For the informal other eyes reflection, I decided to ask the vice principle of Delview Secondary where I am placed for my long-term practicum.  The class I was observed for is the grade 10 class where we have just moved onto the genetics unit.  The learning target for this class was for students to review monohybrid, review complete dominance, continue to develop their ability to use a Punnett square, and learn the concepts of incomplete and codominance. 

 

            An area of strength that I demonstrated in this informal observation was classroom management.  I was able to capture and maintain students’ attention and focus throughout the lesson.  I was able to use tools that I have done previously to get students’ attention, and has now been imbedded as a routine for them, therefore getting student’s attention has been a growth for me when it comes to the efficiency.  In addition, I have shown strength in student engagement and formative assessment.  For example, instead of getting the same students to answer questions every time, I used a randomized tool by using popsicles sticks to get students to volunteer to participate.  This way, I know that I am getting feedback from each student and get an idea of whether they are achieving the learning targets.  Secondly, I already had anticipated that this lesson was going to be a long lesson due to the amount of information that needed to be covered.  Therefore, I decided to chunk the lesson into smaller sections of lecture and student activity.  This not only helped in classroom management by providing students time to take a break from listening, and provided me with the time to monitor, scan, and go around to fix any misconceptions or understanding before moving on. 

 

            For next time, I would like to find a better way to facilitate lessons where there is a lot of topic that needs to be covered.  In the future, I would try and put more of the responsibility on the students to learn through their own discovering.  Therefore, I would need to work on my scaffolding abilities so that I can present a lesson that is content heavy in a more fun, active way but at the same time make sure that I was able to accomplish the learning targets that I was set to do.  A great suggestion that I would like to apply in the future is providing students with a “brain break”, especially in a lesson where there is a lot of content.  For example, getting students to get up and activate their right and left brain through fun games through an energizing brain break.  Secondly, I would like to add more formative assessments in the class.  Some of the formative assessments that I have tried is exit slips, thumbs up and down, etc. Since I was pressed for time, I had completely forgotten about the formative assessment I had planned.  Therefore, for next time, I need to be aware and have a tool to remind myself to pause and do a quick formative assessment and scan of understanding from all students.  In this lesson, because I was pressed for time, and knowing that near the end students were starting to get restless, I rushed and went into the default of asking students “is there any questions”, and “stop me if you’re confused”.  Lastly, I would also like to try to provide students with the information and worksheet ahead of time and challenge them to go through the information themselves so that class time is all devoted to activities.

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