When reflecting on the writing lesson my group enacted in class last week on sketch-to-stretch and reading comprehension for kindergarteners, I thought of many positive and constructive comments during the actual lesson and after the fact. I would say positives outweighed negatives, but there is always room for improvement. When selecting our lesson, we looked at aspects from each individual lesson we had submitted for our lesson #1 and #2 assignments. After reviewing them all and thinking about what would work the best in 15 minutes, we agreed on one having to do with sketch-to-stretch. We looked at my lesson #1 and adapted it a bit. We combined multiple ideas from one another to successfully come up with a lesson for kindergarteners that we viewed would be effective in the classroom. An important aspect that we covered was that our lesson involved reading and a process of writing, which was visualizing. I think our lesson was well prepared and executed properly because of our ability to communicate with one another.
In terms of prep work beforehand, we made sure all materials would be available for us to use for the lesson and that we had enough for our class. Our group also decided who would speak and model each part beforehand so we were ready to go when we presented.
While reading our story, I think we could have slowed down a little but I also have doubts because if we were to read too slow, that might have distracted the children or caused them to focus on other things. I think it’s all about finding a good balance with your students and gaging their interest while reading. I think another option for fixing our lesson in terms of reading is to choose another book that did not describe so many different foods. We only had a select number of boxes for the story board and I could tell that our peers were getting a bit anxious because they could not draw it all while also following along with what was being read to them. I then imagined how kindergarteners would have reacted and put myself in their shoes. Since our class was stressing out about this, I found it hard to believe kindergarteners wouldn’t be worse. Picking a book that does not have as many objects and has a simpler plot would most likely solve our problem. Another solution I thought of would be that instead of having the students draw what they hear first, we could have them look at the pictures first as we read to them, then proceed. The second time reading through the book, we could have them visualize and sketch-to-stretch what they hear and draw it. Switching these two procedures would make it easier in my opinion for kindergarteners to first get an idea of what they could potentially draw.
On the other hand, I did really like how we made a sample model of a story board and showed the students before we began reading to them the first time. As a teacher, it is important to provide your students with examples to follow. I think having non-examples is important too but for this lesson we did not do that. If we were to do this lesson again, we could incorporate both.
I also really liked how the students were very receptive towards our lesson and had great illustrations. I wasn’t expecting them to draw certain things in the book that we were hoping they would, like the process of going from a caterpillar to a butterfly. I thought that their only focus would be on drawing all the foods they heard while we read. I think students would genuinely enjoy doing this activity of drawing what they hear to visualize what is happening because it opens the door for self-expression and gives them an opportunity to use their creativity. Modeling this skill for them at first was crucial because they needed to have something to go off and showing them examples of your creativity will give them ideas to make pictures using their own creativity.
At the end of our lesson, we decided to make our assessment based on discussion with the whole class and to collect the story boards our students made. Thinking about this more, I wonder if there would be any other alternatives for how we could assess our students. With more time, I think it would be impactful for our students to write sentences about the pictures they drew too. I think this would help with memory and comprehension because they could not only have pictures, but words that justify their drawings as well.
This experience of enacting a mini lesson was very beneficial overall for many reasons. Having the opportunity to do a lesson in 15 minutes was helpful because I haven’t done many in that short amount of time. I think the shortest one I have done so far has been 30 minutes so practicing shortening the time will help me in the long run when I become a teacher. As a teacher, it is extremely important to be flexible and adaptable to the various situations that could happen. This lesson also helped me realize little things that may not work like the book we selected with the sketch-to-stretch strategy or the procedures of how we carried out our lesson. These were little things that could make a big difference in the classroom, but that is okay because we realized them now instead of later. Practice truly does make permanent and reflecting on this lesson has taught me to think about each choice we made.