Colin Paton, Ross Hall, Sept. 20, 11 am
Section 1
Lesson Context. With respect to the preestablished schedule for English 150, I observed Colin’s lesson during the initial stages of assignment 3. Prior to the lesson I observed, Colin had already given a general overview of assignment 3 and introduced the concept of mission statements to his students. Additionally, students had been asked to read a few different mission statements, including the mission statements for ISU and the Writing Media Center. They had also been tasked with writing guidelines for effective mission statements which they then used to compose their own mission statements as students at ISU.
Lesson objective & relevant activities. During our brief discussion following his lesson, Colin indicated that one of his primary learning objectives for the lesson was to push students to begin to think a little more critically about whether an organization’s mission statement was truly reflective of its practices. Students could then use their critical analysis to make suggestions about how a given organization could modify its practices to better align with its mission statement or vice versa.
To fulfill this learning objective, Colin implemented a variety of activities. Two of them are worth giving special emphasis. The first involved prompting students to think critically about the relationship between perceptions and reality. To do this he displayed a black and white image of a young girl in a dress holding what appeared to be a cigarette. He then asked the students to hypothesize a title for the photo based on what they saw. After they formulated their hypotheses, Colin asked half the class to close their eyes. He then displayed a potential title for the photo. Students who were allowed to keep their eyes open were asked to briefly write about how their title related to the title displayed on the projector screen, specifically focusing on how the new title shifted their perceptions of the photo. Colin followed this same process with the students who initially had their eyes closed. The only difference was that he displayed a different title on the projector screen. Following this stage of the activity, Colin asked students to pair up and share with each other how their perceptions of the photo changed based on the titles they saw displayed on the screen. Students seemed to notice that their new perceptions of the photo were directly influenced by content of the respective titles they saw. Colin used this realization as a tool to help teach students that our initial perceptions of a situation are often more authentic before we become aware of certain variables that can color our perceptions. He further emphasized that in order to critically analyze a situation we often need to separate our authentic perceptions from the variables that manipulate them. He then connected this idea to assignment 3 in a second structured activity.
In his second activity, Colin displayed an image of a room on campus and asked students to discuss their perception of the room. The students generally agreed that the room appeared to be a drab waiting room that they wouldn’t necessarily want to experience. Once they had drawn this conclusion, Colin revealed that the room was a waiting room in the Writing Media Center (WMC) and called his students’ attention to the WMC’s mission statement they had previously read. He asked students to discuss whether the mission statement aligned with what they noticed in the photo. A number of students were quick to point out that the aspects of the mission statement discussing environment did not align with what they saw in the photo. As they did this, the students were able to begin to use their authentic perceptions of WMC’s waiting room to critically analyze the stated goals of the program. They were then able to make further suggestions on changes the WMC could make to better reflect their mission statement. Colin emphasized that this type of analysis is something that they would need to do with their selected campus organization for assignment 3.
Section 2
After observing his class, I noticed that Colin employed at least two useful techniques for improving students’ acquisition of knowledge. While one of these techniques is clearly highlighted in the classroom activities discussed above, the other is not quite so obvious. The latter began to crystallize for me in my post-observation conversation with Colin. Regardless of when these techniques were brought to my attention, they have certainly informed changes that I want to make to my own teaching going forward.
Telling vs. showing. One of Colin’s techniques that has unique implications for my teaching was his choice to show students how to do something rather than just telling them how to do it. In other words, Colin could have just simply explained to his students that to do well on assignment 3 they needed to critically analyze whether their organization’s practices truly aligned with its mission statement. Such an explanation may have led students to perform a superficial search of evidence to support their perceptions of their selected campus organization. Given that these perceptions would have likely been colored by the mission statements they were being asked to analyze, their research may have only yielded evidence that supported the mission statement. However, Colin was able to avoid this issue by implementing activities that forced students to recognize their authentic perceptions, using them as a vehicle for good critical analysis.
As I Consider the potential positive effects of Colin showing his students what to do instead of telling them, I recognize that this is a technique that I want to use more frequently in my own teaching. Although I have already done this to some degree, sometimes I find myself simply telling my students things they need to do in order to fulfill assignment objectives rather than showing them how to do it. Moreover, I have noticed that failing to take the extra step of showing students what to do often leads to mixed results in which some students fulfill intended learning objectives while others do not. With this in mind, I plan to implement more activities intended to show students how to fulfill learning objectives instead of just expecting them to understand what to do from my explanations. In fact, I have already begun to employ more of these activities in my classroom. For example, I have currently been attempting to show my students how to objectively describe what they notice in a work of art. Instead of just presenting them with the vocabulary that they need to use in order to describe what they see, I have also had them participate in an activity in which they were required to take turns describing a work of art to someone who couldn’t see it to see how closely that person can sketch a replication of the image on paper. This has helped the students improve their precision with respect to describing key artistic features.
Fostering Rapport. The second technique I hope to borrow from Colin’s repertoire relates to his efforts to foster a strong sense of rapport with his students. This technique was not immediately apparent to me during the lesson. However, I noticed that his students were typically excited to contribute to classroom discussion and Colin did not normally have to wait long for students to respond to his questions. When I asked him about how he got students to engage so readily in classroom discussion, he mentioned that he takes opportunities to connect with them individually. Such connection has served to create a welcoming environment in which his students were comfortable enough to contribute to group discussions. As I came to this conclusion, it became perfectly clear to me why Colin spent the first few minutes of class asking students about their weekend plans and sharing some of his interests with them. The time he took to connect with his students at the beginning of class set the tone for an engaging learning environment for the rest of the class.
Colin’s successful efforts to establish rapport with his students has inspired me to do the same in my classroom. Since observing his class, I have made a goal to connect individually with my students more often in the few minutes we have together before class begins. To do so, I have tried to develop more interest in what they do when they are not completing assignments for the class. I have already noticed this translating to a more comfortable learning environment. I have also noticed that certain students who previously were not responding to discussion questions are now doing so. This has served to spark more interesting discussion about important concepts among the students, contributing to a more robust learning experience for the students.
Concluding Remarks
Attending Colin’s class was an excellent learning experience. The activities and techniques he employed were well executed, and I learned a lot from my observation and our follow-up discussion. I have already attempted to implement some of these techniques I learned from his lesson.