Week 11 Blog reflection

Week 11 Blog post and reflection

This week, students finally got the opportunity to present their TechSteps presentations to the whole class. Initially, I had planned a mere two days in order to get these presentations finished. Unfortunately, this was not enough time to complete the presentations. Students took a lot longer to set up and give their presentations than I had anticipated. As a result, this week was a week in which I had to demonstrate the flexibility of teaching. Two of the morning class periods took much longer than the afternoon classes. This is, in large part, due to the fact that the morning classes were out on Tuesday during the ACT plan test.

On the whole, many of the presentations did not meet my expectations. Students did not seem wholly prepared, and quite a few complained that they didn't have enough time to finish the project and compare. This is quite untrue, as they had a whole week to create this one presentation in pairs.

After the presentations ended, I engaged in my action research project by having students work on a map activity which involved the elections of 1800 and 1796. This activity helped students understand the concepts of sectionalism, the electoral college, political differences, and who won each election. The maps included handouts which described the candidates and the circumstances around the election. This activity provided very useful data for my action research through observations, on/off task data, and map achievement.

Also this week, students engaged in the chapter 5 quiz. Results of the quiz were about average, but the quiz was designed to be sort of pressure free. As a result, the averages were expected to be higher. I will look further into this data as time goes on.

On the final day of the week, we had a two hour delay which caused problems for the lesson. I had to be flexible and reschedule some activities for next week. I had students go over Washington's 1st and Second inaugural addresses and answer questions of them. Most students did not get finished, so we will likely go over this activity on Monday.