Reflection #2

As I conducted this lesson, I noticed many different strong and weak aspects, regarding: participation, students’ learning and my teaching.  Throughout the entire lesson, I found my students very eager to participate and help with the lesson.  When they had to contribute to clapping out the letter of each word, I found the students very excited and motivated to complete this task.  The physicality of the task allowed students to explore a different type of learning, rather than just listening, reading or writing.  Another strength I saw throughout this lesson was the students’ willingness to share their sentences.  Each student was blurting and openly offering their work.  I was very excited about the motivation my students were presenting throughout my lesson.  In regards to the support of the students’ learning, I thought students overused their ability to stretch.  Students were getting up every couple minutes to stretch and move around.  I had to tell students they had to sit down after a certain period of time.  If I were to redo this lesson again, I would tell the students that they were only allowed to get up and stretch two times.  This way, students will not be a distraction to other students trying to learn.  As a teacher, I felt as though I was able to manage the students better.  The smaller group of students allowed me to focus all of my attention on each student individually, rather than the entire class.  When I was reading each student’s sentences, they seemed to understand each concept thoroughly.  However, I am nervous that they will forget the concepts we went over the next day or throughout the week.  I know I have an ongoing assessment, but if they do forget, is it okay to re-teach this type of lesson with a different book to the same kids?  Would it be too repetitive to have the students recognize the same words and create sentences?  This will be something that I am excited to test out next year!