AEE 530 Assignment 3: Microteaching

Our third AEE assignment was to choose a 10 minute segment of our lesson plan  and teach it to the class. I found it hard to choose a section to teach knowing that many of my classmates would have different backgrounds and be unfamiliar with the subject matter I chose. I had structure my 50 minute lesson plan using a combination of 10 and 5 minute segments, so I thought it’d be easy to just choose a 10 minute segment. I second-guessed my segmentation when I went to choose one, however. I ended up scrapping my original time frame and choosing 10 minutes from the middle of the lecture in order to find a topic I thought I could effectively cover in 10 minutes.

Needing to choose a ten minute lesson that could be cohesive was helpful for me since it forced me to think about what I truly wanted students to get out of that ten minute segment and ensure I was conveying that information in my lesson. Once I chose a topic, needing to stay within 10 minutes didn’t seem very intimidating. Many of the professional conferences for Entomology are structure as a 10 minute talk with 2 minutes for questions, so this was a time frame I had experience with.

I opted to introduce the concept of an economic injury level, which is a term used for in-season pest management decisions. I included an activity at the end to avoid over-lecturing but still ended up using Powerpoint to present. I briefly considered abandoning Powerpoint altogether and doing my entire lesson using a chalkboard or white board, but wanted the students to interpret a graph for their activity, so I decided not to have my drawings up in front of them. I wanted the activity stimulate their memory of what they had just learned and help them to problem solve. This seemed like a good way to test whether they had learned the material I had just taught.

I was impressed with my classmate’s answers when we reviewed answers from the activity. When looking over the feedback forms they gave me, I received positive reviews of my knowledge sharing and the organization of the talk. Areas they suggested for improvement included reducing my nervousness and designing the presentation to engage students throughout instead of waiting until the end. If I included an activity every 10 minutes through a 50 minute talk, that would result in more engagement than many of my classes as a student. When I put together my full lesson plan, I was pleased with the number of activities I inserted. That intention was not evident in just 10 minutes, however.

Some of my peers were much better at stimulating active engagement throughout their lesson. Despite the relatively low amount of time they spent on sharing knowledge, I don’t think I actually left with any less knowledge than they would have left mine with. This definitely gave me food for thought. If I could change anything about the experience, I would have liked to see all of my classmates present and to receive feedback from each of them. As a scientist used to working with sample sizes, having only 3 classmates to compare with seems rather limited. Despite this, I am definitely grateful for their feedback and examples!

The overall experience made me realize that I should do a little more “reaching for the stars” when planning my lessons. Instead of simply making them better than what I have had before, I should aim for really great lessons and not be afraid of trying things I’ve never experienced as a student. There is no reason to settle for good enough if I am capable of putting together great lessons and I look forward to more opportunities to design great lessons in the future.

1 comment

  1. It is always fun to make sure you “stretch” yourself as an instructor.

    Quick note: Think about the power of an activity and/or application leading the framing of questions by the learners to better understand the content …which leads to more focused attention during the lecture….

    Create felt need by expecting students to apply knowledge prior to “lecturing” or refine what the students need to know that they currently don’t so you can spend more time on it!

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