Lesson Plan Response #2

                 It took my partner and I a while to think of a great idea for a lesson that only lasted 45 minutes. Nick and I knew that we wanted to base it off our "Representations of Home" presentation that we gave to the class a few weeks prior. After a meeting with our professor, he challenged us to make something 3-dimentional. We focused on the amazing art of Pepon Osorio and Gregory Crewdson and talked about how they represent a feeling of home in their works. After briefly discussing what the feeling of "home" could mean without being in a space of continuous living, we got the feeling that this would be a great idea for a lesson. By talking about what the "home" feeling is to some students, we could translate that same feeling into a different space.

My very first example, we were still working out the kinks with the sizes.

                 What we ended up making was a small 3-d box with a writing exercise that got the students' juices flowing. After briefly recapping the ideas we saw in the powerpoint presentation, I brought up the idea we wanted to use for our boxes. I was hoping for a bit more of a pre-creation discussion about the ideas and objects the students were going to use, but the class seemed pretty quiet and tired during our lesson. After realizing the questions I was asking was not sparking any interest, I looked at Nick and he immediately jumped into the lesson itself. I thought perhaps he could have rephrased the questions or gone about it differently, but what he did allotted the most time for the actual creating of the box. We then asked the students to write down some words, phrases or sentences that reminded them of their certain place. By having them write about the feeling and memories they have of this place, students easily reference their writing to make their 3-d box a bit more meaningful. While doing the lesson, we realized that we had completely forgotten to grab scrap paper for the writing prompt.. and quickly improvised by having the students use the back. It's interesting to note that Meghan pointed out how we should have had scrap paper instead because it was too distracting to have it all written on one piece of paper. As soon as Nick called the students to watch the folding demo, I immediately thought that they could have watched a demo from their desks, but he continued to give the step by step. I also noticed his assumption that everyone in the room knew how to make a “pop-up” but this was a part of my demo time and it made me a bit upset that he tried to completely skip it. When we sent students back to their desks to continue working, I walked around and made sure they were on the right track. For those who looked confused by the assignment, I tried asking questions like... “where do you feel most comfortable, if not at your house?” and “What is your favorite place to go with friends?” Mary told me that she messed up her paper, but she really just wanted to see if we had extras drawn out (which we did!) Marissa acted like a distraught student who did not like being at her house. I used some of the previously stated questions with her to which she answered each one with a shrug. After a while she wasn't giving me anything to work with so I told her, “if it's that hard, take some extra time to think about it, maybe next time you see your friends you will know.”

Rachel D's example! Great job, Rach!

I think the lesson itself went pretty well. We carefully decided who was going to say what, and although the roles were not as clean cut as the lesson we did at our fieldwork, I still think it was equal on paper. With that being said, it was still difficult for me to get a word in. What I wanted or planned to say was often already being explained by my partner which made my role during the lesson a bit uncertain. He sometimes interrupted my thoughts and kept going off in another direction than I had already planed. I know this is not really his fault, but our teaching styles are too different which makes it hard to teach in pairs. I figure when it comes time to student teach, I should be able to really take control of my classroom (or let's hope).