Teaching Experience and Reflection

Integration, discussion, pondering, respect and collaboration were some of the things Matt and I were looking to achieve in our experience in Polaris High School. Coming back to teach in a class after many years was such a great experience that again, made me realize how much I love and enjoy teaching. I’ve always thought about doing a Master degree so I can later teach as a professor at university. The experience of going to a High School was a great highlight in this year, not because everything went perfect, but because it helped me to put into practice many of the different teaching elements that we already have discussed in our class.  Teaching is an ongoing process that for both the teacher and the students would be challenge; this challenge may have a positive or negative effect depending on factors that vary from class to class and the ability of the teacher. 

One of the first thing that we have to think with Matt was to chose a subject that the students would be involved and related to, from his topic to mine we decided that his topic may be more effective because it is related to them in their adolescence life and also because the class is about current events. We decided to talked about self-perception and media, especially the Facebook issue, Matt’s video was great to illustrate the amount of relevance that people give to popular media such as Twitter or Facebook. I happened to have read a text about how we chose to define ourselves on Facebook by a scholar called Katie Ellis. All this came together and we started creating our lesson plan for the class. For starters, we talked about our focus and our goal in the class, and words such as the ones I wrote in the introduction came to our mind, now putting into action this plan was the challenge.

Lesson Plan for Polaris High School class, “Current Events.”

Let Chose To Define Us In Media Instead Of Media Defines Ourselves

·      Introduction about the Topic (Matt and Ricardo).

·      Explanation about the video

·      Video

·      Open discussion, give some thoughts about the video, get reactions  and reflect on how much we care about media (Matt)

·      How many of you can survive without Facebook for a day, month, year?

·      Katie Ellis introduction (Ricardo)

·      Analysis of the Illustration “On the internet nobody know you are a dog”

"[Facebook users] declare their sex, age, whereabouts, romantic status and institutional affiliations. Identity is not a performance or a toy on Facebook; it is a fixed and orderly fact. Nobody does anything secretly a news feed constantly updates your friends on our activities. On Facebook, everybody knows you are a dog." Lev Grossman. 

"When users select a profile picture of themselves on their wedding day or with their partner, or with a group of people at a party or in a nightclub, they are communicating something significant." Katie Ellis. 

·      Two quotes that continue with the article about the interaction we may have. Now “ everybody knows you are a dog,” and the “profile picture and its importance” (Matt)

·       Exercise- go into Facebook “How do you chose to present yourself”

1.     What are the patterns we see in each profile picture?

2.     Reaction from their friends

·      Conversation of how we present in Facebook, something we might want to add or to change

The class experience was an interesting one, even though we planned and study about our topic; things didn’t go the way we were expecting. Technology was kind of slow and we shorten our lesson to 10 minutes already because of that. I could realize that the students started to get easily distracted due to the difficulties we had. I still realized how willing the students were to listen and for us to succeed in our class.  Once we started the class the dynamics change somehow, we could started seeing the colors of the different students in the class, especially the talkers or the outgoing, the funny, also the unnoticed and with Matt we decided to divide the class in each exercise so I try to get to know my half but still interact with the other one.  We did some questions and follow the plan that as you can see, pretty open to discussion and with lots of questions that can emphasize participation and this collaborative experience that according to my teaching philosophy is a much more enjoyable experience when collaboration take place in the class.   

In general the students were very receptive to our questions and to our relieve, the teacher was also very nice in helping in some moments of extreme silence or in times of technical difficulties. I appreciate the fact that she was so involve in our class to the point of commenting and give feedbacks, even though she could have just rest and cross her arms and enjoy the free time while other students would take her place. She maintained her involvement during class and continues engaging with the students and us. 

As I wrote about this challenge in the class, I believe we did challenge the class to ponder and participate, we got some really positive reactions that helped to keep the pace of the class and to jump from one topic to the other one. As instructors we also were challenge by students that required a different treatment in the class, and I believe in a small amount we both grew as a community after we were done with our topic. There were still things we could have improved such start the lesson on time, think beforehand about some technical possible difficulties, I felt that there was one half of the class, especially the one who was at the back right, I couldn’t get to listen or to know them at all. I wanted to learn their names, but it was first class and it was hard to memorize their names right away. 

In conclusion, even though the circumstances and the difficulties I believe the experience was very positive both for the students and especially for us the teachers. I was really grateful to be there and have the chance to teach students who are in their teenage years growing and making important decisions for their future. I take seriously what education and teaching means and every time I get to teach I try to make the most of it. Media Literacy education has helped me to ponder about how I can improve and adapt my teaching techniques using media to enhance and educate the learning experience.