You know what they say...

Mini-lesson number three - complete! The lesson went very well and I felt confident that I worked on the feedback that was given to me after the first two lessons.

This lesson was different than the other two for several reasons. First, my CT and I co-taught the material during first period and then I taught the class for second period. This was fantastic because I was able to work out all the 'kinks' in the lesson plan before having to teach it alone. Second, the lesson taught today was of my creation. The other two mini lessons were my CT's lessons that I taught but today I got to teach something that I created. Third, I taught for the entire period, from bell ringer to closing activity. Needless to say, I learned a lot from this lesson.

Everything that I am going to say is very cliche and said by almost every teacher, however, I experienced it first hand today so i am going to reflect on it. Here is what I learned:

1) Class periods are very different. What took first period twenty minutes took second period ten, and what took second period forty five minutes took first period thirty. Even though I gave the students an estimated amount of time to spend on each activity, some just took longer to write. Going off of that, I didn't have anything for the students to do when they finished early first period, which left a lot of students with nothing to do and threw classroom management well out of whack. When I taught the same lesson second period I adapted the lesson by giving the students who finished the first activity the second activity early and letting them get a head start on writing the vocabulary words in the center bubble of the Frayer vocabulary chart.

2) Sometimes students just don't follow directions. I though that if I put the directions on the PowerPoint, said them five times, and then walked around the room making sure students followed them, the students would write in complete sentences. Some students just didn't. The wrote the correct answer but not in the format that I asked them to write it in. Given that i know complete sentences are so important to me and a basic writing skill that i will encourage in my classroom everyday, I am going to have to figure out a way to really implement the policy.

3) Kids are very different. I taught in a class with honors and academic students and it was a very interesting environment. Some students finished the chart correctly and quickly, some wanted to work alone, some with three partners instead of two. Some didn't finish the chart and didn't care, others were truly embarrassed that they didn't get it done. I have had educational professors tell me that every student is different for four years, but today I honestly learned that teaching a classroom of 30 different students is hard.