Life Knowledge: The Sneak Peak Experience

My lesson for Life Knowledge was about goal setting and personal vision. I taught students on the importance of setting goals and how to write S.M.A.R.T. goals. 

The Life Knowledge lesson was an overall good experience. If you read my blog on my microteaching experience, my struggle was time limits. I was doing microteaching at the same time as my Life Knowledge lesson so I wasn't able to fully reflect and make adjustments. But even getting more class time was really helpful. 

I led them through a fun little icebreaker and then I had them come up with their own definitions of what they believe personal vision is. Afterwards, I gave a short presentation on components and parts of a S.M.A.R.T. goal. Then I had them do a race where they had to apply their goal setting skills. I would have liked to have them go through this for a little bit longer, and have a deep reflection time as well as give them time to write their own goals. But I had to shorten those in order for them to wrap up and do their learner satisfaction forms. 

I think I over planned, and while that isn't always a bad thing (it's good to have something else planned in case students finish early) I think I wanted to get through all of it and so I felt it was a little rushed in the end. I think there were things I could have cut out in order to reach my objectives. 

The students seemed pretty receptive to hands-on activities, but during lecturing time, they were a little more shy. I'm still figuring out how to ask engaging questions. I am also figuring out how to handle it when students don't answer and give me blank looks. A piece of advice from Mrs. Pontius was to call on students specifically. I hate the idea of doing this because I don't want to put students in an uncomfortable position if they really don't know. But Mrs. Pontius said you can tell pretty easily if they really don't know, in which case they can phone a friend. 

Hopefully I can pick up on those cues and be able to adapt as needed. I now know my goals this year are time management and questioning.