Video Self-Reflection

A little background information: My project is not quite going as planned. I feel like there have been so many interruptions in the last few weeks… field day parts 1 and 2, guest speakers, special events. I haven’t been able to devote significant time to my unit, and most of our work days are separated by our Horizons day or another irregular event. I know that I will not be finished before we go to Barrier Island, but maybe our experiences on our trip will help my students better develop their models and solutions.

The day I filmed was our very first group work day. Up until this point, students had been researching on their own or with partners. During their initial research, students were beginning to think about different shorelines and types of erosion so they would be able to make choices later on.

The first thing that stuck out to me when I watched my video is that I talk incredibly fast.  How do my students even understand what I’m saying? I would say that I want to work on my talking speed in the future, but I honestly don’t think I recognize when I’m doing it in the moment. After getting past that… and the mess in my classroom… I tried to focus on what went well and what needed improvement. The majority of my students were actually staying on topic and working with their groups. A few groups needed some scaffolding, and some needed redirection. I could tell that a few students didn’t know exactly what they were supposed to be doing, so I should have found a way to make my directions clearer. In the middle of group work time, one of my students came up to me expressing a desire to move to another group. I should have seen this coming, as this is a student who struggles to work with others, but he has been doing so well with groups lately! I allowed him to move to another group because he wanted to focus on hurricanes instead of slow changes, but I faced a little push back from his group. I had to address this after this video clip ended. I think that this group may need a little more guidance as we continue on with this project, but I think they will be able to learn a lot as they learn to work together despite their initial differences.

On days like this one (and pretty much every other day as well), I wish there were more of me in the classroom. I tried to circulate among groups as much as possible, but I found that I spent a little more time with some groups than others. I wish I could give each group an equal amount of attention, and I wish that I could be there for each group each time they need me. I think I need to work with them on continuing to develop independence, and I may have to implement some accountability measures. Ultimately, I think that more practice with this type of work will help my students grow. I am excited to see where this project takes us.