Back-to-Back Lessons

Lesson Plan

Student Work

The back-to-back lesson assignment tasked us with creating two twenty-minute lessons to be taught in the same week to a small group of our peers. This was designed so that we could modify our lessons after the first day in order to better prepare for the following day of teaching. The lessons will then be divided and expanded to form a piece of our large content-area units.

This assignment most closely aligns with Standard 7: Planning for Instruction. The lessons were all-encompassing; we applied instructional strategies we have learned, various types of assessment, our knowledge of our content area, and our pedagogical philosophy to construct lessons that would instruct students in order to meet the standards and ultimately the essential questions that we produced for our unit. Our content and our learners were at the center of our lessons. The lessons were intended to fit within the larger scope of our units, and therefore could be embedded directly into our content. Given that the lessons were back-to-back, we were able to modify our lessons for the second day with our students and their needs in mind, allowing us to draw on knowledge of our learners in order to best adapt. 

I learned through my two lessons that one must be willing to be flexible and make changes on the fly in order to best accommodate the learners. No lesson will go completely the way it was intended to go, and this must be kept in mind when one is designing them. Certain parts could be cut short, others extended, and as an educator, it is integral that one is willing to change their plans for their students. For instance, on my second day I had planned to have a cumulative exit slip that would have assessed the entirety of both days. However, about five minutes into the lesson, I decided to just use the writing activity of the day as an assessment, since I felt it would have been too much to have them write and then complete what was essentially a mini quiz. This also served as my biggest modification for Day II; I had originally not planned to collect their writing activity, but I collected it so that I could reference it as an assessment. 

Each of my assessments, the first an exit slip and the second a writing assignment, stemmed directly from each of my standards. The first two standards were the content for Day I, and they were to relate the Cold War to World War II and to explain (and later apply) the Truman Doctrine to the Cold War, both of which were the questions I asked the students. The Day II assessment was to justify the U.S.’s involvement in the Guatemalan Coup, and identify the interests involved, the first of which was directly answered by the writing prompt and the second utilized as evidence for their response. I think this was the aspect of the lessons that I was most prepared for by the instruction from Literacy and Curriculum. Both classes emphasize and model that clear content and literacy goals must be established and met by assessments, so it was easy for me to use them in my lessons. 

I think that the most notable thing I learned about the teaching strategies I used was that I need to incorporate more questions for my students during instruction. There were several instances where we had the opportunity to think deeper and more critically about pictures or events that we were discussing, and had I asked more questions to prod them further, the lesson would have been more thought-provoking. This will surely be one of my changes for my lessons as I revise them for my unit. I think it is an easy fix if I allow for more time for instruction, then draft a few deeper questions that I would want my students to answer, and then write these into my lesson plan. Although some questions cannot be planned for and will come naturally, I can still incorporate some into my plans to add more depth. 

I think that differentiation was the weakest part of my lesson. I provided paraphrases to a primary source, a modified exit slip, and written agendas for each lesson, but I feel that I should have perhaps done more to try and meet the needs of the individuals in my class. I did, however, learn that despite the changes I made to fit the accommodations matrix, the content was still the same for them. Students can learn the same standards in different ways, and it can be surprisingly easy to modify aspects of a lesson. 

I think that my most essential aspect as a teacher is my presence; I feel that I can command the attention of students with my own engagement with the content. I know that if I continue to practice this trait and expand on it, it will make what I am teaching much more interesting for my students. This demeanor is something I had previously not noticed, but now that I have, I want to always be wearing it while teaching for the sake of my students.

George

The event that I attended was the Author Talk, where Alex Gino came to discuss their experiences and how the book was generated from them. The discussion was very free flowing; Alex would respond to questions from the audience, which guided the talk. These ranged anywhere from asking why the book was not titled Melissa, to questions about Alex’s experience as non-binary, and most notably what we should do as educators to ensure that we are welcoming to all our students. The part that was most significant for me was when, while talking about the censorship of books, Alex said “It is not protection if you are protecting children from themselves.” This really resonated with me, because this phrase demonstrates that these characteristics are not brought about from external factors, but rather are integral to the children themselves. Many are quick to blame outside forces for thoughts or feelings that they deem to be deviant, but “protecting” through censorship only denies young people the right to be who they are. 

This event most closely aligned to the social justice and sustainability pillar of the Education department’s mission statement. Equity was the focus of the author talk; Alex emphasized that a teacher should not feel as though they must “prepare” for an incoming transgender student, but should instead already have a space that is welcoming and equitable for all students regardless of whether there is a transgender student or not. It is clear from Alex’s talk that as a nation and as a society, we are still struggling to be an accepting community, but that as educators we are in a unique position to lead this project. As they stated, as teachers we must “amplify” diverse voices to be conscious of and respond to their needs.   

