Micro-teach Reflection

Group Members: Shada Aborawi, Erica Andrews, Tanner Lapointe

The lesson conducted was educating on the various features and uses of Canva,
specifically within an educational context and utilizing the teacher version of the site to
have access to educational templates. Upon delving into Canva, we discovered not only
its versatility as a digital creation platform but additionally, its various uses and features
that cater specifically to teachers. Pre-made lesson slides related to the life cycle, solar
systems, the paragraph hamburger and more are available on the site as well as
infographics, classroom posters, worksheet templates, educational videos, report card
templates, schedules, lesson plan templates, and so much more. After discovering the
infinite library of assets available to teachers, it was integral that my group share our
discovery with our peers and future colleagues. All members of my group were already
quite familiar with the site, but discovering the teacher functions was something new for
us, so a part of our decision to educate our peers on Canva is also to become familiar
with the teacher version of the platform ourselves. In addition to the teacher functions of
the site, it is widely accessible and could be utilized by students for projects as well.
Because Canva is so user-friendly with various customization tools, students would be
able to use it for a diverse range of projects and exercise creativity in forming their
projects. We chose Canva because it is a technology that can be used by all in the
classroom, by both teachers and students, for a wide variety of functions, proving to be
a very valuable and effective form of technology. Because Canva specifically functions
as a creation platform, there is no risk, like some other forms of technology (such as
social media sites), of students stumbling across inappropriate content. The only
consideration would be the potential for students to become distracted, which can be
easily remedied by clearly outlining expectations around the use of technology. Google
Slides is a similar platform in its collaborative and slideshow creation features, however,
that is the extent of the similarities. Canva would be significantly more effective seeing
as its uses and functions extend beyond the features of Google Slides.
Our lesson delivery was quite effective. We utilized Canva slides to discuss the
platform, demonstrating the use and effectiveness of the platform, and we took the time
to walk through the various functions and assets available on the site. After doing that,
we asked our peers to sign up for a free account and to change their account in settings
to indicate that they wanted to use the teacher function of the site. Once doing that, we
had our peers play around with the various features and elements on the site for a few
minutes, asking them to share what they had come up with. The intention of not
providing specific criteria for what our peers had to make was to allow for a wide range
of creativity and ensure that we reinforced the diverse uses of the site. We ensured that
we had potential sponge activities integrated into the lesson in case we had some extra
time, but we ended up not having to use the sponge activity. The one thing is we did not
have a smooth conclusion to our lesson so I would re-evaluate our conclusion to ensure
a more cohesive wrap-up. With the lesson, we catered it towards the use of Canva for
teachers, so the only thing I would change is shifting the audience the presentation
caters to, or creating a presentation that addresses the features of Canva generally so
that the presentation can be more relevant to a broader audience.
In terms of what went well, we were able to get all of our peers signed up for a
Canva account, and for those who were already signed up, we were able to bring their
awareness to the teacher features of the platform. Our peers were quite receptive to the
project being really willing and engaged in our activity. Prior to conducting our lesson,
we had to prepare our slideshow, prepare our lesson plan, and try to have a loose script
to work off of. Additionally, prior to sharing our screen, we ensured that we had the
Canva slides pulled up and ready to present. For classroom management, we asked for
hands up when individuals were done creating their accounts, and when we noticed that
some people needed more time, we decided to delve into some of the features we
briefly covered to supply those individuals with a few extra moments. In concluding our
lesson, we checked in with our peers and asked their opinion on the technology and we
utilized the thumbs-up feature on Zoom to gauge receptiveness to the platform.
Ultimately our use of Canva demonstrated its versatility and effectiveness,
introducing our peers to its hidden functions, and proving to be a beneficial microteach.