Putting It All Together

This past week I visited my cooperating center to teach a Life Knowledge lesson. The students were between the grades of 10 and 12. I chose to do a lesson that would be fun and useful to the upperclassmen: Interview Etiquette. The upperclassmen enjoyed the lesson, but the younger students couldn't connect it to their lives yet. Here are some snapshots from my experience.

• I started out with a lesson plan that I had to shorten to fit the time slot of the class. I made some small edits here and there. In the end, I never really used this plan! The students needed to become engaged through activities, not lecture. I started out going through the interest approach. This really grabbed the students' attention until I began a discussion. I lost the students, so I had to speed up to the next activity. Because of this, I had to improvise the rest of the lesson to fit the time. I actually ended the lesson in perfect time. 

• My classroom management skills have grown. With simple words, I have control over the classroom! I had four students who troubled me a bit, but that challenge was good. They became off task by talking to one another. I tried to bring them back in to the task with little success. I could have picked them out of the crowd for a later activity, but I didn't want to push my luck. 

This lesson brought back the spark I needed to finish out the semester's activities. I cannot wait to be in that classroom with students who are willing to learn. Labs throughout the semester help you find your teaching strategies, but there is nothing like a classroom full of high school students to point you in the right direction.