I really enjoyed watching the practice lesson for the first
MET project video. In the featured classroom, the teacher had arranged all of
the students’ desks into groups of five or six to allow the students to work in
teams. Each team had been previously assigned a book to read, most likely one
of the books read by the entire class at some point earlier in the year. The
teacher had placed a larger, hand-written chart over the whiteboard in the room
with the title of each book at the top of a column and a different learning
point or question on the very left-hand side of each of five or six rows. The
students were responsible for working with their group members to determine
both the “main theme” and the “critical event” of each novel. As the students
worked in groups, the teacher walked around the room and made sure each group
was selecting a “teacher” to present the group’s ideas at the end of the
working time period. The teacher also stressed to the students that it was
important for them to think about why their group had decided x or y was the
main theme or critical event, and that it was necessary for them to use the
word “because” and to reference specific instances form the specific text in
their answers.
This type of exercise is significant for a few reasons.
First, it allows the students to work together toward a common goal, a
school-life and work-life skill that is valuable throughout the student’s life.
Second, the students acquire critical reading skills by having to decipher what
the main theme of the book was and what the critical event or events of the
book were. Third, the public speaking
related aspect of this assignment is also something that promotes a school-life
and work-life skill that will be valuable to the student when speaking to a crowd,
whether it be ten or one hundred people. Finally, by filing out this type of
chart, the students can gauge their own work level by comparing their answers to the answers of the other groups.
To note, I found it very interesting when the teacher spent
the last ten minutes or so of class time working with one individual student.
The teacher asked the student about her reading level, whether she found the
book difficult or easy to read, and whether the student enjoyed the novel. The
teacher also had the student identify who she believed the main character of
the book was and why she thought that character was, in fact, the main
character. He also asked the student to read fro the book aloud, most likely to
ensure that the level of the book was appropriate for the student. Assuming that the teacher rotates each class
which student he sits with, I think this is a very effective way for the
teacher to become more familiar with each individual as a student and also
allows the student to present his or her current level of reading skill to the
teacher in a one-on-one basis. This might make the student more comfortable and
allow for him or her to perform better than if called on to speak in front of
the entire class.
Whitney Kouvaris
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