As I start the new school year, that is the thought I will keep in my mind as my goal for this semester. I understand that I am a good teacher. I understand that I have some flaws that are apparent in the classroom and that is nothing to be ashamed of in this class. I will strive to be better. I will strive to use reflective practice more in the classroom and that starts NOW.
Warm Up Reflection:
I set out to make an easy to use, and modify, warm up that would be student centered. It consisted of five different questions and answers. The questions and answers varied in difficulty. The first being "How are you?" With the last being "Where are you from?" The objective of this warm up is to have students choose two out of the five questions to ask and answer with their group members before two minutes have passed. I also gave them the choice of using their own questions and answers if they felt the questions were too easy.
I did feel that I completed my objectives with this warm up. Every student in the classroom asked two questions and answered two questions. The one part that proved difficult was the completing the task in two minutes. Some students could finish the objective in 30 seconds, but others needed about 3 minutes to ask, answer and understand. I am not sure if this was due to it being the first time they did this warm up or if they need more time in the future.
For this warm up I used a powerpoint (PPT) with the five questions and answers (with blanks) on the center TV in the room. I also used music (piano cover of "Love is an Open Door" from the movie Frozen) as a timer for the students. I used the PPT because it is easy to see by all the students and it can be easily changed. I used music for the timer, because I wanted to foster a relaxed atmosphere for the warm up.
One of the techniques I used for the warm up was a small role play example. I chose one student and we asked and answered two questions in front of the students. This technique is usually a good one to use, but in this case, it was not very effective. The students where confused by the original directions (out of five questions choose two) and couldn't understand what I was role playing or why I only did two of the questions from the board. After some Q and A with the students and some translation of the amount of questions needed, four students still didn't understand and needed one on one assistance during the warm up.
I believe this was due to complicated sentences I used to explain the directions ("There are five questions, you should choose two to ask and answer with your group"). When I teach this warm up again I will be simplifying the language ("There are five questions. Choose two. Ask and answer those with your group") and doing more periodic checks of their understanding. I will ask every step of the way and then have them explain it back to me. This has worked before with game directions for complicated games.
Another technique I uses during the warm up was to have the questions on the board to be one color and the answers to be another color. This helped the students to look at their partner during the warm up and then easily be able to look back to the PPT for the next question, or the prompt for the answer. In this PPT I used two colors, black and light blue. In the past I have used blue and orange, but I find the contrast hurts my eyes and always pulls the student's eyes away from any text in blue.
One of the biggest changes I want to make it a visual cue of the time as well. The music is effective, but I find that some student's don't understand when it is about to end. So if I had a bar that drained or a visual indicator of the time it would help students to plan their time accordingly.
I got a lot of positive feedback about the music. Some students even asked me what the English name of the song was after the warm up. I plan on keeping the music to instrumental only, so it doesn't confuse or distract them during warm up. Most students seems to enjoy the music over the timer, and I hope to change the music each warm up time to keep them from making it into white noise.
Overall, this warm up was largely successful. It offers a lot of flexibility for the students' levels and gives me a chance to hear them speak when they first come in to the classroom. It is also a good indicator of level and ability when it comes to the key expressions of the lesson.
One of the most surprising things I found was the amount of students that helped each other to sound out or read the sentences. Most groups of four had at least one student helping another. This was a really positive change from how little I see helping done in class. I hope to continue to foster partner and group help in future activities.
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