Kegan Sherman

Professor Lovitt

SED496

Mar 30th, 2021

Instructional Activity 7: Small-Group Instruction

Today in class the students were beginning a section on the impact humans have on the

environment. More specifically, they were going to be learning about how we have affected the

Colorado River here in the United States and what impact it has on society. The students

watched a 25min video called “Chasing Rivers”. This was the first of a two-part documentary

revolving around this idea of human impact on our local water systems. My mentor teacher

created a 8-question assignment that asked questions regarding information given in the video.

They downloaded the assignment from blackboard and were to turn it in there at the end of class.

The students did their best to answer the questions during the video and we discussed the

answers as a class after the video was finished. I really enjoyed the video because it is something

that I have a personal interest in, and I am working on my own lesson plans involving the idea of

human impact on the environment. I showed my mentor teacher the assignment I am creating,

and we are trying to coordinate and see if we can fit it in with his lessons!

I watched the video in class with the students and throughout it I took my own notes and

answered the questions that my mentor teacher had created for his students. I took extra notes to

help myself better elaborate on the topics the video covered if the students needed more help at

the end when we discussed the questions. The students seemed to stay engaged with the video,

despite it being nearly a half-hour long. As we finished the video, the students were mostly done
answering the questions, only a few seemed to be still answering questions or asking their

neighbors about specific questions. At this point, my mentor teacher went through the questions

with the whole class, and I walked around and talked with individual students about their specific

answers and how they felt about the information they learned from the video. I was trying to

gauge the student interest in the topic by asking questions that came to mind for myself. I asked

some of the students if the information in this video concerned them, or if they it made them

wonder anything. One aspect of this video I found interesting was regarding the control the

United States has over the water supply from the Colorado River and how that relates with the

needs of communities in Mexico that also rely on that water source. Our country controls the

flow of the Colorado River and have basically cut off much of the water supply from it to the

portion of Mexico that the river ran through on a larger scale at one point. I asked students if they

thought this was fair and what they thought should be done about it. Some students seemed very

upset with the impact we have had on the river and the communities that rely on it, and others

seemed slightly indifferent about it, which I expected to see a range of interest in the topic. I was

doing my best to get time to engage with the students with this activity and small group

discussion seemed to be the most effective method in this case. This topic was great to get the

students in discussions with each other about possible solutions to this problem. I did not get to

teach this lesson, but I assisted my mentor teacher by trying to facilitate these discussions.

This was just the introduction to a larger assignment that the students will be starting later

this week, so I do not really think that there is much I would change about how the material was

presented. This introduced the topic and got the students to begin reflecting on the general idea

of human impact. My mentor teacher is juggling in-person students and online students right

now and it is making it difficult to give the attention they really need, so my mentor teacher does
appreciate the help in class. It has been very interesting to be experiencing this transition from

online classes to in-person and seeing how it is being accomplished in schools. My honest

opinion is that everyone is doing their best, but it is by no means a perfect situation. Covid-19

has created a difficult time for everyone in many aspects of our lives and it is something we must

continue to work through together and remain flexible and understanding of the strange times we

are in.