It wasn’t easy to talk about ISIS to those 7th graders. Although I definitely did a better job as the day went on. By the end of the day, I was able to quickly access where those students were on this issue, and respond differently. For example, I didn’t show any video clips for the rest of blocks. (They have watched related videos on FB before.) The last two blocks didn’t do the group role discussion. I wrote down the agenda and learning objective on the whiteboard and spent probably more than 10 minutes reviewing what we did yesterday and making the connections to what we are going to do today.
I was more relaxed and responsive to their questions. I did not exactly follow the agenda, but I did keep reminding myself and directing them back to the learning objective. I think that was one of the most important lesson I learned that day. Stay with the objective, “forget” about the agenda. Especially on a big topic like this, I had no way to know how students were going to react to it and how the conversation would go. Following the same agenda can cause some nervous and distraction. By the end of the class, a successful lesson depends on students learning, not just about if the teacher stayed on task.
After these two days teaching, the biggest lesson I learned is to always have clear learning objective in mind as a teacher. All the rest agenda is not that important. If a teacher has a simple and specific learning goal in mind throughout the lesson, even if it’s just a lecture or conversation-based class, students can still learn, because everything will be connected and making sense to them. Reflecting on my learning experience, I don’t necessary have to know the learning objective word by word in order to learn, I believe experiential education is to create a learning experience for students. But each of them might take away different things throughout the lesson. It’s always beneficial to have a goal to keep myself on track. For the students, I think I would like to give them room and space to develop their own learning journey and goals. It might be too ideal in K-12 classrooms. I am still exploring.
After these two days teaching, the biggest lesson I learned is to always have clear learning objective in mind as a teacher. All the rest agenda is not that important. If a teacher has a simple and specific learning goal in mind throughout the lesson, even if it’s just a lecture or conversation-based class, students can still learn, because everything will be connected and making sense to them. Reflecting on my learning experience, I don’t necessary have to know the learning objective word by word in order to learn, I believe experiential education is to create a learning experience for students. But each of them might take away different things throughout the lesson. It’s always beneficial to have a goal to keep myself on track. For the students, I think I would like to give them room and space to develop their own learning journey and goals. It might be too ideal in K-12 classrooms. I am still exploring.