Peck Reflection 2

               For the second mini lesson, I believe this lesson went a bit better than the other mini lesson. The students were fully engaged and on task the entire time. My higher level learner student helped aid in the lower level students learning by modeling the task for him. Both students were able to create visual diagrams or thought maps about key words within the text. The students then engaged in a conversation about all the ideas and after an example by me, were able to draw lines and connect ideas realize the main ideas from the supporting ones. When asked if the students thought the activity was beneficial, the students agreed that it really helped them figure out what was most important, and if they were to write a summary what to include in it. Overall I would say in this mini lesson the objective was achieved.
            A limitation of this mini lesson had to do with poor planning on my part. I felt as if I was verbally explaining all of the instructions, and there was a heavy reliance on showing examples of how to do the task. If this would have been a whole class lesson, I realize that a guided note sheet, or a whole class demonstration of the task would have provided a clearer understanding of what I expected. However on a positive side I do think the students enjoyed "walking through" the task and seeing it come together as a whole. At the end when we were connecting ideas together and it all began to make sense to why we were doing this, it became more enjoyable for the students as they began to debate whether topics were main ideas.
            Something that I noticed about myself as a teacher, similar to my other reflection, is my desire for these students to succeed and my over scaffolding to make sure success happens. I guess my question lies in where and how do you know that students are performing at an instructional level? If any of the time spent in the classroom has shown me anything is that the students either "get it" or "don't get it". How do we make sure the students that "don't get it" are coming to "get it" by their own learning, rather than seeing someone else's work or having a teacher talk them through it. How do we scaffold without over scaffolding?