High School/Middle School Teaching Experience

Using the criteria provided in class, you will create 4 lesson plans that will be used to
teach 4 different class period and content at your field experience location. Each
lesson taught will include a complete lesson plan, (50pts), completed teaching
observation feedback form from your cooperating CTE teacher (50pts), and a 1-2-page
written reflection (25pts).
Reflection Prompts
1. Based on your self-observation, what do you think went well?
The students were a very rowdy bunch, and I felt like I had to spend most of my
time on classroom management instead of teaching. I felt like there was always a
student doing something they were not supposed to be doing. One thing that I felt went
well for me was that I was able to get the students to quiet down once I started
lecturing. I felt like my teaching voice was good, and the students respected me. I feel
like I did better teaching in the class prior to Introduction to Agriculture. I did teach the
small engine class earlier in the day, and that was something that arose because my
cooperating teacher had to step out of the room for the period, and I had to end up
teaching small engines. I really enjoyed it even though I broke the first law of teaching
because I didn’t know the content the best. However, I was able to implement some of
the teaching methods that I learned in class into the class. I had the students think-pair-
share on some of the questions in the workbook. I also made table partners do notes on
different slides, and then they would teach each other what they learned on the slide. I
was even able to implement a summary of what we learned in class that day.
2. How did the teaching method(s) used positively or negatively impact
instructional outcomes?
I think that the teaching methods I used negatively impacted my instructional
outcomes. The class was very talkative, and I felt like every single opportunity I had got
worse for some students. Some students were doing some teaching about the terms and
tomato in the A-B each teach activity, but there were some very disruptive students that
used every opportunity of me not talking to make a scene of doing something they were
not supposed to be doing. I did think that the Think-Pair-Share went well though when I
told the students to think, they actually did, and they had about 10 good seconds on the
conversation of the topic, but they got off track very quickly, so then I had to continue
with the lesson. I feel like I need to do a better job of picking when and where I need to
implement different teaching methods.
3. What changes, if any, will you make based off this self-observation of your
teaching?
I did not think that my lesson went well because I was unprepared for the class. I
received my content on the day I was teaching. The way that I implemented Think-Pair-
Share, or A-B Each Teach did not go the best. I think that the reason that I struggled so much
was because I did not know my students very well. There are numerous changes that I will
implement after this first teaching experience. The first thing that I am going to do is
establish some ground rules while teaching. I am going to use what I learned in ALEC
308 in this class and implement it in my teaching experiences. I am going to go through
the ground rules for the class and talk to them about what is expected of them, and I
will follow my code of conduct to show them discipline if they do not follow the rules.
Another thing that I want to do is to start marking down when students do not follow
the code of conduct. I feel like this is a good way to remember who is making all the
behavior. There were multiple times today when I felt like I should have written down a
student’s name. I know that my next teaching experience will be better.