Have to love Video taping with an ipad. By the way vemoe is terrible when transporting data from an ipad to the site. It is also terrible form large videos.
Untitled from Brandon Bennett on Vimeo.
Untitled from Anna Haley on Vimeo.
A few strengths that I saw after watching my video was that I gave students plenty of time to work on the assignment. I also had the students teach the information and then I took the time to re-enforce their teaching. I also picked students to work on the problems that I thought would not know how to answer it so as a class we could work through their mistakes. All three students did a great job.
As I walked around I noticed students working on the problems. They ones I saw that were stuck I stopped and helped. I was able to get to all the students in class today.
I felt that all the students were engaged to start the lesson. As the lesson dragged on I started to lose the kids who got stuck and the ones who finished early. Somethings to work on for next time.
During this lesson I tried to make a connection with each student to see where they were in the assignment. I also gave the students who needed the extra time to finish the assignment the time they needed. This caused some of the problems I saw with students not engaged.
I tried to support learning by having students work through the problems on the board. I also had them explain it so they could get used to understanding the process and how they saw it. By having the students explain the process of the problems allows other students to hear it from a different style of instruction.
My biggest challenge was giving students all that time to work on the assignment when I knew there were students who would be done early and other students who would not know what to do and start losing interest in the assignment. I need to find a happy medium where the students who get it and the students who need more time to work get it.
Next time I give this lesson I will take the time to assign more problems and then slowly work through them on the board. This will give me advanced students more problems to practice and harder more advanced thinking problems along with giving the slower working students the time to finish the basic questions from the assignment.
Wonderful you were able to create video's easily with the iPad. As time goes on, I'm certain we'll find easier strategies to implement to upload these videos for others to view/reflect, and in a secure environment. The delay of being able to upload and view an initial Vimeo is frustrating (the free version), but it did resolve just fine. Thanks for taking the time for your in-depth reflection.
ReplyDeleteDo you feel that taking videos of yourself during various components of a lesson, then reflecting based on our essential questions, that you will become a more effective educator?
Strengths
ReplyDeleteYou do a great job of moving about the room and stopping in to visit individual students during work time. Do you utilize the table groups very often? I wish that my classroom was big enough to have a set-up like yours.
I liked that you gave a clear expectation of how to show that they were paying attention, “your eyes, not the sides of your heads.”
Restating what the student says is also helpful. Something that is helpful when students ask questions during a q&a time period.
Verbal checks for understanding are good as well, “can you find the equation?”
Evidence of Student Learning
During work time, I saw many of the students actively working on the assignment. Students were also able to answer questions and provide reasoning behind.
All Learner Engagement
I’m not sure that you had the engagement of the students that were directly in front of the video camera. These two, in particular, seemed to drift around (attention-wise) during the lesson. You hit the nail right on the head during your reflection when you said that you may want to find a better pacing so that the kids that are bored/finish early don’t distract those that need the extra time.
Addressing Varied Abilities
This is hard to judge for me as I’m not in your classroom every day. I’m wondering if the two I mentioned earlier are low/high achieving and have little interest in the content…
I think you play to the middle quite well. You provide opportunity for students to answer questions and provide explanation without pressure. This will eventually encourage others to participate. Those that are lagging behind, you could encourage to answer the early questions…those that don’t require as deep an understanding. Give them the opportunity to be successful and they can oftentimes motivate themselves.
Teacher’s Role In Supporting Learning
You were a facilitator, as I saw you, to make sure that the students were understanding the material that they had just covered.
Challenge
Getting everyone involved. I know that I keep coming back to the two right in front of the camera, but there was also a young lady in the back on the right that was a bit gabby during work time as well. I’m not sure how often you change seating arrangements or move students around, but it may be something to look at doing.
Tweak
If you have access, you may want to consider putting a small dry-erase board at each table group and having the table groups work through examples and present them to you while you are at the front of the room. This could facilitate better engagement throughout the room.
Other than that, I’m not entirely sure. The biggest class that I’ve had for math was twelve last year for a 7th grade course.