Unloading the Trailer: Lab 3, Interest Approach

My performance in lab this week was not quite up to where I would hope it would be. Nevertheless I believe I continued to be strong in a few areas of delivery, and showed improvement in others. Here are my gems and ops as I unload the trailer to prepare for next week.

Gems

• As Cahill pointed out on Edthena, my lesson had lots of variability. I went from Google searching, to a video, to a powerpoint in the first ten minutes. I don't feel like it was too much too fast either. It all flowed together. The challenge would then be keeping the variability going as the powerpoint starts to get pretty heavy. 
• The daily Google. This is a strategy I remember hearing from an ag teacher many years ago, and it has stuck with me to this day. The idea is that you start by having students google search a basic question, one so basic they may have never considered it before, and have them record and share their findings. It is almost like a mini interest approach in it's self. It is designed to spark follow up questions that will relate to the day's content. I had some mixed feedback about it, but I believe it will go smoother if I introduce it better at the beginning of the year, and make it a regular part of class.
• Including vocab. I included essential vocab at the beginning of the lesson as a way to foreshadow the content. Vocab on the board is a common practice at Central Columbia. My peers liked this and thought it made me come across as more knowledgeable, which is always nice.
• My peers and I agreed that I had a good strategy for Snyder when he started to doze off in class. I used proximity to make him alert, and then asked him a question, all without missing a beat.

Opps

• My interest approach in general was a little "ehh". I feel like these kind of things are supposed to come to you, highlight Dave Burgess when he talked about buying golf balls in the middle of the night after a cool idea laying in bed. This one came to me on Monday when a friend shared a Red Greene video on facebook. I took it and ran with it. There was mix of positive and negative feedback on the video. I feel it would have gone better if I would have scaffold better questions and content around it.
• I did not make sure technology worked before designing the lesson and had to adapt day-of.
• For some reason I decided not to correct Miranda even thought I saw her on her phone during the video. Perhaps I didn't want to interrupt the video? I should have taken action here.
• I need to be more creative with how I ask questions and accept students responses.This was also peer-mentioned. I believe class this week will help clear this up.
• I was a little under the weather, but it was noted this week and last that I should bring the energy up. That is something to continue improving on.