As I stated above, one of my biggest takeaways is the need to let our students be who they are. It is not our right as educators to tell them what is off-limits in terms of their development, and by doing so, we force them to be someone who they are not. This is well demonstrated in George, where gender-specific parts in the play and rigid educators confine Melissa into a category that does not represent who she is. Also notable from the talk, and specifically about the book, was Alex’s thoughts on the parents that he created. When asked why they did not write about Melissa coming out to her mother, they stated that “The mom had some grieving to do,” because it would not be an easy transition to begin thinking about her child as a girl. For Alex, it would be too easy for Melissa and her mother to reconcile immediately, and they “did not want to take it easy on the adults” of the story, since it is largely due to their actions that Melissa has difficulty expressing who she really is. I found it really powerful that Alex avoided the common trope of having the story end with a huge reconciliation. Instead, they opted to indicate with the ending that this was only the beginning of Melissa’s transition. 

As a teacher, Alex provided so much in terms of practices that would generate equity in my classroom. One of the biggest themes of the talk was to always be learning more about those that are different than you. Literature is a great way to do this, and that is why Alex wrote George, not only so that transgender children will have representation but also to educate those who are not transgender. Alex stresses that although one cannot “show someone else’s visibility,” their perspective can at least be understood. This will be reflected when as a teacher, one gives every student the right to choose their own pronouns and not have it be chosen for them. This can easily be done by simply stating your own pronouns. Understanding can also be achieved by discussing gender at an early age; Alex believes that no child is too young to have that conversation, and we will ultimately create a more understanding world if everyone has exposure to equitable education. Finally, and directly related to our class content, is the need for diverse literature. We have emphasized throughout the entirety of our classes that choice is needed in order for adolescents to engage with a book, as well as representation. Texts should reflect diverse experiences, so as to reflect the students reading them and to encourage understanding of those that are different than us. If our texts meet these standards, we will not only have engaged readers but also an equitable reflection of our increasingly diverse student body.  

Pre-Reading Lesson

Lesson Plan 

The text that I was using for my mini lesson is “Kennedy’s Address to the American People,” a speech given in 1962 that was intended to update the American people about the Cuban Missile Crisis. Given that it is a speech, it is difficult for a contemporary reader to understand it without the necessary historical context.  This is what my lesson revolves around. 

My lesson most closely aligned with the final pillar of the SMC Education Department mission statement, which reads “Our graduates are collaborative and knowledgeable instructional leaders.”  My lesson was not a lecture, but rather a collaboration between the prior knowledge and perspectives of my students and the historical context that I provided. It served more as a conversation between the learners and myself, with the intention of exchanging historical knowledge while also giving students an opportunity to predict the outcome of historical events before engaging with a text. I also attempted to model a shift in historical discussion; where previously students received only an Amero-centric viewpoint, I provided this as well as the perspective of Cuba and the Soviet Union. 

In general, I have learned that as a teacher, I am animated and can be surprisingly confident. I felt very comfortable in front of my students, and this was obvious in my video.  I was not stiff or anxious, and the movement of my hands and body reflected my enthusiasm for my topic. To begin my pre-reading lesson, I asked that my audience take note of the interactiveness of my lesson.  I was most worried that my lesson would feel like a lecture for my students, given that much of it revolved around giving context for the speech. I was surprised to learn at the end that my lesson was far more interactive than I imagined it would be; my students commented that I did well to pull them into a topic that they did not know much about. Although the powerpoint was our focus, it did not feel like a lecture, for myself or my students. Rather, it was a conversation, in that I would display pictures and maps, then ask my students to contribute their prior knowledge or predict the outcome of events. At the end, they seemed to agree that this format was both informative and engaging for them. 

The most important thing I learned about pre-reading was that the content must be brought to the learner.  So often, texts are unreachable for students and because of this, they will become lost in them and read without comprehending the content.  If the text is made accessible, readers will feel much more confident when they begin the text, especially if they know exactly what they will be looking for within it.  That was my goal with my own text: to first make the text accessible by providing the necessary background knowledge, and then to point students in the right direction by telling them what they should be looking for.  I definitely reached this goal, because my students were able to take the context that I provided and apply it by predicting what the text will say before they read it. We did this in the form of an informal conversation, where I asked each student to share their predictions about the contents of the speech using at least two pieces of evidence from our discussion. They had similar but varying answers, and used slightly different evidence to support it, representing their unique perspectives. My intent with this activity was to give them a much fuller picture than the one provided in the text alone, allowing them to generate meaning from it while reading it with a critical eye. 

I think that my next step is to firstly make all of my lessons interactive in a variety of ways.  It is so easy in history to fall into the habit of talking at your students, rather than actually have them do history. Therefore, in the future I’d like to incorporate diverse and engaging activities around the content. In terms of teaching generally, I think I would like to work on slowing down. When I watched the video, I felt as though I was flying through the lesson instead of taking time to highlight points made by my students. Our double mini lessons next week will be an excellent time to practice this.