Organizing My Lessons

Today I taught my second lesson of the semester. I learned a valuable lesson in how to get better in planning my lessons, particularly when they are content heavy.

The lesson centered around Enlightenment ideas - particularly the state of nature, social contracts, natural rights, and a separation of powers thanks to Locke and Montesquieu. When I really slowed down my brief lectures and our following discussions, I think it made sense to students. Where I really lacked in my planning and saw students struggle as a result was being unclear on where they should be taking notes or what they should do with the information. For next time, I think I need to bring graphic organizers and be super explicit in where the information should go. They were able to take notes today, but they didn't seem to understand where I wanted them to put the information. But I realized that I hadn't really considered the answer to that question before. I think this will get easier when I have my own classroom because there will be an organization structure that I create from the start and will stick to. Currently, I am aware of the structure but I wasn't sure if they should add it to notability or not or what Mr. Scott would like to do with their notes and stuff in the long term.

Moving forward, I'm going to really make a point to consider what I want students to do with the information. I'll be able to hand them a graphic organizer or be very clear that I want them to set up a page in notability rather than tell them to put the information wherever they want. I could tell after the fact that they wanted specific directions on where to put it. I also want to make my questions and directions much more clear. There was some time spent repeating directions or clarifying what I meant by the question that I wanted them to consider for a free write. If I am very intentional with my questions and make my directions really clear, I may still have a couple of questions but I think it would lessen. It wasn't a big deal today because I was able to handle them individually and it didn't take up class time really, but if it consistently happened, we would lose a lot of instructional time by just having to repeat myself or give alternative explanations.

All in all, I think the lesson went alright. They certainly had a better understanding of the content by the end of it. My only other area that I need to work on is classroom management. Again, this is something that will be easier for me in my own classroom with my own system but I noticed that things got a little out of hand when I was working with small groups or one on one. I need to find a way to manage what's happening on the other side of the room while I'm also occupied helping students on the other side. I know that will come with practice as well, though. As a whole, I can't complain. I was happy to see students open up to me even a little bit more and that they are excited when I come in to teach.