Cottie Catcher Reflection
Reflecting on experience is a critical way in how we learn to better ourselves as future practitioners. Reflection in-action in particular involves the internal process of reflecting on something while you are doing it. In my mini lesson, I had the opportunity to teach my group how to create and use a Cottie Catcher, something I learned when I was younger but had lost familiarity with. Since teaching is not my career aspiration I definitely experienced a lot of in-action-reflection as I was teaching my lesson, this having a lot to do with a lack of experience with teaching. Specifically through reflection the physical space, material, and personal factors contributed to different feelings I experienced while I was teaching and became an obstacle
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I had to encounter, causing me to have to think in the moment to make a modification to overcome it. Firstly, in regards to physical space my group was assigned to work in our lecture room, which also had two additional groups with mini lessons also taking place. This was definitely a distraction for both the learners and myself. Since everyone was teaching unique lessons is was hard not to be curious about what the other groups were presenting and over hearing the other students conversations was difficult to ignore when explaining my lesson. Talking over other groups was a challenge, and I felt that it was easy to lose my train of thought. I remember at one instant we looked over to another group who was being taught how to put condoms on bananas, this very easily caused both distraction with myself and with the learners in my groups, causing my whole group to be off task and curious about their surroundings. This caused me to have to plan in the moment and speak louder and to arrange the group into a circle to assure my lesson was in the center of their attention to help decrease being distracted by another group. Before I began my lesson I was unaware that other groups would be so nearby, once I realized this I changed the organization of the chairs so that students would be sitting in a circle to decrease outside distractions. Since there was nothing that could be done to change the physical environment and set up of the three groups in one area, I had to try my best to block out the other mini lessons to try to assure mine went as efficient as possible. In regards to the material, this being teaching how to make and use the Cottie Catcher, I felt a bit nervous teaching it because I just learned the night before through a YouTube video on how to make it myself. This made me feel uneasy and nervous, as I was worried I would forget how to make it, as it took a few trials to do it without the guidance of the video. Since the material was recently learned I really didn’t feel like I had much knowledge as while I was teaching I was asking questions like “can we write the numbers first and questions later”, “what type of answers can I have, can I have multiples”, “why is it called a Cottie Catcher”, “can I rip the portion of the piece of paper that has to be taken off or does it have to be cut”. All of these questions left me feeling unconfident in my teaching approach because realistically I wasn’t sure, as my knowledge and experience of the task were very similar to their level, this being a novice. I felt that I had to make a lot of assumptions when answering the above questions and felt like I should have been more self-reliant with the material when teaching those who have never learned this task before. Personal factors, specifically different emotions I experienced when teaching affected the quality of the lesson. Since I am not a very patient person, I was feeling like I was rushing and needed to remind myself to be patient as I was going very quick and had to realize I needed to wait for everyone to catch up. This was demonstrated through being rushed with not always explaining all the parts and assuming without intention that they could do it (learners asked “what do we write on the inside and where?” This caused me to make an “in moment’ change and evaluation in my behavior, based on being asked questions notiving my peers looking confused I realized that I was going too fast for people who had no idea what to do and I was intentionally assuming they were at my same level. I changed this by slowing down my steps and walking around to look and make sure everyone completed the required step before moving on. Another disruption in my quality of teaching was the presence of our professor, Tim. As written down directly after my lesson, I stated the following; “I felt nervous when Tim was watching, I felt like I needed to be more careful with what I was saying and felt very on the spot and under pressure.” I was definitely affected while teaching by Tim’s presence when he came to my group to watch a portion of my lesson. I felt that I couldn’t mess up and started to get very cautious about what I was saying, as I didn’t want to say the wrong thing or sound as though I did not know what I was talking about. This pressure I believe helped my teaching, but made me question my abilities and decreased my level of confidence. I handled this by trying to block out his presence and to continue as through he wasn’t there, all though this a lot easier said than done. Since I was already not feeling very confident, Tim’s presence definitely made me stop and think about what I was doing and If I was explaining and demonstrating making the Cottie Catcher to the best of my abilities.
Part 3: Reflection-on-Action.
Reflection through action, involving receiving feedback for making changes for the future is an important method of reflection that allows one to learn from an experience.
Overall, in regards to the previously mentioned circumstances I believe my lesson went well, although there were definitely aspects of it that could be altered to allow for a greater level of success in the future. One thing that worked out well was the set up of the lesson. I had everyone sit in a circle so I was able to easily walk around and see everyone’s facial expressions in regards to any uncertainty and/or confusion. I made sure that I first demonstrated how to make the Cottie Catcher with everyone watching and after this I gave everyone their materials and we made it as a group. This worked well because people were able to cognitively and visually pay attention to the creation of the Cottie Catcher, and with this knowledge they were then able to make it with guidance of myself making it with them and answering to any questions and concerns. I also brought examples of the Cottie Catchers I already made with different questions on the inside to act as a visual aid for the participants. Judging by my groups engagement and facial expressions they seemed to enjoy the task and there was not much disengagement that may have been caused by an excessive amount of down time or having the task being too complex, although asking them specific questions after how they felt during the lesson could have helped me learn from my experience more. Things that didn’t go as well, firstly was my original fast and impatient pace. I first started demonstrating the task fairly quickly; unintentionally acting like the participants already knew what to do when this was not the case. Based on my impatient and fast paced personality this in general is something I need to continue to reflect on in many aspects of my life. After reflection on-action, having more materials would have been very helpful, as I only had a
handful of markers and one pair of scissors, causing the task to take longer than necessary and may have caused my participants to be bored. If it was in a situation with those who had a lower attention span they may have become off task very easily. I also think having a video or visual instructions, such as the YouTube video (where I learned to make the Cottie Catcher) would be very beneficial as it would have decreased uncertainty and would have been an additional method of guidance, especially for those who learn better through visual instructions. I also didn’t demonstrate how to use the Cottie Catcher until participants began asking, this is something I should have done ahead of time to ease the confusion and uncertainty. Furthermore, having a more detailed lesson plan is something I could change in the future, as it would have decreased feelings of lacking confidence especially when Tim was watching, as having something to refer to would have been very valuable. Lastly, a majority of the participants were unsure on what type of questions to ask the Cottie Catcher and what type of responses would have been good, I could helped prevent this feeling of ambiguity by creating a list of exampled questions and responses to help guide the participants when creating the Cottie Catcher.
