Lab 3 Reflection: Interest Approaches

For AEE412 Lab this week, we were to present an Interest Approach. At first, my head was swarming with ideas and I was excited to create something fun and engaging to capture my students' attention. However, when I sat down to write my lesson plan for lab, my mind went blank. I could not, for the life of me, come up with an interest approach. Finally, after lots of writing (and re-writing) of ideas, I decided that I would do a modified "scavenger hunt", where I would act as if I lost my welding PPE and ask students to go find it for me. I wasn't feeling overly confident in my interest approach when I got in front of the room to present it, but, much to my surprise, it went smoother than expected.

When I began, I knew that I would have to 'act out' a scenario where I 'lost' my welding PPE. I was nervous for this, because I am, in no way, a good actress. However, that ended up being one of my favorite parts of my interest approach. My 'student's' faces were priceless when I said that I had lost my PPE. I don't think that they were expecting that, and it captured their interest. I think that it is important for me to keep in mind that I need to loosen up a bit, and have a little fun while I am teaching. I tend to get caught up in the logistics and the content and forget to joke around or laugh. Some of my favorite parts of my lesson were when I did this (including when I acted like I lost my PPE!). 

I also thought that I did a nice job asking for students to contribute to the discussion, instead of doing all the talking. However, when I did talk and explain each piece, I thought that went well, too. Overall, I am happy with my performance and extremely glad that my lesson went better than I was expecting.

Although there were many aspects that I was happy with, there were also weak points in my performance. Like last time, I said "umm" and "so" a lot. It was very distracting, and continues to be something that I need to work on. My problem is that I don't even realize that I say it until I am watching myself on ThereNow!

While my filler words were distracting, nothing was more distracting than the paper that I held THE WHOLE TIME! Watching myself back, the paper was all I could look at! I held it in front of me and moved it around as I was talking with my hands. I think that, for me, it is almost like a safety net... but I need to either get rid of it or learn to place it on the table and only refer to it when I need it. 

I hope that next time, I am able to use less filler words and do without the lesson plan in my hand. I think that making these changes would improve my performance. I do, however, hope that I am able to keep up my enthusiasm and continue to loosen up and have fun while I am teaching!