Artifact Three

REFLECTION/RATIONALE FRAMEWORK: Program Value #4 Reflective Practice

Artifact: Post Conference Form

Context	I had many observations and lessons that went really well over my practicum experience. The students in my class were eager and involved students that were curious and excited about new material. During one of my Formal Observations with my FM I had a Math lesson that did not go according to plan. Students were not connecting with the concepts that I was trying to teach and were off task and unfocused. As a Student Teacher I was discouraged but after discussing the experience with my FM during our Post Conference he reminded me that bad lessons do happen. I managed to revise the lesson and re teach it the next day with great success.
Detailed Observations	Previous to this difficult teaching experience I did not fully see the value in reflecting. I thought that reflecting was more of a regurgitation of the series of events and did not fully see the value in digging a little deeper. Since many of my lessons had gone well reflecting was more of a focus on what went well than on what should I reflect on and change.
Linking Theory with Practice	Through our Reflective Practice class at the University self reflection was stressed as an important attribute for Student Teachers, as well as for any Teacher. Reflecting is something that can help you look inwardly and can help more your practice forward by self evaluation and self correcting your own practice. This process was especially valuable after this lesson that did not go according to plan. If I had not stopped to reflect and to think about what might have gone wrong in the lesson, perhaps I would have made the same mistake in lessons to come. I would have possibly just kept pressing forward and students might have missed an important component in their understanding of multiplication. It was important to reflect on what did go well in the lesson as well and to continue to use that moving forward.
Interpreting Causes and Effects	By having this more difficult lesson I realized that to keep students engaged it is really important to keep them in their zone of proximal development. This lesson did not work well because some students had absolutely no idea what they were doing and some students were completely bored.  The lesson was on arrays and some students had not had enough time with the manipulatives to understand the connection between the snap cubes and the   rows of dots on the page. Other students were bored because we were only   doing multiplication by 2 and they already knew how to answer the questions   through mental math and could not see the value in the assignment. By understanding what went wrong in the lesson I was able to take the students   back to the manipulatives to show the connection with the rows in the arrays. I also made a regular and a challenge multiplication question for students to chose and to challenge those students that needed it. Students were back on track and could see the value of using arrays for multiplication once their understanding was scaffolded in this way.
Self Assessment and Professional Planning	Self reflection is a hard but valuable task when there have been problems in a lesson. Without self reflection the same problems would continue to arise throughout other lessons. It is good to self reflect on both what works and what doesn’t work to create a more rounded understanding of my own professional practice. Different things work for different teachers and I need to find those things that work for my own teaching and for my own students. By continuing to reflect on both the positive and negative aspects of my lessons I can continue to develop myself as a teacher.