  |
|||
|
|
|
||
|
Posted by Kellie Hayden Jul 16, 2008 |
This summer reflect.
Teachers who have completed the National Board of Professional Teacher Certification process or who have become NBCTs, know what it means to reflect. They have to describe their lessons, analyze their lessons and then reflect on their lessons. Reflecting is sometimes the hardest type of writing for many candidates.
Reflection means thinking about what worked and what did not work. It is not really about what the students did. It is what you as a teacher did to make the lesson soar or maybe even flop. The best part of being reflective is figuring out why a lesson did not work. Sometimes the best lessons I have delivered are the ones that flopped the year before that I tweaked the following year.
To fix a lesson, here are few things to consider:
- What came before and after this particular lesson? Was this lesson placed correctly in the unit or in the year plan?
- Did you connect the lesson to state standards, benchmarks and indicators?
- Were the activities student centered? Were the students engaged? Where did you lose the students in the lesson?
- What was the student impact? What did they learn?
Reflective teaching should happen all year. However, this summer take some time and think about the lessons that did not work. Do they need to hit the trashcan or be revived into a really cool lesson for the next year?