Video critiques

Clips 1-3

These three clips show me introducing the story "The Most Dangerous Game" to a 7th grade classroom. In them, I notice a few things worth pointing out.

First: the coffee cup. This became a running joke for my students over the course of the semester, as I was rarely without it in my hand. It actually came at the suggestion of a professor to counteract my generally fidgety nature, the idea being that my hands would generally be less of a distraction if I gave them something to hold onto. This is something that I would like to improve moving forward, as at times it can be a distraction of its own.

Another thing that bothered me was that I seemed tethered to the front of the classroom. My cooperating teacher encouraged me more and more to move around the classroom, and in particular to position myself across the room from students who are responding to my questions. This technique has two advantages. First, it subconsciously forces the speaking student to speak a little louder, which prevents me from having to interrupt and call attention to their small voices. Second, it creates two focal points of attention in the room, the speaking student and me. This can cut out lots of unnecessary side conversation. 

But I liked how, in general, I was encouraging student involvement. This conversation came after the students had filled out 'gist statements,' which were predictions based on the various elements of the story, like 'cannibal,' 'General Zaroff,' 'Shiptrap Island,' etc. The 7th grade classes are small at Lolo, freeing teachers from crowd control and allowing or forcing all students to contribute to the discussion. I also like how, again in general, my diction is relatively clear and without the blights of 'like' and 'you know.' I could improve on 'going to' and the like, but in general I feel I model decent speaking habits of a 21st century adult. 

Clips 4-5

Clips 4-5 come from the same day as above, but with an 8th grade class. We were introducing the concept of an annotated bibliography that day, something that they would have to make ten pieces of to complete the gigantic research project we had just started on. The project was split between our language arts classroom and the social studies classroom next door. With two teachers in our classroom and two more in social studies, we divided the students up into groups by advisor, and we seated them at table groups based on who their advisor was. I liked this divide-and-conquer plan, though it did put the students at a bit of a disadvantage when they were in the class where their advisor wasn't. 

One thing that drives me crazy about the second clip is that I ran over to the computer to answer a question I asked rhetorically. This speaks to a lack of preparation for contingencies that I will eliminate going forward. 

I also notice that some of the attention of certain students wandered while I was speaking. In my defense: this was the largest class, and students had laptops in front of them. But too much attention was focused, for example, into the depths of backpacks, or to the screen. This is partially a peril of the novelty of having computers at the tables, but it is not one that I did enough to counteract.

Clips 6-7

Clips 6-7 show an 8th grade class working on the research project a few weeks later. At this point, we were settled into the routine of class periods being time for the students to work on research and writing with guidance and check-ins from two of the four advisors for the project. In these clips, I was working with a particularly reluctant learner for whom I modified the assignment a little bit. The class generally seems productive and on-task in these clips, though it shows how little our room resembled a library setting or other silent space for working. 

The novelty of having laptops at the tables seemed to wear off after a while, and at the end of the 6 week project, students were treating them like any other learning tool. This was a bonus and makes me think that the oncoming one to one revolution in schools is going to have fewer kinks than its detractors predict.