RTL Reflection

The Task: 

At the end of our very first day in AEE 412, Ms. Morey asked us to randomly select a packet of papers which would assign the topic which we would be teaching on two days later, during Lab AEE 412. 

My task was to teach as many of my peers to juggle three balls, for one rotation in a 15 minute lesson. I was TERRIFIED! Mostly because I CAN'T JUGGLE!

How it went:

I wrote my lesson plan, practiced juggling for three hours, and hoped for the best. I walked into class like a boss, knowing this was just a temperature taking assignment, and knowing if anything my peers and I were going to try our best but have a good time doing so. 

First, I had a technical issue. The room's audio was malfunctioning, so therefore my video for the final step of three-ball-juggling demonstration (which I was only able to successfully juggle two) was incomplete. Fortunately, as a back up, I narrated what the gentlemen were saying and used the video as a visual aid.

Second, none of my peers successfully learned to juggle three balls in 15 minutes. Bummer... BUT, I look for silver linings:

1. All of my peers were motivated to try
2. All of my peers tried their best
3. All of my peers showed significant improvement from where we started.

My learning:

First: I had a reality check. Ag teachers are jacks of all trades and masters of none. I will be teaching material I don't fully understand, or maybe skills I can't fully do. But, similar to my juggling lesson, a successful teacher will invest the time to get better or understand more, and have a back-up plan to better teach the students.

Second: When checking for understanding, you will have to go back sometimes and divert from the lesson plan to make sure information is fully understood. It wasn't in my lesson plan to spend 10 minutes on practicing with two-ball-juggling, which slowed us down from getting to the three-ball-juggling task. But I knew my students/peers needed that information to move forward.

Third: YET... it is such a powerful word. A peer of mine said "I can't do this." Fortunately for me we had just covered growth mindset, and my response was quick and meaningful. I simply said "yet," smiled, paused for it to sink in, and started to help the student more.

My feedback from Peers:

Unanimously, my feedback included that the task given to me REQUIRED more time. Given 15 minutes in class was an assigned time, I had to work with what I could. Outside of the practice room I will use this feedback in the future -- you can only go so fast. Cramming tons of learning into short periods of time doesn't promote meaningful learning, it promotes checking off arbitrary boxes of completion. 

An additional comment that stuck out was they appreciated the differentiated methods of giving feedback and instruction regarding their performance. Throughout the lesson I had first demonstrated, then I showed the video, then I went to each students individually and worked with them, then I had them work with each other to coach each other, and finally I coached them as a whole group again before moving on.