Sarah and I were both tasked with preparing some kind of lesson around Regina’s Agribition this week. Our students are headed there tomorrow and why not make it purposeful, right? What was supposed to be a social lesson turned in to science for both of us, but I think we more than made it work. Since I am married to a farmer and have fairly easy access to agricultural materials, I was asked to come up with something hands on for the students. Even though Agribition has a bigger focus on livestock than grain, since we are grain farmers that is what the lesson was about. I was having the students look at raw material vs. manufactured products and the process of getting there. I tasked Chris with bringing home a selection of grains the next time he went out to the farm and he brought me back wheat, oats, barley, peas, and canola. For the first 20 minutes (which was much longer than anticipated) the students got to feel, smell, and look at the grains and try to guess which was which. This is where it seemed to fall apart.
Our students tend to get loud and like to blurt out answers so I specifically started by going over the expected behaviour (no blurting, putting hands up, no sharing answers) and then the instructions. I have noticed in my own lessons that I tend to breeze through instructions. Even when I am presenting something to my own classmates, I always seem to rush through the instructions. I think I am maybe excited to get to the activity that I instinctively just say “Go!” and then regret later. What is really hard is trying to re-explain instructions when 25 kids are talking (especially after asking them to keep it quiet). So the students got started and I just kind of let it happen. After about 15 minutes (with some students not having seen all five grains) I called attention back to the front of the class. I took a moment that was not planned and asked students to give me a thumbs up, thumbs sideways, or thumbs down based on how they thought they behaved during that time. They admittedly gave themselves a thumbs sideways and I let them know that they were right, it wasn’t really acceptable classroom behaviour. We went over the answers together and I got started on going over the new material with them.
I definitely got into this part flustered. I had a lot of material I wanted to get through and since we went over time I felt rushed to get it all in. Then of course the internet was slow and I had to reconnect my laptop to it which flustered me further. I rushed myself through my slides worrying the whole time that the material was probably over all of the students heads and that they weren’t getting it at all. I definitely asked way less questions than I had planned, but I finished and had a student hand out the worksheet for me. Having a student help me out was probably the best part of this lesson. The students miraculously quieted themselves down while answering the handout and I got to walk around while they asked me questions and pick up the completed handouts.
When the lesson ended I felt like I bombed it. I thought that no one was going to have the right answers and that I basically spent an hour teaching these poor students nothing. When I got the worksheet back and began to mark them, I was relieved. The majority of the students had gotten most of them right, a few were right around the halfway point, and only five really did not do well. The five really did not surprise me as I knew they were not paying attention in class and so how would they know any of the answers.
When speaking with Sarah and our co-op, they both said they didn’t think I bombed the lesson. Whether or not they were just being nice, I guess at least now I know how that feels and can try to develop some strategies for bringing everyone back to the lesson when things start to get away from me.
Next week I will be looking at self image. I am excited to start again and plan on using an idea from Katia’s class. If my friend circle we call it compliment hour; you say, or in this case write, nice things about another person just for the sake of saying something nice. It will mark my last teaching day in this semester and then I will not see the students again until March. The only good part of that is that it means holidays for me! I will sure miss them all!
Jen
Mrs. Chyz's Classroom 