Literacy: Analysis & Reflection on Teaching
As planned, I taught my lesson while sitting with the students around a table in the school library. I sought to follow established classroom routines and procedures for behavior and participation, which I reviewed with the students at the beginning of the lesson. I had assumed that this would be sufficient in terms of setting expectations. However, I quickly realized that this was not the case.
Periodically, some students became distracted and went off task. At these times I attempted to redirect and refocus the group by reminding them of the expectations. I also made a point to acknowledge students for following directions. While the students seemed to respond to these efforts in the moment, the effect was short lived; I needed to pause multiple times, detracting from the flow of the lesson.
In retrospect, I should have anticipated this difficulty. While I have been present in the classroom since September, I am not the classroom teacher. As such, it proved necessary, especially after removing the students from the classroom, to set expectations clearly. While debriefing my lesson, my observer suggested that it would have been more effective to display the expectations in writing. She explained that this would serve as a constant reminder to the students and allow me to reference the expectations more subtly. I agree with this assessment completely.
However, issues of management and logistics not withstanding, I was able to follow my lesson plan as written. I believe that both the content and structure were solid and effective.
My goal in planning and teaching this lesson was to review and reinforce a brief lesson on inference that had recently been taught by the classroom teacher. Based on my observations during the lesson and later review of student work, I believe that these goals were largely met.
The students' written work and verbal responses, indicated that most of the group has a solid understanding of the concept of inferences. Throughout the lesson, the students made strong, relevant personal connections to the text. These connections served as the "What we know" component of the inference equation. Coupled with their observations from the text itself, most students drew solid inferences. One example is shown at right. The student made relevant, experience-based connections (what we know) to details from the text (what we read). Using this information, she was then able to draw clear, appropriate inferences from the text.
However, I was also found indications in the students' work that their conceptual and procedural understanding of making inferences is still developing.
As indicated by this student's work [graphic organizer, left], more support/practice is needed.
The lines drawn by the student between what the text stated explicitly (what we read) and the knowledge that she brought to the text (what we know) are not complete. This seems to be reflected in her inferences, which are nearly identical to what she wrote under "what we know".
As I reviewed her work, it occurred to me that more extensive modeling on my part may have been beneficial and helped to alleviate some of her confusion.