Learning to let other's speak

With this next unit, my placement partner and I decided to try and co-teach the lessons. We also decided to use guided notes and start the chapter off with an activity. The best part of all of this...we chose to throw all of these changes at the students on a half day that just so happened to be PJ day and the day my placement partner had his last observation by the COE. Needless to say it was a fiasco! But man did me and my partner learn a lot about what we needed to change for our other class before we threw all those things at them. I also learned that I have a very VERY hard time letting other people speak, I tend to want to take over the lesson and present that material how I want without letting my partner know what's going on. This lead to quite a bit of confusion at first because though we both knew the activity we were doing, we took it in a completely different direction. This just made our first day that much more confusing to students and meant we had that much more to address before presenting the lesson to our other class.

Learning for our first fiasco we decided to change the following:

1. I needed to learn to let my placement partner teach. This meant that I needed to hold my tongue when he's talking and not interrupt him because most likely what I have to say is what he's going to say it just takes him a little longer to actually say it. We also needed to tell students that we're trying something new (co-teaching) and help them understand that we're going to make mistakes and we're learning how to co-teach and it's not going to be perfect.
2. We needed to introduce the guided notes at the beginning of the hour and warn students about them. We also needed to demonstrate to students how to fill in the guided notes. We decided this meant that one of us (me) would fill out the note on the ELMO with students while the other wrote on the board.
3. We needed to get on the same page about the activity and what it was we wanted to students to do. This meant putting together a worksheet that outlined these things. It also meant that we needed to do the lesson which the activity covered BEFORE doing the activity (the opposite of what we did initially). 

Once we had all of these changes plotted out and ready to go we came into our other class quite a bit more prepared than our initial class and with the hope that it would be much less of a fiasco. Especially since we were both being observed by our content supervisor...Now I'm sure you're asking, "Welllllllll! How'd it go?!?!?!?" I'm glad to report, it went great!

First of all, we did the lesson the activity covered the day before. This was first of all because of how horribly the activity and lesson went the other way around with our other hour. And also because we didn't want to give a lesson the day before spring break and felt the activity would be more engaging for students. Once we presented the lesson to students we were a bit worried because nearly every student seemed to really understand the lesson and we didn't know what this would mean for their engagement in the activity the next day.

Our activity dealt with fractions and decimals and converting them to percents. Students were first split into groups of two or three. Each group was then given the worksheet along with a cup full of (fake) coins. Each cup contained a dollars worth of the following coin values: quarters, dimes, nickels, and seven pennies. First we worked with students to make sure they knew how many of each coin value it took to make a dollar 4 quarters, 10 dimes, 20 nickels, 100 pennies). Next we took that and worked through the "Quarters" portion of the worksheet which had students first find the fraction used to represent one of the four quarters it takes to make a dollar. Then come up with this coin value in regards to the dollar amount (25/100) and finally the decimal and percentage representation of this. 

Once students understood this section and what we were asking them to do in the other sections we let them go and explore on their own. Since we were worried students would rush through the worksheet without thinking about it we made sure to tell them that it wasn't a race to finish the worksheet but more of an investigation to test their understanding and that they should work together to complete the worksheet. This was really important I think, because it forced students to work together and not simply take a portion of the change and work on their own. It was really neat to see the students actually physically using the change in the activity too because in all honesty the students didn't NEED the change to complete the worksheet but they chose to use it so they had something to manipulate and see. 

Me and my placement partner went around and asked students questions throughout their exploration to make sure they were understanding the activity and to gauge their understanding of the material and the underlying concepts. This activity proved to be a big success, every single student was able to answer our questions any way they were asked, they were able to explain their thinking, they were able to work collaboratively to understand the activity and concepts, and finally they had fun! Students were very engaged from the beginning of the lesson until about the last 20 minutes of class. I think this was because many students finished the activity early and didn't have anything else to work on. This is something that I would like to work on more in my activity structures. How do I create an activity that's long enough for my students to complete in the time allotted but also not discouraging and still is engaging? This is something that I plan on working on and collaborating with other educators on to figure out what works best for me and best for my students. 

Overall, I think being able to be observed and then have a coaching session about how our lessons/activities/etc went has been really helpful. I know I'm really hard on myself and tend to think that the lesson didn't go nearly as well as it actually did. And to sit down and take a step back and see the lesson written out by an observer and see the engagement level has been really helpful. It shows me where I need to focus more attention because there was lesson engagement and what I'm currently doing well. I think it's important for me as an educator to take the time to reflect on my lessons, even when it's not required of me, so that I have a better understanding of my strengths, weaknesses, and where I can grow the most. This semester has taught me so much about myself and my teaching style and I cannot wait to have my own classroom, to learn more about myself as a teacher, and to try new things.