Narrative Reflection
The world of education can vary vastly from school to school and classroom to classroom. The education program at Colorado State does a wonderful job of preparing students for the rigors of teaching by placing them in a real classroom from the start of their time in the program. Unfortunately my personal experiences in the schools in Fort Collins as a part of the CSU education program have been less than ideal. I have encountered many teachers who are simply tired of their profession. They are tired of the thankless job and minimal support that they encounter at their schools and this is reflected in their teaching. Thus when I began my time at Lesher middle school I was apprehensively expecting to again find teachers and staff who lack the passion needed to meet student’s need and support them in their academic and personal growth. I am extremely thankful to say that my experience at Lesher was the complete opposite of my apprehensive expectations. At Lesher I met an energized and inspiring staff paired with a hardworking and fun loving student body. I was given the opportunity to sharpen my teaching skills through practical experience, to examine my strength and weaknesses as an educator in a supportive environment, and to observe awesome teachers at work in an amazing and engaging school community.
My experience with my formal lesson was unique from the onset due to me being placed in a classroom outside of my area of concentration. In working with Ms. Knips’ Minecraft ELO I saw an exciting opportunity to combine the disciplines of technology and art. I worked with Ms. Knips to develop a lesson that used the strengths of the Minecraft platform to teach objectives in the realm of art. The standard I focused on dealt with the applying the discipline of art across multiple fields of study:
“Explain, demonstrate, and interpret a range of purposes of art and design, recognizing that the making and study of art and design can be approached from a variety of viewpoints, intelligences, and perspectives”
My lesson consisted of bringing in a diorama that I have created as a part of my private art practice and having students recreate it using the world of Minecraft. The ideas I explored included asking what qualifies something as a work of art? And how do we make decisions when we create art? The concept of the lesson was very engaging and well received by the students, I believe that my observation of successful teachers being pumped about their lessons translated well to my own lesson. I also had very little trouble with classroom management by employing various strategies including good circulation of the room, a strong teacher voice, group and anonymous redirects, and the countdown method. I found using these tools to be very natural and comfortable based off of my observations and instructions at Lesher as well as my previous teaching experience.
For the relative success of the lesson there were also a nearly innumerable list of items and decisions that could have been better. One of the biggest mistakes I made was not fully understanding the limitations in the technology classroom. A major part of my lesson was having students sit in groups that would then work together to build their Minecraft creations. I gave students index cards with their Do Now, Exit Ticket, and group number written on them. When it came time for the students to sit with their groups they had to leave their usual computers and log into new ones in order to sit with their team. This resulted in an unexpected complication as students had to log into and install new software on their computers in order to use the Minecraft application. Related to this struggle was my struggle with anticipating how much time different activities would take. A huge part of the ELO block is taken up by afternoon announcements, additionally student discussion resulting from their Do Now lasted longer than I anticipated. This resulted in students having about 15 minutes to build with their teams, fortunately Ms. Knips was gracious enough to allow the students additional days to complete this particular project making the end result far more successful.
Based off of my time this semester at Lesher I believe my strengths as an educator lie in my interactions with students which tend to be easy and comfortable in both a warm and strict manner. I enjoy working with students and learning from them so I find it easy to talk with them and have fun learning while also redirecting to ensure success for my classroom culture. An area of growth that I would like to focus on is my ability to plan in a timely manner and being hyper efficient with the time of a given lesson. I am very interested in mastering the idea of “every minute matters” lesson structure as I addressed in my Ignite presentation. I also see the value in allowing student discussion to flow naturally and lead to new exciting educational opportunities. This dichotomy seems somewhat perplexing as a new teacher and is something I will focus on addressing as I move forward in my career. My time at Lesher has restored some of my youthful optimism regarding what education should be. Moving forward I am very excited to continue learning from different educators and students while continuing to sharpen my own skills. I will not forget the incredible culture and lessons that I learned during my time this semester and will carry those discovered strengths and weaknesses to my next placement.
My experience with my formal lesson was unique from the onset due to me being placed in a classroom outside of my area of concentration. In working with Ms. Knips’ Minecraft ELO I saw an exciting opportunity to combine the disciplines of technology and art. I worked with Ms. Knips to develop a lesson that used the strengths of the Minecraft platform to teach objectives in the realm of art. The standard I focused on dealt with the applying the discipline of art across multiple fields of study:
“Explain, demonstrate, and interpret a range of purposes of art and design, recognizing that the making and study of art and design can be approached from a variety of viewpoints, intelligences, and perspectives”
My lesson consisted of bringing in a diorama that I have created as a part of my private art practice and having students recreate it using the world of Minecraft. The ideas I explored included asking what qualifies something as a work of art? And how do we make decisions when we create art? The concept of the lesson was very engaging and well received by the students, I believe that my observation of successful teachers being pumped about their lessons translated well to my own lesson. I also had very little trouble with classroom management by employing various strategies including good circulation of the room, a strong teacher voice, group and anonymous redirects, and the countdown method. I found using these tools to be very natural and comfortable based off of my observations and instructions at Lesher as well as my previous teaching experience.
For the relative success of the lesson there were also a nearly innumerable list of items and decisions that could have been better. One of the biggest mistakes I made was not fully understanding the limitations in the technology classroom. A major part of my lesson was having students sit in groups that would then work together to build their Minecraft creations. I gave students index cards with their Do Now, Exit Ticket, and group number written on them. When it came time for the students to sit with their groups they had to leave their usual computers and log into new ones in order to sit with their team. This resulted in an unexpected complication as students had to log into and install new software on their computers in order to use the Minecraft application. Related to this struggle was my struggle with anticipating how much time different activities would take. A huge part of the ELO block is taken up by afternoon announcements, additionally student discussion resulting from their Do Now lasted longer than I anticipated. This resulted in students having about 15 minutes to build with their teams, fortunately Ms. Knips was gracious enough to allow the students additional days to complete this particular project making the end result far more successful.
Based off of my time this semester at Lesher I believe my strengths as an educator lie in my interactions with students which tend to be easy and comfortable in both a warm and strict manner. I enjoy working with students and learning from them so I find it easy to talk with them and have fun learning while also redirecting to ensure success for my classroom culture. An area of growth that I would like to focus on is my ability to plan in a timely manner and being hyper efficient with the time of a given lesson. I am very interested in mastering the idea of “every minute matters” lesson structure as I addressed in my Ignite presentation. I also see the value in allowing student discussion to flow naturally and lead to new exciting educational opportunities. This dichotomy seems somewhat perplexing as a new teacher and is something I will focus on addressing as I move forward in my career. My time at Lesher has restored some of my youthful optimism regarding what education should be. Moving forward I am very excited to continue learning from different educators and students while continuing to sharpen my own skills. I will not forget the incredible culture and lessons that I learned during my time this semester and will carry those discovered strengths and weaknesses to my next placement.
