First Day of School Lab Reflection

The first day of school is always the strangest. You don't know the other students in class, they don't know you and worst of all you are wondering what in the world is your teacher going to be like. Knowing these thoughts that run through students' heads, we as teachers can help ease students on their first day of class. Our second lab in AEE 412 did just that. We created an activity where our students got to know each other, we covered our expectations, procedures and consequences, and we could even start teaching some content. It was a lot to fit in a 10 minute lesson but it was all necessary for a real life "first day of school."

I will say that this lab was harder for me to develop something creative. I feel like students don't like going over the expectations, procedures and consequences because they find them boring. My goal with this one was to find something creative so that they will remember my classroom guidelines. Although I really liked the activity I had created I found that the more creativity you add the more time you will need. We had only 10 minutes to present these things and I found that I ran out of time. Although in real life teachers will have more than 10 minutes, this was a challenge of the lab, to find appropriate and concise ways to fit the content into the allotted time. I had definitely failed this aspect of it and I hope that I can use this as another learning experience to work on these areas of time management.

After watching my video I picked up some other attributes of myself as a teacher that I thought I could work on. I noticed that I said "um" a lot! I don't think I usually use those fillers words that often, but I will admit that I did not put as much time and preparation into this lab as I did my last lab. I think that because of this I didn't have as good of a flow to my lesson and that resulted in me using filler words to help me think of what I wanted to say next. After watching myself I started to find it really annoying that I kept using "um" and so it made me think that my students probably felt the same way! It also made me realize the importance of being prepared and fully understanding the flow of my lesson. If I can better grasp this, I also think I will be able to create better transitions from one activity to the next. Transitions are another aspect that could use some work. I think one of the biggest concepts I learned from this lab is that although I have engaging activities, they wont effectively work unless I (the teacher) effectively communicate and facilitate each one. This requires me  to be prepared in knowing how I will transition from one activity to the next.

One more aspect to consider is the behavior of my students. This was a major aspect to consider because it took up much time to correct my students' misbehaviors and questions. I found that this is important to consider when planning a lesson. Also, I noticed that the more your students are engaged the less chatter and misbehavior you will have because they are focused. This was a good teaching technique that I picked up on during my lab activities.

This lab helped me realize even more areas that need improvement; however, it also helped me realize my strengths. In recognizing both weaknesses and strengths I think I can better evaluate myself and focus on these areas for my next lab!