This lesson was an adaptation of classroom morning centres. Morning centre activities are easily adaptable to work with students in groups, pairs or individuals as well as one-on-one with the teacher. My main focus in this lesson was asking discourse questions. By asking clarification questions before, during and after problem solving, I was able to better evaluate the student’s thought processes and understanding of the concepts being covered.
I feel that, I reached my goal of asking discourse questions throughout the video. These questions lead to further discussion and inquiry during our activities. There were times where I was surprised by the student’s answers, providing more detail than expected or going beyond expectations in general. These bits of information into student learning might have been missed without being prompted through this discussion.
For this lesson, I knew the student was strong in math and allowed for practice of a few weaknesses, the main one being reading. In this instance I see this as both a strength and a weakness. Something I have been working towards is creating moments of learning that are not limited to the subject of the lesson. The challenge in that is doing it in a manner that does not interrupt the instructional objectives of the lesson at hand. That is where I feel I missed the mark in this lesson, I took the time to focus on reading the activity instructions and it distracted from the lesson a bit in the end. It’s hard not to be critical on yourself, but in the end, I feel this lesson went over fairly well.
I would like to thank my nephew, Jayce, for being a star and helping me out with videotaping this lesson!
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