Nathan Brandsma

EDUC 693B
10/22/14
Teaching Reflection 2
My second full teaching lesson was about the bill of rights and George Washington. I
opened the lesson by explaining the learning target. I am having a bit of trouble turning the
objectives that I have in my lesson plan into words that the students understand and doesn't take
up the entire board. I did not get the literacy and numeracy or democracy and 21st century skills
objectives up on the board. I think this is because I still get pretty nervous at the start of a lesson
and my mind seems to go in a hundred different directions at once. I did make explicit the
objective this time, which was an improvement from the last lesson.
As a warm up, I had the class take a sheet of paper and write out as many of the 10 rights
enumerated in the bill of rights as they could remember. As was expected, no one got them all
and some were not able to think of any. As soon as sharing began I could see comprehension
dawning on the faces of many students who had blank sheets of paper earlier. We listed as many
as the students could come up with, and then I broke them into groups for the activity. I think the
pre-assessment went well, I got a good gauge of student knowledge through the writing, but I
feel like it was not a particularly compelling hook.
The activity involved ten groups, one for each of the amendments that comprise the bill
of rights. Each group drew their interpretation of the right, a summary in their own words, a
question about if there is ever a time to suspend the right and finally to come up with a right of
their own for today. I think I need to get more strict and put a time limit on the group time for
exercises such as these. I have the tendency to want every group to get finished, so as I circulate,

I watch for most to get done. I think I need to start with a strict time limit, it would give kids
more incentive to work quickly and spend less time socializing. If the limit is too short, I could
always add a minute or two.
The discussion in the groups was quite good. I then had each group share their drawing
on the document cam (I had a student figure out how to use it since my cooperating teacher did
not know how). I had them describe the picture and their summary and the answers to their
questions. I think I was a bit muddy on what I expected them to explain, so tightening that up
next time would be good. Despite this, it was a very successful activity. The students were
engaged in each other's drawings and there was a lot of great discussion and debate about rights
among the class. With the group sizes of three or four, I was able to get every member of a group
to speak during their presentations. I was getting behind my schedule rather severely, but I
wanted to harness the engagement of the class, especially considering that as first period, this
class tends to be particularly lethargic.
After the activity, I did some lecturing and discussion on George Washington's
presidency. This was partially due to my cooperating teacher's interest in seeing me do some
lecturing. The lecturing and note taking went alright, I included questions and cold calls and
discuss with your neighbor elements. I did not get through all of my slides, and I realized a bit
late that the class was coming to an end. I had a whole activity planned around George
Washington's farewell address, but I did not get to it.
I also did not get to my closure. I know about the importance of the closure, but I just ran
out of time. I get pretty into discussion, so I need to pay more attention to the clock. I did,
however, get in a fist to five on how the class felt about knowing the bill of rights and it was

almost all fives and a couple fours, which was reassuring, but did not provide the rigor that a
ticket out the door would have.
Just like my last lesson, I have some time management difficulties. I think it is good that I
am over prepared rather than underprepared, but I am having a hard time gauging how long an
activity is going to take to do. I think this would be helped if I start doing what I mentioned
above, namely to put timers on the work time to control a little bit. Sharing seems to be a part
that can take quite a bit of time as well. I let it go, because the class discussion was of high
quality and many voices that are typically quiet were weighing in, so I didn't want to rush and
limit those interactions.