Mini-Lesson Reflection
I think my
lesson on An Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian on the theme of social
issues for Native Americans in the text was a good lesson for 9th
grade students and went well. I wanted students to think critically on the text
finding both themes of explicit racism (toward Junior form both Indians and
whites) and themes of implicit racism such as alcoholism and poverty. Working
in small groups, I was happy to see the students found these themes. I also
think I successfully connected the lesson to the community for the students.
This was helped by the regional text written by a local author. I was able to
successfully allow students to connect the issues of the novel to reach world
issues. This allowed me to promote some social justice within my classroom and
allowed students to develop their own ideas, with a partner, in order to create
new ways to solve social issues. This required students to think critically and
implement problem solving in the real world. I think the main goals of this
lesson were successfully met.
If I were
to redo this lesson there are a few things I would change. I would begin with
having students change the learning objective into their own understanding.
This helps students develop metacognition when they are participating in the
lesson. I wouldn’t change the overall structure of the lesson, but if I had
more time I would have students come up with more social issues in the book and
more way to solve the issues in the real world. I would also take the time to
get some informative articles for students to go over on both the social issues
of Native Americans and of ways people are trying to help them solve these
problems. This would bolster students confidence in their ability to attempt to
solve social issues, since a lot of the ways they thought about solving the
issues are a lot of the ways being implemented currently. Finally, I would be more tactful when working
with the group on alcoholism. There are a few reasons for this, there may be
students that could have negative prior experience with alcoholism and I would
need to be careful when talking about this theme in the novel. I also need to
monitor that group, and every group for that matter, to make sure they have an
appropriate response for solving the issue.
For the
feedback portion of the class period I was grateful to get both positive and
negative feedback. I know that I could have displayed the object better for my
students. If I were to fix this I would make them write the objective in their
own words. Another issue brought up was having group selected, not student
choice, although some people so this as a pro. My reasoning for doing this was
to save time. I would keep it in my lesson because students need a lot of time
to try to solve the problems of Native American issues. Finally, it was brought
up that I could use more technology. When I was reflecting on the lesson I
thought if I had more time I would get students an account from a Native
American on social issues affecting them online. I think this would help with
connecting them to the real world.
Overall,
this was beneficial to my development as a teacher. I enjoy teaching lessons to
my peers and getting feedback from them, both as fellow teachers and their
role-play as students. I learn about, not only the facets of my own
instruction, but also its effectiveness. It is helpful information I can use
when building lessons in the future. It helps me add to my teaching tool belt
for effective teaching for myself and for my students. Mini-lessons are
beneficial for us as students of education. It gives us practical knowledge
that we can actively participate in and utilize, rather than simple studying of
pedagogical skills, or discussion in the classroom, while those are still valid
modes of learning, I always learn a lot more about myself from practice and
critique.
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