Amanda Arp, Pearson Hall, Oct. 4, 10 am
Section 1
Lesson Context. I observed Amanda’s lesson during the final stages of assignment 3. In the previous lesson, Amanda had discussed principles related to orally presenting research. Her intent was to prepare students to give informal presentations regarding what they had learned while completing assignment 3. The students gave these presentations the day I observed her class.
Lesson objective & relevant activities. During our brief discussion following her lesson, Amanda indicated that one of her primary learning objectives for the lesson was to give students practical experience presenting research. According to Amanda this not only fulfilled the oral aspect of the WOVE curriculum, but the informal presentations were also preparatory for more formal presentations that the students would be giving later during the semester.
To fulfill this learning objective, Amanda broke here lesson into three phases. The first phase of her lesson was devoted to reviewing important tips related to effective oral presentations. These tips, which she had introduced in the previous class, were spread across two PowerPoint slides. Following her review of these tips, she entered the second phase of her lesson. This phase consisted of dividing her students into groups based on the campus organization they had chosen as the focus for assignment 3. In other words, each student was placed in a group with other students who had written about the same campus organization. After dividing the students into groups, Amanda gave the students 15 minutes to prepare a two to three-minute informal presentation about their campus organization. To ensure they presented appropriate information about their campus organization, Amanda displayed guiding questions on the projector screen for the students to answer during their presentation. As part of their preparation, each group was tasked with determining how to divide the presentation questions among themselves. Amanda floated around the room to help the students when necessary and to ensure that each group maintained focus.
After giving students time to prepare their presentations, Amanda initiated the third phase of her lesson. This phase involved students carrying out the presentations they had prepared in their groups. Each group took about three minutes to present their information. Following each presentation, Amanda prompted the other students to ask follow-up questions to give the presenters some experience responding to questions about their research. If the students were unable to formulate questions, Amanda asked a question to make sure that the presenters had the chance to respond to at least one question about their research. After the presenters responded to the follow-up questions, Amanda gave real-time feedback about what the groups did well.
Section 2
Although much of Amanda’s class was devoted to group presentations, I still walked away with a few valuable takeaways which I hope to use to inform my future teaching. These takeaways derived from my observation of the class in addition to the follow-up conversation I had with Amanda after her lesson.
Providing a strong rationale. One of the most notable takeaways I gathered from Amanda’s lesson is the importance of providing students with a strong rationale for each activity performed during class. Throughout the process of helping students prepare for their informal presentations, Amanda connected what the students were doing in class to similar contexts in the real world. This gave students more motivation to prepare good presentations about their campus organizations.
Amanda’s consistent reference to her rationale for requiring students to give informal presentations emphasized two important things. First, it is crucial to help students make connections between what they are doing in class and its application to the real world. Doing so provides them motivation to be more engaged in their learning experience in order to prepare themselves for similar contexts in the future. With this in mind, I plan to take every opportunity I can in future lessons to explain to my students the rationale behind each activity and assignment I have them complete in class. By doing this, I hope to help my students engage more in their learning experience as they make connections to how what they are doing in class will improve their success in future classes and professions.
In addition to being reminded of how important it is to constantly inform students of the rationale behind each activity and assignment they complete in class, I was also reminded that it’s just as important that I keep this rationale in mind as I plan lessons. Ensuring that I have an established rationale for every assignment and activity I create will translate to purposeful lessons that consistently fulfill course objectives and learning outcomes. As I do this in the future, I will be able to avoid the implementation of pointless activities that amount to nothing more than busy work.
Ensuring student participation. A second takeaway that I gleaned from Amanda’s lesson in conjunction with our follow-up conversation is that it is important to do all possible to motivate students to participate in every aspect of an activity. This takeaway specifically relates to students’ reluctance to ask follow-up questions after each presentation. In my opinion, not only was it important for presenters to respond to follow-up questions, it was also important for students in the audience to practice formulating follow-up questions. However, many of the students missed a valuable opportunity to do so. Recognizing this, I asked Amanda what could have been done differently to get the students in the audience to ask follow-up questions. Together, we concluded that steps could have been taken to assign different students the task of coming up with follow-up questions for each presentation.
Our conversation taught me that it is important that I take time in the future to make sure I at least have a tentative plan for motivating students to complete all aspects of an assignment. This will make it much more likely that students will receive the intended benefits of the task at hand.
Keeping course objectives in mind. Amanda’s focus on future course objectives represents the final takeaway I acquired from her lesson. In our follow-up conversation Amanda specifically mentioned that the purpose of the informal presentations was to provide a relatively stress-free experience for students to prepare for a future oral presentation requirement that would carry much more weight with respect to their final grade. Furthermore, Amanda’s decision to hold these informal presentations early on in the semester is evidence of her constantly maintaining future course objectives in mind given that the informal presentations were a means to scaffold for a future, more important assignment.
Amanda’s consistent attention to course objectives is something that I hope to accomplish in my class. To do so, I intend to keep course objectives in mind as I plan each lesson. Keeping these objectives in mind will maintain a sense of purpose for the students participating in my class. Additionally, consistently staying focused on course objectives as I plan will ensure that students actually gain the knowledge that they need to acquire to improve their communication skills.
Concluding Remarks
Attending Amanda’s class was an excellent learning experience. The takeaways I gleaned from her lesson and our follow-up conversation will do much to improve my teaching in the future. I hope to take what I have learned from my experience and translate it to improved learning environment for my students.