The act of preparing for, versus actually carrying out a lesson plan proved to be very different experiences. Today, I finally taught my first full lesson, and there were various aspects of the lesson I had prepared for, but also many others that I had not anticipated. The eighty minutes of the two lessons I taught were both the longest and shortest eighty minutes of my life. Certain parts of the class appeared to drag on forever, but I still found that I couldn’t cover everything I had spent hours on hours preparing.
In the first class that I taught, there were only 16 students, but even so, I was still very nervous. I naturally speak in a very small voice, and sometimes feel uncomfortable speaking louder because it always feels like I’m shouting. However, this turned out to be a problem when we moved into the super lab for the students to work on their DNA extraction lab. It was difficult getting their attention in such a large space when they were all quite spread out. It was difficult to keep all the students focused on their tasks because some finished earlier than others, and I had to run back and forth between the group that had moved on to the next activity and the students who were still working on the lab. The entire thing eventually became a great big mess when all the students were gathered around the activity I had prepared for after the lab, and almost no one understand what they were supposed to do. I learned that my written instructions have to be a lot clearer in the future; I can’t assume that what I’m thinking in my head will always translate well into written instructions that the students will understand. This class obviously ran out of time before I could explain what the purpose of the activity was.
In the second class I taught, I immediately took my SA’s advice and tried to speak louder, especially because this class was a lot larger in size. I found out right away that different classes have very different demographics and cannot necessarily be taught in the same way. This second class asked a lot more questions, and the students were more likely to “goof off”. I also realized that I have to work on my presence as a teacher in the classroom. There were still students who were approaching my SA to ask questions, although I was technically in charge of the class that day. Something I think that I handled fairly well was taking care of a situation where some glassware was broken in the lab; I was able to remain calm and took care of it quickly. However, the biggest mistake I made was applying what had happened in the last class to the second class. Because we had almost run out of time earlier, I ended the second lab too early, and ended up with some extra time with the second class, during which I awkwardly tried to fill in the dead space.
There were many things that I learned today, but I don’t think that these mistakes will cause too much of an issue for me during the long practicum. This was my first classroom teaching experience, and I hope that I will only get better at it. Some things that I think I will definitely have to work on are presenting myself as a teacher in the classroom, and focusing my lessons so that I can ensure that the students can understand what the purpose of the lessons and activities are. And finally, I need to remember to actually implement some of the different strategies that we are being taught in the program to the classroom.
The extremely large super lab where I had to project my voice as much as I possibly could.
At least the DNA extraction was a success!
