Culture Lesson Reflection

The biggest challenge we faced while planning our lesson was planning our assessment. As a

group, we agreed it was difficult to create an assessment that would be effective for both us and

the students when assessing their learning. The creativity of an assessment was the biggest

struggle as we wanted students to be engaged and knowledgeable about our content.

I believe we defiantly created interaction during the lesson, but we could have included some

more. To counteract dominating the discussion we allowed students to answer questions that

were asked us throughout the lesson. This allowed them to stay engaged and communicate with

peers. If we redid this lesson, we could have made the lesson more creative and interactive by

using foods from Ireland. For example, if we created a more collaborative activity such as

pretending to make an Irish dish, then we could have had other students walk around the

classroom and learn about different dishes while also gaining information based on our content.

My partner and I worked very well together. We used co-teaching to our advantage as we co-

taught and designated slides for each other while also knowing information regarding every

slide. After each slide was concluded, we both allowed time for each other to share extra

information that was not on the slide but related to the slide. If we did this again, I think we

should bounce ideas and knowledge off of each other more often to ensure we were able to cover

all content efficiently.

I believe we achieved the two objectives that we designed for the lesson. Our two objectives

were to recall the main language of Ireland and to describe parts of the government. I know we

achieved these objectives because, for our first objective, we assigned a question on our
worksheet that everyone answered correctly. We achieved the second one by discussing the parts

of the government as a class and we also asked students to compare Ireland's government to the

United States government. Additionally, they described it on our worksheet as well. Finally, we

asked students to identify a fun fact about Ireland at the beginning of the lesson by writing on a

Post-It and placing it on the board. Our assessments were effective in assessing and making sure

our objectives were achieved because we made sure to include all aspects of our objectives in our

activities. One thing we could have done differently with the assessment was to make it more

engaging rather than just asking questions and having a worksheet. A worksheet is overused in

classrooms, we could have created a jeopardy game or fun activity to assess the students in a

more meaningful way.

Our visuals were very effective throughout our lesson. Our visuals matched our content.

When we described the government, foods, or language we made sure to apply visuals that went

with the words we were saying. For example, when discussing the foods Ireland is known for,

we included the names of the dish and a picture of the dish to ensure understanding and expand

their knowledge. Our visuals allowed students to get a better insight into the topic of Ireland.

One part we struggled with was reading off the slides too often. I caught myself reading off of

slides I was not familiar with before researching Ireland. Some slides were easier to talk about

based on my background knowledge of Ireland being about 100% Irish myself. My partner and I

both had outside information that we included in our lesson, but we could have expanded on

certain topics more and given better explanations.

Overall, our time management was decent. We anticipated the PowerPoint to take more time

than it did but luckily, we were prepared with the content and knowledge on the topic/activities
that helped up successfully manage our time. Student interaction went faster than we anticipated

also but we agreed that more class discussion was allowed at the end to clarify topics and parts of

the lesson that could have been a miscommunication or misconception.