Student Practice Reflection - Lesson #4

     On March 14th I conducted my fourth lesson. It was another math class and this time I taught measurements and their conversions. This was also the day Ms. Marchlik came to observe me. Initially I was not nervous about this fact, since I felt like I had been doing a really good job with my lessons so far. Unfortunately things ended up not going my way during the lesson, which was very upsetting, but I am trying to use this as a learning experience.

    I started the lesson with a brain gym, which is an invention of my mentor. To get the kids in the math mindset and help them focus, at the beginning of most classes we do a couple quick calculations based on concepts they should already know. I gave them four calculations and the first three went well, but the fourth one was a bit difficult for them. It was based on multiplication of decimals, which I was under the impression they should be able to do. It turned out they only knew how to add or subtract and my mentor was just assuming it was going to be easy for them. I tried my best explaining multiplication of decimals to them, but since this was just supposed to be a quick calculation before the actual lesson, things got a little messy due to the lack of time. It was quite a stressful situation for me, but I tried to go on and do better with the actual lesson. We discussed what measurements are, what we can measure, and the different types of measurements, like mass and length. Everything was going well until we got to converting measurements. I was trying my best to explain this concept to them, but I think I put too many different conversions in the lesson. It seemed like they understood the idea, but all the different measures, some of which they didn't know yet, probably overwhelmed them. It took us a while, but we finally got to example calculations. This was my first time I had such issues during the lesson where the kids were confused by what I was explaining, which really stressed me out. As a result, I started making mistakes myself. It was really embarrassing, but I corrected myself, apologized and tried to move on. We kept doing calculations together on the board. It was clear that some students understood the topic, but some were still confused. It was definitely the most difficult lesson I've had to conduct yet and the fact that Ms. Marchlik was there made me feel very embarrassed. It made me sad that the one lesson that didn't go to plan had to be the one that was observed.

    Where did it all go wrong? I am definitely not the type of person to shift blame. I believe I am very good at taking accountability and realizing my own mistakes. However, in this instance, I believe it had to do with a miscommunication with my mentor. I showed him what I had prepared for the lesson in the morning and he felt like it would be too easy for the students. They already had this topic in the previous grade, so he felt like I should've added more exercises and made it more challenging. I still had a couple hours to go, so I decided to make my lesson more difficult. Looking back that was definitely a mistake. Even though they might've had this topic before, because it was the first lesson of a new topic, I should've treated it more like a revision. Adding a lot of new conversions or making the calculations difficult was definitely not the right move. It confused the students and made them not feel confident in their own abilities. Me getting nervous and starting to calculate things wrong definitely did not help either. A lesson not going as planned happens and I definitely need to get more comfortable with situations such as this one. I realize where I made mistakes and wrong judgements, but I also think a lot of the issues with the lesson happened due to misinformation and miscommunication. I will use this experience as a lesson for myself and make sure I take the precautions, so that this doesn't happen during my last lesson.

    My fourth lesson did not go like I wanted it to, especially considering the fact that I was being observed. However, I am trying to reflect on the experience, realize what could've been done better, and move forward stronger. It is practice after all, my first one at that, so there will be difficult moments where my lack of experience or understanding will show, but what's most important is that I learn from such moments. I will use this as motivation to make sure that my last lesson will go well and that I will end my student practice on a high note.