Rachel Gibson

EDUC-345-02

4-1-18

Reflection 1

When beginning this lesson I was excited to get started and see what my

students at Webster Primary Center knew about the elements of a story. Some things I

noticed while teaching is that they knew a lot about the elements. I also noticed many

things I am good at and things I need to improve on. Some of my strengths include

keeping a good tone and keeping my students interests. Some improvements I can

make include explaining concepts better and being more specific with directions.When

watching myself I am always surprised at what I learn about myself and my teaching.

When looking at my strengths I noticed that I do a good job at keeping a good

tone with my students. Throughout the reading I changed my tone to emphasis what was

happening, this was apparent at 4:39. My tone was also well thought out when

discussing the answers to the graphic organizer, this is shown in the video at 1:05-1:17.

When keeping my students interests I worked hard at starting out with a good A-set for

the video, the A-set is a video that plays at the beginning to gain their interests,it is

shown from 0:00-1:30.

With strengths also comes areas that I need to improve on. Some of these areas

include being able to explain concepts better and to be more specific with directions.

When looking back at my lesson I noticed that when discussing the elements some of

my students got confused at the beginning. During 2:30-2:35 when asking what

characters are a student started to guess the characters instead of giving the meaning.

This made me realize that I need to explain the concepts better towards the beginning of

the lesson. When giving directions during the end of the video 2:34-4:40 I noticed a bit of

confusion. I told the class to go back and begin their graphic organizer however I did not
tell them that I was still going to ask them some follow up questions to close the lesson.

These had the effect of my students not being as engaged towards the end.

Now looking at the Professional Goals I need to set for my future in my

profession and improvements that need to be made, I am sure I can meet them within

my time left in the teacher education program. These goals include explaining concepts

with greater detail at the beginning and prompting for questioning on any confusion. By

doing this I can cut down on later confusion within the lesson. I also want to ensure that I

am specific with my directions throughout the entire lesson. When giving my lesson the

directions were more clear towards the beginning but began to get less specific towards

the end which resulted in the end of the lesson not being as effective and meaningful as

it could have been. Both of these goals help me to enhance my professional knowledge

base on the learner and learning when accommodating for my students understanding of

the the lesson and their engagement. This will also help me grow as a teacher by being

able to get farther with my lessons when my students understand what I am teaching

and wanting them to understand and engage in.