Daniel Symonds December 13, 2013 Video Analysis Fieldwork Seminar: Fall Would you want to be a student in this

class doing this activity? Why or why not? 1. Of course, my perspective on whether Id want to be a student in my class is biased to-

wards the hope that one day, all of the classes I teach will be inarguably and invariably fun, educative, and meaningful. But being so short on experience, it is impossible to deny that many of my classes, including this one, include lectures that drag on, often taking twice the five or ten minutes I allot for them. Though my lectures run long due to student questions and for claritys sake, I worry about students who are not engaged by the lectures at the beginning of class. The student directly in front of the camera, who arrives late and twirls around several times in her rolly chair from boredom and to smile for the camera, is one such example. Aside from the students who are not looking at the front of the room or, when asked, working independently, it is tough to visually measure the level of engagement in the classroom. It seems clear that attention and energy is correlated to to how close students are to the front of the room, which is where I direct the bulk of my eye contact and direct questions to students. It makes me think that I should both move around the room more, and assign student seats in a way to encourage engagement with students who currently languish in the back row. How do you look and sound in the video? Comfortable, nervous, guarded, excited 2. Not surprisingly, I appear energetic and animated in the video. I am characteristically

comfortable in front of the room, and perhaps too satisfied with the idea that my students are listening as closely to my lecture as I am. Although I maintain high energy throughout the lesson, which is clear in my pacing, intonations, humorous asides, and rat-a-tat questioning style, my repetition and rephrasing of questions indicates a degree of nervousness, or at least a subtle awareness that my words are not perfectly targeted to the students in front of me. Perhaps as a reflection of my mentor teachers style and advice more than my own inclinations, I am strict about ensuring absolute silence and from students as I lecture. I find myself warning students about reduced class participation points, which has become my default warning when students begin to disengage or otherwise become distracted.

What are you doing in this lesson? (Giving info, lecturing, explaining, scaffolding, chores, questioning, answering, coaching, modeling, demonstrating) Is this what you think you should be doing? 3. This half-day lesson consists of a rapid-fire review of several previous lectures. I prompt

students to fill in blanks in the powerpoint based on what they had learned over the past few days, which most of them did to my satisfaction. After about 16 minutes (!) of this conversationstyle lecture, I instruct students to finish working on the previous days research task, which asked them to apply the principles of growth in the time of the agricultural revolution to what they read about the Indus Valley civilization. This isnt necessarily the lesson I think I should be teaching. As I mentioned earlier, the lecture seems overlong, and the increasing murmur of students indicated a waning interest as time went on. As well, the task at the end of class was independent and sedentary. Contrary to how I envision a successful social studies lesson, students did not have a chance to interact with one another, to stand up, or to share their work. While I chalk up some of the lessons failings to the fact that it is hard to pack a full lesson into the 26-minute format of a half day, I should have found a more cohesive 26-minute activity, instead o cramming in a plan for a regular schedule into a half days time. What are the students doing? (Attending, chatting, creating, writing, arguing, laughing, independent work, group discussion, listening, asking, answering, negotiating, disrupting) Are they doing anything you didnt know or expect? 4. I am truly indebted to how nice and hardworking my students are. When I asked them to

sit, write, listen, and respond to questions, the great majority did exactly that. Although the odd student had their head on their desk or their back to me while I was instructing, the class was generally quite cooperative. They diligently completed the do-now at the start of class, and they almost always obliged when asked to focus. What most surprised me about my students behavior was the impact of a comment I made. After about 15 minutes of lecturing I picked on the raised hand of the mostly-distracted student to answer a question. She smiled and stammered as she began to speak, taking her time to arrive at an answer, perhaps more pleased at the idea of answering than at having the information to do so. As another student whispered something in the background, the student in front

of the camera turns and said, Uhhh. Complex societies[turns] shut the f**k upI quickly cut her off by saying, Nope, were moving on. Ill show you how to say it. I know this student is frequently off-task, but my dismissal of her half-finished answer and inappropriate language was harsher than intended. After I silenced her and moved on, other students in the room looked in her direction and sneered. One boy in the front turned around to tell her quietly, Haaaa you messed up, and another student laughed under his breath. Then the offending student then gave her classmate the finger. One minute later, the mounting distractions had led me to remind the class to bring it back, guys. This galaxy of interactions that resulted from one f-word and my response to it, is incredible. It helps me empathize with the number of thoughts and interactions that are beyond the purview of my lesson plans, and of the fact that I too must take responsibility for student misbehavior after such a long, sedentary, and not entirely engaging period of teachercentered instruction.