Video Self-Reflection

So, I filmed my lesson twice. I have the luxury of teaching the same class first and fourth period, so I have a chance to reflect and improve upon a lesson between first and fourth every day. First off, watching a video of yourself teaching is brutal. Aside from the fact (as my wife has so generously pointed out before) I sound like a big dumb redneck when I talk, I noticed a lot of things that aren’t always apparent to me when simply reflecting on a lesson. I know the assignment said 10-15 minutes of lesson, but I worked with 60 minutes of lesson, because in my class I typically only do direct instruction 1-2 days tops, and let them work on their projects for the rest of the time. I did notice that, for the most part, I kept most of the classes attention of the full 60 minutes. I also know that some people will hammer me for basically lecturing for an hour straight but, like I said, that’s the bulk of the instruction for the week. After that, it’s them working on their projects and me working one-on-one with them to address their individual needs.

So my work for this class has been a little bit different from what a lot of other people have been doing. I took the class because I was already interested in PBL and have been doing a rough form of it for about 8 years. My goal for the class has been to further refine and streamline my curriculum into basically one giant PBL curriculum. In the summer, I rebuilt my Level 1 curriculum from the ground up in such a way that I thought I would be pretty much done planning for the year. I was wrong. As I got into the assignments, I found that I needed to rearrange some of them, and later (over the past couple weeks), I’ve identified that I need to go back and reinforce some of the skills and ideas that we covered earlier on, because they’re just now at the level they can realize the significance of what I was trying to teach them.

For the sake of the class, a lot of my work has been focused on a semester-long website building unit, but what I filmed was just one part of it, namely a lesson on both self-critique and a critical friends protocol. The goal of this lesson is to help tie the website into their overall growth. At the end of the day, them having a great website is a good thing, but more importantly, them learning to reflect on their work, and to assess others’ work as well, is more important than a shiny website, as most of these students will probably not go on to pursue photography on a hardcore level. Regardless of whether they keep it up, the analysis skills they learn, both in how to analyze themselves and think critically of their work, and how to properly give feedback to others will be a valuable skill for them throughout their lives.

Let’s talk about what I think I did well first. I think I did a pretty good job of connecting the learning to the students. I used lots of examples of students and their recent work to tie into what I was teaching for the day. I called on several students individually, and pointed out how what they were doing tied in directly to what I was talking about. I provided lots of examples of the learning in context. For example, when they first made their websites, they didn’t really get why they needed a blog. I spent 9 weeks going through and doing group critiques of their work so that they could see what good critique looks like, as well as grow as photographers. Now that I’ve spent some serious time on teaching critique (it has been covered before, but not as a main assignment), I’m tying it into the overall goal of them building a website to show their growth over the course of the semester. They have seen critiques, and they have seen their own photos improve, and now they can apply the same skills and thought processes I have used to help them achieve this growth on their own.

Aside from the fact that watching yourself teach is pretty brutal, I identified some areas that I definitely need to work on. I know that I need to condense my information, and shorten my examples. I spent 47 minutes building up to the assignment, and only 3 minutes actually going over it. In my head, all of it made sense, but I’m not sure that it did for others. I know that I lost some kids along the way (as I’ve had to go back and further explain what they needed to do).

I definitely need to differentiate between the most important information I’m going over and the less important details. I think that’s where I’m losing a lot of them. They’re not able to see the whole picture (because they didn’t create the lesson), so they don’t always understand why I’m explaining what I’m explaining because they can’t tell where I’m going. I definitely need to map it out more. I could definitely stand to give them an outline of my lesson, so that they can see where I’m at and where I’m going and how all of it ties in together.

The other big thing I noticed is how technology is playing a role in the room. I’ve bought into the idea of 1-to-1 technology in the room. However, with them all having computers, it’s tough to always know what they’re doing on them. I’m not more interesting than the Internet; never have been, never will be. No matter how cool I think the stuff I’m covering is, or how passionate I am about the topic (and I try really hard to let that passion bleed through into my teaching, and I think it’s working, as evidenced by a couple of my kids saying something to the effect of “preach it, Baker!” during the lesson), most of them are not going to be as into the topics as I am. Eventually, the allure of the Web right in front of them will draw them in, and, as I have told them to follow along on their laptops, I can’t tell if they’re reading along or looking at the example images, or doing searches for memes or their homework for another class. I’m going to try to introduce a lesson where I have them keep their computers put up until after I’m done talking and see how that goes.

I need to make sure all my tech works, although, to be fair to me, it’s not my fault when our internet goes down and my lessons are on itsLearning (which has happened frequently and has been an issue several times). I need to make sure I have offline copies of everything so I can keep trucking right along when the net goes down by simply putting the materials on my computer locally and not relying solely on the cloud.

I’ve got to figure out how I want to handle cell phones. In the past, I haven’t particularly cared about them, because most students have had enough respect to leave them mostly alone during a lesson. But now that it’s 2016 and teenagers have their cellphones practically implanted in their brains, they’ve no problem zoning out and messing around on their phones instead of listening to me.

I need to do a better job of classroom management, (and I know this doesn’t really have a lot to do with PBL, but it still is critically important to teaching as a whole) one, by nipping stuff in the bud earlier and two by spending less time actually engaging students in addressing their behavior. Instead of arguing with them, I need to simply address it and move on, and if they fail to comply, remove them. It’s a lot easier said than done, at least, for me, because I got into teaching because I wanted to share stuff, not because I wanted to be in control of everyone and everything, but I know it’s something I’ve got to get better at.

I know I need to spread my attention out better among the class. I call on the same people repeatedly, and I think if I did a better job of pulling more kids in, a lot of my issues would take care of themselves.  I know I missed some opportunities to tie the learning in better because I didn’t address kids I’m not as familiar with as much as I did the ones I’ve taught a couple times, and I’m sure they had some good stuff to bring to the table.

Going back to the technology thing, I’m not sure what the answer is. I want the kids to have access to the web so that they can search and research and grow, because I know that’s how I’ve been doing it for years. But, at the same time, I typically have the self-restraint to stay on topic and to spend the time reading a lengthy article or watching a long video. They don’t have that maturity, discipline, or endurance, so an open gateway to almost anything is often too much of a temptation and I for everyone it’s helping, it’s definitely hurting others. I’m not really sure what the answer is: our district wants them to have their devices and wants technology to be incorporated into our teaching, and I’m totally cool with that. But, in all the things I read and speakers I’ve listened to, I’ve yet to hear one address how to keep a class of 30 kids with laptops and Wi-Fi access all on task for a 90-minute period. It may simply be impossible; I know it definitely feels like it. 
-Austin Baker