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Demi Mimbela

Dr. Arroyo

SCED 3311

11 December 2018

Mini Lesson Reflection

Like anyone else, I’ve had my doubts about what I wanted to do with my future, but after

watching my students explore their ideas and exercise their creativity during this activity, which

was a reward in itself, I knew that becoming a teacher was the right choice. Recording myself

teaching my mini-lesson, as well as designing the lesson plan, was a very educational

experience. Instead of having to jump from being an English-Education student at UTEP to

student teaching, I was able to experience a taste of what teaching a class will be like. As I

watched my own video and those of my classmates, I gained a sense of what works and what

does not. I was able to see where my strengths and weaknesses lie, and more importantly, I was

provided with the opportunity to reflect on how I might be able to improve in the areas that I

struggled with. Not only did this assignment reinvigorate my love for my chosen career path, it

gave me some much-needed experience in lesson planning and teaching.

In order to align the goals of my lesson to the TEKS I chose to address, my planning

began with a look through the standards for sophomore English. Because I’m taking a

multimodal English class that stresses the need to incorporate visuals, audio, text, and digital

modes into the classroom, I decided to address TEKS 10.15.C-D, in which students were

expected to “(C) write an interpretative response to an expository or a literary text; (D) produce a

multimedia presentation with graphics, images, and sound that conveys a distinctive point of

view and appeals to a specific audience.” I also included TEKS 10.12.B, “Students are expected
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to (B) analyze how messages in media are conveyed through visual and sound techniques,”

because I felt that it fit well with the others. After choosing this particular standard, I began to

form my goals accordingly; students would write an interpretive response to a multimedia

presentation of a poem, analyze how the message of the poem was created through media

techniques, and ultimately design their own multimedia product. From these goals, I designed the

rest of my lesson plan to meet them. Reflecting on my choice of TEKS, I do feel that an area I

could have been improved on would have been to select TEKS that can be thoroughly explored

in the time frame of a single 45-minute lesson. The TEKS I chose, especially 10.15.D, which

expects students to produce their own multimedia presentation, may have been better met if I had

designed a lesson that allotted more time to students.

My students were able to achieve the lessons goals by utilizing the scaffolds and

instructions provided for each portion of the lesson. At the beginning, students wrote an

interpretive response, reacting and exploring the meaning of the poem that I had read aloud for

them. To guide them in writing an in-depth response, I provided a few questions for them to

respond to, questions that would prime them for the next portion of the lesson. Next, to get them

to analyze how messages are conveyed through visuals and sounds, my second goal for them, I

provided a graphic organizer to guide them in taking notes of a visual and audial YouTube video

rendition of the poem. I played the video clip twice to allot the students with enough time to

observe and take note of how the sound effects, background music, and visual graphics worked

together to enhance the meaning of the poem. Towards the end of the lesson, students were given

the chance to apply their learning through the creation of their own mini multimedia

presentation. In order to stay within the time constraints of the lesson plan, I had students select a

portion of the poem, instead of having them write their own, to design their multimedia
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presentation. Letting them utilize technology, group collaboration, and their graphic organizers,

students were able to meet the last goal by working together to visually sketch out their unique

animation clip, select a song to enhance their excerpt from the poem, and present how the three

modes, text, sound, and audio, came together to create a specific message. Concerning students’

achievement of the lesson goals, one area that I felt I could improve on would be to utilize the

power zone more to meet the needs of my students more successfully.

In the engage portion of my lesson, I attempted to build upon students’ prior knowledge

and experience through the guiding questions I presented for their quick write. With the first

question, “What do you believe is the intended message of this poem?,” I hoped to access students’

prior knowledge of an author’s intended message, a domain specific vocabulary phrase. Analyzing

and exploring an author’s intended message should be something that they had encountered before

in their previous English classes, and should therefore be something they have prior knowledge in.

