Megan Purcell Self-Examination Videotape #3 Reflection Dialogic Instruction and Student Engagement For the last several months,

I have been focused on the goal of getting students to take more ownership over their learning by engaging in the lessons, materials and class discussions. Students often believe that the world is black and white; there is one definition for something or there is one right answer and it is the teachers job to give them those answers so they can memorize them and regurgitate them on a test. This, in my educated educator opinion, is not learning. I want my students to become learners, to become problem solvers and to become thinkers. My 10th grade English students have been so set in this one right answer I need to memorize mindset that my goal for this past unit was to start breaking them of this habit. My objective was to teach the students some critical thinking skills and techniques they could use to become questioners, independent thinkers, and ultimately self-reliant learners. This unit came as a bit of a transitional period between two novel units in which the students would spend a couple weeks learning about transcendentalism. I, along with my students, had never heard of transcendentalism so I knew we would both be feeling some anxiety and a sense of general confusion. I thought this would be the perfect time to introduce critical thinking and ownership over learning because, unlike in the units before, I would not have all the answers to their questions. To start off this unit, I gave my students a challenge; I had my students read and analyze a poemin Spanish. The goal was for students to figure out the meaning of the poem, without ever reading or hearing the English translation. Surprisingly, my students (after a bit of instruction on how to be a critical thinker) were able to come very close to the poems meaning without ever studying the poem in English. I then decided to ride this wave of success into the transcendentalism unit in the hopes that students would be able to continue on this path of critical thinking, analyzing and self-reliant learning. First, I gave my students a powerpoint presentation about various elements of transcendentalism; how the movement got started, who were some of the major contributors and several of the basic premises. After writing down and discussing these things, I asked students if based on what they know (from prior knowledge coupled with the powerpoint) whether or not they could come up with a definition for what this word transcendentalism is. This process is what you see in my video. To accomplish this task I sat at my computer, ready to type student input that would simultaneously be projected onto the board. I wanted this visual to be available so that students could see what happens internally as they are critically thinking; by blurting out answers and then refining your thoughts to create a product, students would be able to see the process their minds go through at any given moment. During this portion of the activity, I tried very hard to not interfere with the students thought process. I wanted the students to come up with the definition on their own, without my input and without me giving it to them. I tried my best to give appropriate amounts of wait time before providing a leading or prodding question to get the discussion going again. My colleagues, in their review of my video, seemed to enjoy this approach and think that I achieved my goal with some success. My colleagues constantly mentioned that I had good wait time (though I often find it a bit awkward). My colleagues also noted that they liked the approach in which I held back as much as I could, but didnt let the students completely fall; they noted that I would interject at the right times (like when students would try to regurgitate something I just told them during the notes portion). I appreciate the good feedback I received on this video because when I

posted it I was not sure it was a good example of teaching/teaching technique because I wasnt doing much; the video was dialogic, but more student to student than student to teacher. I think that the students liked this process because they could see everyones collective ideas and pull a final product that was entirely created by them. One thing that concerned me about my video and this process is how to respond to students when I am trying to remain separate from the conversation. A few times I give students feedback on their contributions or ask a question to keep their train of thought rolling, but I am not sure if this is the proper way to direct students to become more self-reliant learners. I tried to remain quiet for as long as possible, but I also didnt want students to sit in silence too long and give up on the activity. I know my students have a tendency to contribute unrelated ideas or participate in sidebar conversations, so I wanted to avoid that but at the same time not be the same authoritarian figure a teacher usually has to be during a daily lesson. What I am trying to say, is I wanted students to be independent thinkers, but I am not yet comfortable throwing classroom management out the windowIm not sure that I should have to. One major concern my colleagues had was the amount of participation I was getting during this activity. I am still struggling with my video technology (I had actually tried to film a fishbowl twice and the video did not record either session, it actually recorded this portion of the activity instead). I was getting participation from several students, but not everyone. I had some students that rarely contribute speak up (though those were probably the ones that could not be heard). Overall, I was impressed with those that spoke up, but I am still grappling with how to get the whole class involved. I could have had the students take a few minutes to come up with a definition on their own and write it down before opening the floor for discussion so theyd have something to contribute, but I have found that this technique isnt very successful for this particular group (I have tried it before). I am still on the hunt for engagement techniques, but I feel like this was a step in the right direction. Another concern one of my colleagues had was whether or not the students understood why they were studying transcendentalism. To be honest, when this video was taped, the students had no idea why they were studying transcendentalism (but neither did I except for because my mentor said I had to.). I then spent the next couple days trying to figure out how I could approach transcendentalism to make it meaningful to the students and their lives; I tell the kids all the time that I dont design nonsense units or assignments but this one was falling into that category. In order to turn this unit around and make it meaningful for both me and the kids, I designed an assignment I later called transcendentalism and you. In this assignment I had students relate one aspect of transcendentalism to their daily lives. There were five elements the students could choose from: non-conformity, self-reliance, the importance of nature, confidence and free thought. I then had students express this relationship between transcendentalism and their daily life in a creative mode of their choosing; students could write a poem, a song, draw a picture or write journal entries. To my surprise, my kids loved this assignment. I had assigned this activity on a Friday so students would have the weekend to think about it; when Monday morning came around students were bombarding me at the beginning of class wanting me to look at their work and telling me they had a lot of fun with this activity. I found this to be one of the greatest moments within this unit (other than the fishbowl success). I think that I, and my students, were able to take a concept so complicated and so foreign and turn it into a meaningful, worthwhile, and great learning experience. Overall, I have been very impressed with my students progress during this unit. It seems that every day at least one student has a lightbulb moment and those are the most rewarding experiences to witness

as an educator. I will continue exploring ways to engage more students in dialogic activities/lessons (the fishbowl helped with that a little bit) as well as continue guiding students to becoming more critical thinkers and self-directed learners. As always, I appreciate the feedback I have received from my colleagues and will consider their suggestions as I continue working on improving my teaching practice.