Lesson Plan Reflection
I planned this lesson with input from my cooperating teacher. She was not currently teaching any particular comprehension strategies and thought that revisiting text-to-self connections would be helpful. I went to books by author, Janell Cannon to teach the strategy. I felt like they were perfect examples of how we can use connections while reading.
This lesson was taught during my second week at the school and was also my second lesson taught. It was surprising to me how uptight and nervous I was teaching a group of 2nd graders. By the time this lesson rolled around, I was a bit more comfortable. So in that respect I think the lesson went well. The books worked out and proved to be enjoyable and relatable for the kids, allowing them to easily make text-to-self connections. Even though, I felt pretty good about this lesson, there were some less successful aspects that went along with it. Even though I was a little more comfortable, I would still like to be more at ease and confident with teaching. I was critiqued by my cooperating teacher that I should have modeled the connections chart with the kids, prior to having them fill it out. This is something that I will never forget, it is essential to thoroughly explain assignments to children. It is easy to forget how different we as adults are from them at times.
I think that more use of technology would have made this a better lesson. Use of the classroom smartboard would be a good place to start, and as per my cooperating teacher’s recommendation, the document cam would help the children better make connections with the illustrations in the text. I also think being more comfortable with the students and the classroom layout would help this lesson, something that would be hard to accomplish as a guest in any class.
The majority of students did not have difficulty with this lesson. A small minority of them were not able to come up with 3 examples of a text-to-self connection. Most had additional connections they made. The students seemed excited to share these connections. The students showed that they were able to make connections to a text. Even when the text isn’t about a child that they can directly relate to, they are able to find connections with animals and other things. This was my intention going into this lesson.
I planned this lesson with input from my cooperating teacher. She was not currently teaching any particular comprehension strategies and thought that revisiting text-to-self connections would be helpful. I went to books by author, Janell Cannon to teach the strategy. I felt like they were perfect examples of how we can use connections while reading.
This lesson was taught during my second week at the school and was also my second lesson taught. It was surprising to me how uptight and nervous I was teaching a group of 2nd graders. By the time this lesson rolled around, I was a bit more comfortable. So in that respect I think the lesson went well. The books worked out and proved to be enjoyable and relatable for the kids, allowing them to easily make text-to-self connections. Even though, I felt pretty good about this lesson, there were some less successful aspects that went along with it. Even though I was a little more comfortable, I would still like to be more at ease and confident with teaching. I was critiqued by my cooperating teacher that I should have modeled the connections chart with the kids, prior to having them fill it out. This is something that I will never forget, it is essential to thoroughly explain assignments to children. It is easy to forget how different we as adults are from them at times.
I think that more use of technology would have made this a better lesson. Use of the classroom smartboard would be a good place to start, and as per my cooperating teacher’s recommendation, the document cam would help the children better make connections with the illustrations in the text. I also think being more comfortable with the students and the classroom layout would help this lesson, something that would be hard to accomplish as a guest in any class.
The majority of students did not have difficulty with this lesson. A small minority of them were not able to come up with 3 examples of a text-to-self connection. Most had additional connections they made. The students seemed excited to share these connections. The students showed that they were able to make connections to a text. Even when the text isn’t about a child that they can directly relate to, they are able to find connections with animals and other things. This was my intention going into this lesson.