1st+Lesson+Analysis

My first lesson I taught was a deviation from what I had expected to teach. We were starting to near the end of the month of November and I needed to teach a lesson. I had to think what I wanted to teach and still line up with what my supervisor wanted the students to learn. I was originally going to do a lesson that mirrored one of the sections from chapter seven in the students text books. My supervisor and I decided instead though a review game to help the students prepare for their upcoming chapter seven test was a better idea. I was told to incorporate all the material from the exam and to make a creative review game. After that it was all under my discretion. I decided to make a review game that involved kids moving around. I also wanted to show them an example of how democracy worked. We had just gotten done studying the articles of confederation as well as the birth of our U.S. constitution. I proceeded to make a game involving some physical activity as well as help get the students ready for the exam. The hardest part of it was deciding what other questions from the chapter to put on it. The fact was the exam didn't have a lot of questions and if I didn't make enough questions I was not going to be utilizing all of my time. I also thought an activity involving movement would get students excited and want to learn more. I wrote enough questions to ask them, but also made sure to include something with most of my questions. I wanted to give them an explanation of why the answer to the question was that answer. I also wanted them to associate something with the information I was presenting. I began to write little anecdotes that went with most of the answers to help explain things to students. I decided for the movement aspect of the lesson I wanted them to get out of their chairs and get an object first. This would ensure they moved some and they would compete to answer. I had them divided into groups as well and told them that they needed to discuss the answer with their group before answering. This was my way of also showing how a democracy works on a small scale. The idea was they all participated and discussed the answer before one representative from the group came up and got the object from the center of the room. On the day of the game there were some stumbling blocks. I drew out my arrangement of how I wanted them to sit when playing the game and the paper drawing showed this arrangement would work, but later I realized this wouldn't work. I was lucky my supervisor thought up a quick solution and along the way I changed the rules before explaining them. Once we had everyone settled the first time I knew I would have to cut some stories short, but I knew if asked them the questions I knew would be on the test they would do ok. At the end of the day I was exhausted, but knew that I gave it my best and made sure they didn't leave without knowing what they needed to know. I believe the most effective part of the lesson itself were the questions I formulated out of the exam questions and the stories I tried to string with them. The idea of the anecdote accompanying the answer would help them possibly associate things and therefore might make it easier to remember an answer. One way I would change the lesson is not let them get out of their chairs. I thought I would take advantage of their desire to move around and not sit still. This in the end backfired on me because they were so energetic and the idea of going after an object led to some people falling over. While no one was hurt it was potentially dangerous and not something I would like to repeat. One teaching strength I had was my persistence. At first the students wanted to play and mess around and not really listen to what I had to say to them. This began to change as I went through each game in each class. After they calmed down a bit I had control of them and I could tell they liked the idea of moving around and not having to sit in their chairs.