Reflective Teaching Lesson Experience

    Hey guys, welcome back to my blog! If you're new here, the purpose of this blog is to share my student teaching journey with you throughout the school year. I can't believe the first week is over already, and although it was very overwhelming, I'm excited for all the fun stuff we are going to accomplish this year! 

    Today's blog post is to look back and learn from the Reflective Teaching Lesson (RTL) we participated in this week. On Monday, each of the cohort members scrambled to find an RTL that we can teach each other for lab on Wednesday. I picked the second one quickly and the objective of the lesson was to teach students the symbolic meaning behind various tiki eye shapes. Monday and Tuesday were dedicated to preparing for the presentation as I made a powerpoint, a student activity, and an assessment to go along with the lesson. Wednesday came quick and I found myself prepared but very nervous to teach my lesson. Although I had all of my material ready, I found myself struggling with the presenting aspect the most. I believe the lesson went fairly well, as my cohort members all passed the student assessment I handed out. However, I now know what I struggle with and I am happy we will be given more opportunities to better our teaching abilities this semester prior to being in an actual classroom. 

Powerpoint Presentation Utilized

    I think the purpose of assigning this RTL to us during the first day was for us to reflect on our prior knowledge related to teaching strategies we thought to be successful in the past. During my lesson, I played a Sponge Bob song related to the content I was teaching. I relied on this strategy because I had a teacher in the past use this method and it effectively created a more fun and relatable learning environment. As for prior knowledge related to learning, I had my classmates draw their own tiki eyes and then had them describe what they drew and how it related to their own personalities. 

    After completing this humbling experience, I learned what I struggle with and I'm happy I was able to identify them early on so that I can work on them throughout the semester. I learned that I need to be a more confident speaker and to own the material I am teaching. I also need to be more clear on my objectives and identify them early on so I can refer back to them and make sure they have been addressed by the end of the lesson. After going through the lab evaluation forms my classmates completed, I realized I need to ask more questions to ensure I am meeting my objective and I'm being clear about my lesson goals. 

    I can apply this RTL experience to being a future Agriscience teacher by learning new and better techniques from my peers. Engaging with them and taking the constructive criticism they offer, will help me be a better teacher for my future students. Identifying my flaws early will allow me to work on them prior to student teaching, so that I can be as fully prepared for my first day of school in January as possible. Thank you for taking the time to reflect with me on my RTL experience this week and any comments are welcome down below!