Following the implementation of the lesson, my follow-up conversation with Abram was mostly positive, largely confirming the personal impressions I had of my own lesson. That said, Abram made some suggestions that I feel were extremely valuable to my improvement as an instructor. In this section, I will highlight the two that stood out to me the most, giving some attention to how the suggestions could be used to improve my teaching in the future.
The first suggestion that stood out to me specifically related to how I used questions to facilitate group discussion before, during, and after the news profile jigsaw activity. According to Abram, while the guiding questions I used were relatively well conceived, I had a tendency to unload too many questions on the students at once. Doing so likely placed an unnecessary cognitive burden on the students, preventing them from answering each individual question to the best of their abilities. Abram further suggested that it would be a good idea to introduce discussion questions one at a time to limit any issues students may encounter when attempting to process all of the discussion questions at the same time.
I must admit that before receiving Abram’s suggestion to introduce discussion questions one at a time, I did not realize that my method of introducing discussion questions carried with it some inherent issues related to cognitive load. However, on receiving Abram’s suggestion, I immediately recognized how it could improve small group discussions. For example, I began to realize that by introducing one question at a time, any misunderstandings that students could potentially have about the given question would much more likely be promptly resolved. This is due to the fact their entire attention would be focused on that one question rather than looking ahead to the other questions they would eventually need to answer. I also realized that limiting group discussion to one question could potentially ensure more sustained, robust discussion of that particular question since students would not have to concern themselves with getting through multiple question during a relatively short amount of time. Together, these benefits would likely cause students to make better inferences from their discussions that could lead to improved understanding of important concepts related to a specific assignment. With these benefits in mind, in the future I intend to use the animations feature on my PowperPoint slides to introduce discussion questions one at a time so that my students may reap the benefits of a more staggered approach to group discussion.
Abram’s suggestion to implement a more staggered approach to introducing group discussion questions was not the only important suggestion that I derived from our follow-up conversation. Another useful suggestion was Abram’s advice to use open work time during class to check in with students to assess how they are doing with a particular task. In the context of my lesson, this advice was directly connected to the 10-minute span of time I gave my students near the end of class to begin answering the research questions that I had given them for assignment 3. While this advice is actually something that I have tried to follow in the past, I tend to overlook its importance, often relying on students to raise their hands to ask me for help. Nevertheless, Abram’s advice to take it upon myself to check-in with students reminded me that I should not always depend on students to ask for help. On the contrary, I need to do what I can to check in with each student individually to make sure that there are no issues with completing assigned tasks. Doing this could potentially ensure that students are employing appropriate methods for task completion. Indeed, Abram’s advice reminded me that there are many times when students feel they are making appropriate decisions regarding task completion when they are, in fact, not. Thus, it is crucial that I try to find time to check in with as many students as possible to help them fix any missteps they have made while carrying out an assigned task. As I draw this conclusion, my resolve to more frequently check in with students during open work time has been bolstered. In the future, I will do everything possible to make sure to go through with this resolve.
Concluding Remarks
The opportunity to reflect on the implementation of my lesson in addition to Abram’s feedback to my lesson has been extremely valuable. It has given me the chance to analyze both my strengths and weaknesses when it comes to my instructional techniques. I am now more keenly aware of the strengths from which I can draw to ensure the creation of good lessons in the future. Moreover, reflecting on Abram’s feedback has given me a wealth of ideas on how to add to the strengths that I already possess.