My first Directed Teaching Activity focused on sequence of events in a non-fiction text. Because we are departmentalized and students are already grouped based on ability, I decided that I would teach my lesson to the entire class. At first, I was concerned that I would not be able to maintain control of all twenty-seven students, but they were able to engage in the activities and work to complete the tasks I had set for them.
I thought that the discussions went really well. I was able to give them opportunities to speak and work with their groups which is not something that are able to do when the regular teacher is in charge. They seemed to really enjoy this and thrived off of the interaction. I also thought that my use of questioning to lead students to answers rather than flat out telling them was done well. Obviously, there is always room for improvement, but I thought that part went well.
The main area where I need improvement was my classroom management. I did not circulate the room enough and the students who are always the “trouble makers” were off task. The other problem was that during the before-reading activity, I had students writing on a timeline on the board and I was not monitoring it closely as we were talking. One student decided not to follow directions and wrote way too much and was off topic. That confused students who were trying to contribute to the time line after him. I need to find a way to monitor what students are doing on the board while I am facilitating discussion.
Time management was also an issue. I overestimated the speed at which my students would be able to read the text so I was not able to complete everything that I had planned because they took so much time to read. I realized after the lesson that the text I selected was not necessarily too difficult, but it was way too long for the amount of time that I had and that the lesson would have been much more successful if it had been shorter.
