Kendall Shultz

UTL640 Professor Haug

Reflection #3 Semester Overview
This reflection will cover teaches 7, 8, & 9, as well as an overview of the entire semester.
In teach 7, we read the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, and the students worked in groups to
translate the Middle English text into modern English. In teach 8, I read the Wife of Baths tale
with them, and I interpreted the sense of the tale as we went along to prepare them for reading
future tales on their own. In my ninth and final teach, I introduced the circle activity portion of
their word project where they were supposed to explore their word through a variation of the
Three Levels of Reading graphic organizer.
In these last three lessons, I felt much more comfortable being up in front of the class as
the authority on the material. I felt more comfortable interacting with students and making slight
adjustments where needed than I did with my first six teaches. For example, in my last lesson,
the circle activity, the activity turned out to be far more complicated to them than I had
anticipated. Some students had trouble with technology, and some students didnt know what to
do at all. I think if I had taught this lesson earlier in the semester, it would have been a complete
disasteras it was, it was only a slight disaster. During the lesson, I had to stop my progress in
the explanation of the activity on multiple occasions to address individual student concerns.
However, I was able to help the student get clarity/figure out how to do what they were trying to
do with technology and get back on track in the lesson explanation fairly seamlessly, whereas at
the beginning of the semester, I would have had to go back to my notes to reorient myself after a
disruption such as that.
That brings up the other strength I noticed in these last few lessonsI did not have to
check my notes nearly as much. In these final lessons, I was much better at recalling all of the
different points I wanted to make/questions I wanted to ask without having to look down at my

notes. I think this makes me seem more in control of the material in the eyes of my students (and
in my own eyes). In teach eight specifically, I only had to go back to look at a specific line
number to find where I wanted to skip to when we needed to skip a section. Otherwise, I didnt
have to look at the notes to remember the questions that I wanted to ask the students about the
section we just read.
One thing I still need to improve is making sure that I communicate directions clearly all
the time. This was particularly apparent in my final teach. I remembered when we did the Three
Levels of Reading activity in our seminar this semester, and it was uncomplicated and
straightforward to me then. As a result, I didnt expect the lesson to be difficult for the students
to understand. This was evidently a very wrong expectation. I dont think a single student wasnt
lost in at least some capacity, and I honestly dont even know what the lack of understanding
stemmed from. Different students had trouble with different parts, so my explanations worked
fine for some, but not for others. On the plus side, students seemed to finally get it after I gave
further explanations while helping specific kids and having them listen to me give the student
specific advice to figure out what was going on. Maybe I needed a better example, since the one
I was provided wasnt exactly point-for-point the same structure as the activity, or maybe they
needed me to more explicitly model by doing one with them, but I was trying to fit it all into 50
minutes, so I didnt really think that option was possible in the lesson planning phase.
Another thing that I need to work on is addressing minor off task behavior. If students are
being outright disruptive, I will stop or take a moment to redirect the behavior so that I can keep
on teaching. However, if the behavior is only one student or two students quietly doing
something on their phones or turning around to say something to one another, I typically just let
it go since it is not disrupting the rest of the class. I believe that there have been instances of this
in every single lesson I taught, although it was more prevalent sometimes than others. Even if the

student is not disrupting the learning of any of their classmates, they are disrupting their own
learning, so it is not okay to just let them do their thing. I think that a large part of the reason why
I have let it go so far is potentially because I am not yet fully confident in my command of the
classroom and the lesson. I dont want to stop and redirect behavior, even if it would just require
a minor redirection, because I do not feel like I will just be able to pick up my thought where I
left it off. I think that I will improve in this area as I get more comfortable with all aspects of
teaching the lesson. Once I feel confident to stop and start in the middle of a thought or
explanation, I will be able to better get kids attention. It might also help to not be at Westlake
where kids have iPads to do their work/distract them.
Overall, I feel like I improved a good deal this semester. At the beginning, I hadnt been
in front of kids for nearly two years, and I was totally unconfident in pretty much every aspect.
Now I feel much more at home in the front of the classroom. In the beginning I was spending
most of my time facing the projector, talking to it rather than the students. In my last few lessons,
I noticed myself facing the students most of the time. I also asked very few questions at the
beginning of my internship, and I was asking more and better questions by the end of the year,
although I still have definite room to improve. I dont feel like I improved my positive feedback
and checking for understanding very much, so I still need to work on those two things. I tend to
simply restate what the student has said for everyone to hear instead of adding any sort of
appreciative sentiment for the students contribution. And although I ask more questions, which
helps me check for understanding some, I dont explicitly ask students if they are following my
train of thought nearly enough. Back in September, I didnt feel comfortable as an authority
figure in front of the classroom, but now I have internalized the belief that the students are, in
large part, relying on me to keep them on track so that they can learn as much as possible, and if
I dont keep them focused, then I am shortchanging them. Going forward, I think this belief will

help me be more committed to keeping students on task and focused on what we are learning
together every day. This semester has been stressful but rewarding, and I will definitely
appreciate what I learned at Westlake as I move into my student teaching semester.