Date: Monday, October 31, 2016
Unit: Assignment #4
Lesson: Student presentations held in the lab classroom for Assignment #4
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Compared to the first class that my mentor, this one was much more straightforward. Indeed, unlike my last class, which was centered on the implementation of a concept that was new to myself and the class, this class was centered around putting into action something that my class and I had already devised and worked with. For more information on exactly what the classes leading up to this one entails, I’ve chosen to showcase the class and its end results where my class and I developed our ideas for presentation guidelines. However, in terms of the class itself, it was a straightforward day of students presenting their visual interpretations of their art for Assignment #4. Because this was also in the computer lab, the process of students logging in and pulling up their presentations went much smoother than it would in the future- something I took as a sign that a professor should really prepare for virtually any and everything to go wrong technologically and be ready to adjust in order to accommodate (more of that sentiment is expressed in my teaching philosophy).
However, as it stood, the class went very smoothly with the students presenting their work, which was a Powerpoint presentation on their selected art piece for Assignment #4. Each presentation lasted about three to four minutes, as was determined by the class and I beforehand. I was grading the students for 10% of their overall Assignment #4 grade through the presentation and they knew what the criteria for a good presentation was because, again, we had constructed the whole criteria as a class a week earlier. So, with my mentor and I in the back of the classroom, we observed as the students presented. On the whole, my students held themselves naturally and with a kind of friendly charisma in front of their fellow students. I’m certain I was seeing reflections of my student’s friendliness and sociability in the ease in which the students, no matter how quiet or talkative they normally were in everyday class. Of particular interest were my English Second-Language students who were amongst the most natural and confident of my class when, up until I had started to direct the class with more group discussion in mind about two weeks prior, had been very shy when engaging with others.
It was an uneventful period beyond that, so my mentor’s comments were more like observations and less straightforward criticisms/praises. She noted, for instance, that the class’ presentations were very well done, even including in-depth artistic interpretation coming from the student’s own opinions and viewpoints. While in-depth and personal interpretation was something important we had talked about the previous Monday class period, I later learned that my class was a bit of an outlier in that way; plenty of other peers of mine noticed that their classes were focusing more on basic facts or just relying the different visual interpretation vocabulary words that were touched on in the ISUComm Student Guide. So, in that way, I think that my class showed the strengths of the class discussion the previous Monday that led to the creation of good presentation criteria (which is, again, also showed on this eProfile, here).
Dr. Walton did point out, however that there were some students towards the back of the classroom who were not giving the speak their full attention or were distracted with other things in general. As part of the good presenter criteria created by the class, there were also rules for how to be a good audience member. Therefore, I chose not to interrupt the students (and possibly the presenters themselves) by letting them know I disapproved; they all knew the standards I was grading them by and, as I had already told them, if I saw them doing anything less than devoting their time and attention to the speaker, their points for the presentation would be deducted accordingly. So, the students who weren’t giving their utmost attention had points suitably deducted. And yet, I only saw one student the whole class period distracted for any length of time. So, reflecting on this class and the one on the previous Monday, I think I can say that the lab classroom, which I’ve never been too fond of, can be made useful with a careful balancing between centering the attention on the students themselves or definitively on the professor. Having students look between their computer screens and each other or their screens and myself divides their attention and can make communication choppy.
Regardless, I think Dr. Walton observing this class allowed me to show her the fruits of the lesson the previous Monday; mostly, it showed the results of class-wide discussion and the twist I put on group work so that the students were working together towards a common goal and not just satisfying their own individual requirements. It’s also worth noting, I think, that the class on October 12, 2016 in which we, again as a class, constructed the language we would be using to talk about visual works (the results of which are shown here). Those days were structured in a similar way, utilizing large-group discussion and breakaway smaller discussions to build towards a common goal. And it was not a goal that I was a professor was expecting them to fulfill to my exact wishes, but something they were going to construct, I could help guide, not forcefully direct, them. So, seeing my class perform so well with their visual interpretations and good presentation skills, even to surprise my mentor even, showed the culmination of putting the computer lab classroom, group-wide discussions, and group work to good use in the weeks leading up to to said presentations.