Maria Fernanda Colin

Professor Dyer

SED 496

March 19, 2021

Instructional Activity 7

6. Teaching a full lesson

ASU Prep Digital – 6th grade ELA

For this week, March 15, 2021, I was able to teach a full lesson about Poetry. We focused

on tone, literal vs. figurative language, and types of figurative language such as simile, metaphor,

personification and hyperbole. I created slides on Google Slides where I included a few

definitions but most importantly, hands-on activities for my students. Through open-ended

questions I encouraged my students to participate, which allowed me to discuss with them why

they thought that was the correct answer. I chose a poem to analyze with the students, The

Happy Heart by John Imrie, and they had to identify the tone and different types of figurative

language within the poem.

Something that went really well with this activity is that I decided to make it more

interactive for the students than my lead teacher usually does. She is very good at speaking with

them and encouraging them to participate in online games at the end of the lecture but there

wasn’t a lot of interaction before that part of class, and I believe this activity worked and helped

to get students to unmute themselves and participate in the chat (I am place in a fully online

setting). After discussing with my lead teacher, she said she really liked the activity and in the

future would like to make lessons and presentations more interactive like the one I created today.
 A challenge for this lesson, as with any online lesson, is that not all students are willing

to participate. Although there was a visible increase from previous lessons in student

participation, there are a lot of students who will not turn on their cameras and won’t participate

in the chat either. It is very difficult to assess how those students are doing in class as you can’t

really tell if you are getting through to them with any of the information that you are sharing. It is

frustrating and sad, but it is something that we unfortunately have to deal with at this moment.

Something I would do differently with this activity is instead of just putting questions on the

slides and asking students to participate, I would utilize an online tool that allowed them to

physically add something to the presentation. Something like PearDeck perhaps, where they can

answer questions and I can see the answers live. I believe that would help me get more

engagement with students who don’t really like to verbally participate.

I consider this activity as a whole to be a strength this semester due to the increase in

participation I received from my students. There are opportunities for growth, of course, but I

was so excited to hear my students talking and writing in the chat that I think this was a win. I

plan to create more interactive lesson in the future.