Lesson Planning...yay!

As I've read through some of these blogs, I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who stresses over lesson planning. Sometimes the information we have to add to them (including the stuff for 330) can get very repetitive and tedious. However, it has to be done one way or another. I try to put a lot of thought into my lessons, much like the one I prepared for yesterday's discussion. Of course, any lesson can look absolutely great on paper, but it's all up to how it's approached in the classroom to determine the success of it. 

As I planned my discussion, I tried to keep Cooper in mind. Honestly, I struggled the most with keeping Cooper's reading in mind, while also realizing I would only have 15 or so minutes with this lesson. I tried to make my questions fitting for both what was expected and my time limits. Guys, I was SO nervous about my lesson. I wanted to include everyone's plays, even though I haven't read some of them myself. But I wanted to have each play group educate everyone who isn't reading their plays...and ultimately, they could all engage in critical thinking discussions together. I hope everyone enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed listening in. I felt so bad for missing Julius Caesar in my planning (sorry Alex and Chris!), but I'm glad that it was quickly incorporated in the tragedies group. I also thought I didn't have enough information/questions for my discussion. As it turned out, I needed more time! I was a little sad about that...

I'm going to admit that I can complain sometimes about the amount of reading we have to do on occasion. As much as I might dislike the time consumption, I'm still glad that I read all of our materials. I know that I would have a much harder time planning lessons, or even coming up with general ideas! I don't think I ever realized until this semester how much I've really learned from all of the readings we've had over the past couple semesters. As Ramina seemed to be getting to in her blog, many classroom adaptations and teaching strategies just come second nature to us now. I think that's great! As teachers, we should strive to be lifelong learners; so as we continue on in our careers, we will continue to find new ways to create successful lessons.

I'd like to thank everyone for participating in my discussion lesson yesterday! It's so fun seeing a lesson that you planned play out (almost) perfectly in front of you! You were all great, and I can't wait to see what happens next week :)