Micro-teaching Reflection!
Last week I had the opportunity to create a 20 minute lesson plan about the iPad app Storymation! I was able to teach my peers in my W310 class how to use the app as if they were third grade students. Storymation is a stop motion app by Disney that allows users to take pictures on the app in order to create a video.
When I taught the app Storymation there were a lot of different aspects that needed to be considered. For me something that I really focused on while planning my lesson was time management. Because I was teaching 3rd graders, I knew that students would be distracted by the different features in the app and it would be hard to keep the students attention throughout the whole lesson because they had their iPads in front of them. Keeping this in mind, I chose to teach the students the app in chunks, this way the students would listen for about 3 to 5 minutes and then get the opportunity to play and explore the iPad. It was a great way to keep the students engaged and working during the lesson.
I knew that my strategy of teaching the students in chunks would work because in my past field experiences, I have found that when students have an iPad in from of them when learning how to use an app, they will be extremely distracted. In my lesson I also had my students work with PlayDoh to create their stories and I knew that this would also be a distraction for them. In order to keep their attention, I had them create a story line for the video before they could even get the PlayDoh. I walked around the classroom and checked on the different groups progress, and once they were done with their story line, I let one person from their group go up and pick out two containers of PlayDoh.
This was extremely successful because this allowed for the students to focus on their story line and it kept them motivated to get it done so they could start working with the PlayDoh. Also, dismissing students one by one to get their PlayDoh was a great strategy because it kept the classroom quiet while others were still working and prevented a back up from occurring at the PlayDoh bin.
If I were to do this differently, I would not have students work in groups. Because the app is pretty simple to use I think that the students would have benefitted more if they worked independently. I initially had them working in groups because I was worried that we would run out of time for everyone to create a project. Another thing I would change with my lesson is having a forum where students could share their work. When I was first planning the lesson I planned on having the students post their Storymations onto Padlet, however it would not let me have them upload videos. In the future I would have students use Seesaw to upload it. It is a much more 3rd grade friendly application, that is easy for students to use and easy for them to see and comment on each other's work.
Overall, this was an awesome learning experience for me. After watching back the video of me teaching the lesson I have found a lot of things that I can work on but I have also found a lot of things that I do well in the classroom. Moving forward in my teaching career I need to work on how I address the class, for example, say everyone instead of "you guys." I also want to work on being a more mobile teacher. Meaning that I want to walk around the classroom more and teach from different points of the classroom and not just in the front. I could do this by using tools like Nearpod which would allow for me to have students follow along on their iPads while I walk around to different parts of the classroom.
Being able to watch myself teach my lesson was so incredibly helpful and taught me so much about who I am as a teacher. While watching I noticed that I like to have a lot of classroom involvement and engagement. In my lesson I did this by asking questions and having students work a lot with their partners. I want to promote this type of engagement and collaboration in my future classroom.
Throughout this process, I learned a lot about the importance of good time and classroom management. I found that having a very structured and well planned lesson ultimately allowed for me to be prepared for all situations that could occur in the classroom. I learned a lot about teaching computer education and my own personal teaching style.
When I taught the app Storymation there were a lot of different aspects that needed to be considered. For me something that I really focused on while planning my lesson was time management. Because I was teaching 3rd graders, I knew that students would be distracted by the different features in the app and it would be hard to keep the students attention throughout the whole lesson because they had their iPads in front of them. Keeping this in mind, I chose to teach the students the app in chunks, this way the students would listen for about 3 to 5 minutes and then get the opportunity to play and explore the iPad. It was a great way to keep the students engaged and working during the lesson.
I knew that my strategy of teaching the students in chunks would work because in my past field experiences, I have found that when students have an iPad in from of them when learning how to use an app, they will be extremely distracted. In my lesson I also had my students work with PlayDoh to create their stories and I knew that this would also be a distraction for them. In order to keep their attention, I had them create a story line for the video before they could even get the PlayDoh. I walked around the classroom and checked on the different groups progress, and once they were done with their story line, I let one person from their group go up and pick out two containers of PlayDoh.
An example of using PlayDoh in Stop-motion videos!
If I were to do this differently, I would not have students work in groups. Because the app is pretty simple to use I think that the students would have benefitted more if they worked independently. I initially had them working in groups because I was worried that we would run out of time for everyone to create a project. Another thing I would change with my lesson is having a forum where students could share their work. When I was first planning the lesson I planned on having the students post their Storymations onto Padlet, however it would not let me have them upload videos. In the future I would have students use Seesaw to upload it. It is a much more 3rd grade friendly application, that is easy for students to use and easy for them to see and comment on each other's work.
Overall, this was an awesome learning experience for me. After watching back the video of me teaching the lesson I have found a lot of things that I can work on but I have also found a lot of things that I do well in the classroom. Moving forward in my teaching career I need to work on how I address the class, for example, say everyone instead of "you guys." I also want to work on being a more mobile teacher. Meaning that I want to walk around the classroom more and teach from different points of the classroom and not just in the front. I could do this by using tools like Nearpod which would allow for me to have students follow along on their iPads while I walk around to different parts of the classroom.
Being able to watch myself teach my lesson was so incredibly helpful and taught me so much about who I am as a teacher. While watching I noticed that I like to have a lot of classroom involvement and engagement. In my lesson I did this by asking questions and having students work a lot with their partners. I want to promote this type of engagement and collaboration in my future classroom.
Throughout this process, I learned a lot about the importance of good time and classroom management. I found that having a very structured and well planned lesson ultimately allowed for me to be prepared for all situations that could occur in the classroom. I learned a lot about teaching computer education and my own personal teaching style.
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