This would not only get them ready to analyze how the creator of the video chose to create his

message through visuals and audio, but would also prime them to step into the shoes of a creator

when they would design their own animation clip at the end of the lesson. With the last question,

“Do you relate or agree with Koyzcan’s message on bullying? Why or why not?,” I hoped to call on

students’ personal experiences, so that they would become invested and connected to the meaning

and material that would be presented in the lesson. Now that I am analyzing how I used content-

area specific vocabulary in my lesson to access prior knowledge and experiences, I do think that I

could have been more conscious in integrating more vocabulary into the lesson.

To explore the concept of multimedia creations, students were asked to watch an

animated YouTube clip of the poem “To This Day” by Shane Koyzcan. I chose the video

because it employs sound effects, background music, and striking visuals to communicate its
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message against bullying. By watching and taking notes, students were able to explore how the

elements of sound and visuals came together to create meaning, while still interacting with

material that covered a real-world problem. During the students’ creation of their own

multimedia presentations, students were talking about their own experiences in relation to

bullying, and their presentations were ultimately influenced by these experiences. As I am

reflecting on the two topics of bullying and multimedia presentations, I see that the two could

have been further integrated and intertwined with one another to create a more cohesive lesson

plan. Instead of focusing mostly on how sound and visuals work together, I could have made the

material more relevant by maintaining an emphasis on how sound and visuals can be utilized to

send a message towards issues, such as the issue of bullying.

During my PowerPoint presentation on text, visuals, and audio, I explained and offered

examples to students of how an author or producer will use these elements to enhance or affect

the meaning of their products. I covered content area academic vocabulary in my explanation of

imagery, visuals, and tone during the presentation. Making the presentation interactive, I also

asked students some guiding questions to get them thinking about examples of background

music in their lives outside of school. When I asked students what music might be playing during

a romantic scene in a movie, one student responded that violins might be playing to

communicate the feeling of love. With these examples, I hoped to offer students some guidance

in the selection of their own song for background music to their animation clip. While I

explained and offered examples, I feel that I would have been more effective in my lesson if I

had offered my students a personal example of what I wanted. If I had presented my own

sketched animation clip, complete with an excerpt from the poem and background music,
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students would have been able to use it as a scaffold during their group collaboration for their

multimedia presentation.

After students had the opportunity to discuss the video’s elements and affects with one

another, they were able to extend their conceptual understanding by switching from their position

as an audience in the explore and explain portion of the lesson to the position of creators in the

elaborate portion. In this stage, they were able to collaboratively work to design their multimedia

presentation so that their animated clip sketch corresponded to their selected poem excerpt and

background music. They got to discuss which excerpt they collectively liked, sketch different

ideas for their animation, and try out different songs by playing them on their phones. One area I

would have improved for this lesson plan would be to allow students to choose their own issue to

address and write their own poetry, though they would still conduct the rest of the activity in the

same manner. While their final presentations functioned as the summative assessment for the

lesson, I did also imbed formative assessments in the lesson. For example, after the students took

notes on the video, they had a group discussion and presented to the class an example of how

visuals or audio functioned to enhance the meaning of the poem. This formative assessment

showed me the students’ prior knowledge of how visuals, images, sounds, and tone can influence

meaning. While the formative assessment did help me to anticipate areas of confusion, I do think

I would improve the lesson plan by incorporating more concrete formative assessments that

could function as graded assignments.

My closing activity consisted of an exit ticket that asked students to analyze how their

animation clip enhances or influences the meaning of their chosen excerpt from the poem. I

thought that this prompt would show me how well students understood the main concept of the

lesson, but I do think I could have connected it to students’ real lives to make it more relevant.
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During this last activity, my students were a bit distracted and were talking more than they were

writing. To improve this last portion of the lesson, I would remind students that the exit ticket

would function as a grade and maybe use an attention grabber to focus their attention on the

writing. Overall, I think I need to improve on my overall confidence in the classroom, but I do

believe that I did well in designing the lesson so that it was creative and engaging to the students.

Thankfully, this assignment has provided me with the opportunity to recognize my strong points

and weaknesses, so that I may continue to grow and improve, and next semester, when I’m

student teaching, I can teach my students to my very best ability.

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Works Cited

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for Kindergarten-Grade 12 : 19 TAC Chapter 111,

Mathematics. Austin, Tex. :Texas Education Agency, 1997. Print.