AEE 412 Lab #3: The Interest Approach

Image taken from
https://sites.google.com/a/lajunta.k12.co.us/
gifted-talented/home/student-interest-inventories

During this past week we have explored the science of generating student interest. Great teachers know how to cultivate student interest and grow students through that interest. For my laboratory demonstration I decided to test an interest approach form a lesson out of my public speaking unit.

Overall, I believe the attempt was a success. My peers seemed to like the interest approach activity and might use it themselves, in the future. Although the activity was a success, the learning experience can always be improved. After analyzing the feedback, I received from my peers, I have categorized my areas for improvement into four areas.

Teacher Awareness

After reading the feedback, I realized that one of my “students” was on their iPad for the majority of the lab demonstration. I never noticed the whole time while I was teaching. As a teacher I should have first discovered the issue and then acted upon it.

Establishing a Time Frame

It also became very clear that I the facilitator did not set any sort of time criteria on the activity. If I were to do the activity again I would make it clear that each student has 45 seconds to talk and restrict myself to that time limit as well. I believe I spoke for one and a half minutes when I gave the students an example.

Setting the Bar High

My example speech was not high quality by any means. This is mostly because I had not prepared for it at all. I thought about coming up with an idea prior to class, but I thought the students would enjoy it more if I was “put on the spot” as well. One of my peers made a good point, and now I am second guessing what I did. If I were to prepare for the impromptu speech, students would see a much better product and they would work to match it.

Image taken from http://www.mechanictomillionaire.com/
204-making-the-connection/

Make the Connection CLEAR

After conducting the activity, my peers did not see where the lesson was going. Talking through my transitioning questions would help out a lot with this, but it should have been foreshadowed while they were participating in the interest approach. When I am designing interest approaches or any kind of instruction, I must ask myself why. Why am I teaching this this way? As a learner, why is                                                                                      Mr. Snyder having us do this activity?

I truly believe that this interest approach could be a keeper, and I will work to improve it for my time at Mifflinburg High School. I am interested to see the differences between teaching this to my peers and teaching it to actual high school students.