Recently, I went back and watched my first observation video from my time at IslandWood. The video consisted of me leading a solo walk debrief with a group of students that I remember felt particularly challenging during my first solo teaching week.
In the video, the main thing that jumped out at me was the substance of my questions for the debrief. It seems clear now that I had not clearly thought about my objectives for the students for the solo walk, and this was reflected in my questions’ lack of direction. These questions feel more like I was probing to find out student enjoyment (which is valid) but never went beyond that to find out why the students felt the solo walk was an important experience, or pressed them to answer a question from a card on the solo walk. The students had spent some time journaling before this, and I could have connected the writing time to this verbal debrief. Instead, they were two completely separate entities, but could have been strengthened by being combined. I also noticed that my explanations felt a bit long-winded – like I was clarifying questions before they had been asked, when I could have just asked the question more clearly initially. I set the questions up in a way that led students to get off track and want to share other unrelated stories. Additionally, my facilitation of the sharing could have been more efficient. Students sat with their hands raised while waiting for other students to finish speaking. A better facilitation style would have been to have students pass a talking object or simply go around in a circle.
This all felt particularly relevant since my PGP for this quarter is mostly focused on student questioning and transfer of learning. Watching this video helped me to reflect on my growth in these areas thus far, and gave me a lot of confidence in the growth I have experienced since beginning to teach here. One of the areas in which I wanted to grow at the start was questioning strategies. Rewatching this video made me realize how far I have come in this area, as my questions at this point in my teaching feel like they probe students more effectively and get at more important ideas and concepts that focus on transfer of learning.
Focusing on this video has given me extra motivation to improve these skills. It has added an extra element of thought into my question planning for debriefs, and led to much richer discussions than before I took the time to do this reflection.
Outcomes:
Knowledgeable Practitioner: By reflecting on my teaching experience, I can apply what I have learned over time to what I see in my practice, and determine ways to improve my practice going forward.
Julia Tandy Harnick 