Through self-reflection of my lesson, there are certainly things that were taken for granted in this situation making it a better experience than how teaching a lesson may typically go. Firstly, I was in a group with 20+ year olds that were also responsible for teaching their own lesson that day. This would definitely have contributed to their behaviour as to my perspective them knowing they had to be in the same position as me shortly probably made them more cooperative and respectful. Also, the fact that it was only a 20-minute presentation allowed their attention span to be considered, as it is a lot easier for myself as a teacher to teach and for the learners to pay attention for that small portion of time. If my lesson was longer I believe that I would have noticed more boredom and would have faced more challenges. Also, if a person had a smaller attention span they may have also been more affected by other distractions in the physical environment; this being the other groups teaching their lessons in the same room. As this did disrupt my group very quickly but it wasn’t very detrimental to the quality of my lesson, as it could have been a lot worse based on having different students. Also, reflecting more on my experience I began to consider the following; how do I really know that my peers weren’t bored, yes they said they enjoyed it but how would I know this for certain. Also my peers said they have never made a Cuttie Catcher before, but could they have just said that to be helping me out and instead pretended to learn a skill they were already familiar with, thus easing my teaching with a decreased feeling of unfamiliarity from my peers. There is unquestionably a lot to think about when reflecting on teaching, and it’s the in-depth and critical aspects that have the potential to be the most important when deeply reflecting on both teaching and learning.
I had to encounter, causing me to have to think in the moment to make a modification to overcome it. Firstly, in regards to physical space my group was assigned to work in our lecture room, which also had two additional groups with mini lessons also taking place. This was definitely a distraction for both the learners and myself. Since everyone was teaching unique lessons is was hard not to be curious about what the other groups were presenting and over hearing the other students conversations was difficult to ignore when explaining my lesson. Talking over other groups was a challenge, and I felt that it was easy to lose my train of thought. I remember at one instant we looked over to another group who was being taught how to put condoms on bananas, this very easily caused both distraction with myself and with the learners in my groups, causing my whole group to be off task and curious about their surroundings. This caused me to have to plan in the moment and speak louder and to arrange the group into a circle to assure my lesson was in the center of their attention to help decrease being distracted by another group. Before I began my lesson I was unaware that other groups would be so nearby, once I realized this I changed the organization of the chairs so that students would be sitting in a circle to decrease outside distractions. Since there was nothing that could be done to change the physical environment and set up of the three groups in one area, I had to try my best to block out the other mini lessons to try to assure mine went as efficient as possible. In regards to the material, this being teaching how to make and use the Cottie Catcher, I felt a bit nervous teaching it because I just learned the night before through a YouTube video on how to make it myself. This made me feel uneasy and nervous, as I was worried I would forget how to make it, as it took a few trials to do it without the guidance of the video. Since the material was recently learned I really didn’t feel like I had much knowledge as while I was teaching I was asking questions like “can we write the numbers first and questions later”, “what type of answers can I have, can I have multiples”, “why is it called a Cottie Catcher”, “can I rip the portion of the piece of paper that has to be taken off or does it have to be cut”. All of these questions left me feeling unconfident in my teaching approach because realistically I wasn’t sure, as my knowledge and experience of the task were very similar to their level, this being a novice. I felt that I had to make a lot of assumptions when answering the above questions and felt like I should have been more self-reliant with the material when teaching those who have never learned this task before. Personal factors, specifically different emotions I experienced when teaching affected the quality of the lesson. Since I am not a very patient person, I was feeling like I was rushing and needed to remind myself to be patient as I was going very quick and had to realize I needed to wait for everyone to catch up. This was demonstrated through being rushed with not always explaining all the parts and assuming without intention that they could do it (learners asked “what do we write on the inside and where?” This caused me to make an “in moment’ change and evaluation in my behavior, based on being asked questions notiving my peers looking confused I realized that I was going too fast for people who had no idea what to do and I was intentionally assuming they were at my same level. I changed this by slowing down my steps and walking around to look and make sure everyone completed the required step before moving on. Another disruption in my quality of teaching was the presence of our professor, Tim. As written down directly after my lesson, I stated the following; “I felt nervous when Tim was watching, I felt like I needed to be more careful with what I was saying and felt very on the spot and under pressure.” I was definitely affected while teaching by Tim’s presence when he came to my group to watch a portion of my lesson. I felt that I couldn’t mess up and started to get very cautious about what I was saying, as I didn’t want to say the wrong thing or sound as though I did not know what I was talking about. This pressure I believe helped my teaching, but made me question my abilities and decreased my level of confidence. I handled this by trying to block out his presence and to continue as through he wasn’t there, all though this a lot easier said than done. Since I was already not feeling very confident, Tim’s presence definitely made me stop and think about what I was doing and If I was explaining and demonstrating making the Cottie Catcher to the best of my abilities.
Part 3: Reflection-on-Action.
Reflection through action, involving receiving feedback for making changes for the future is an important method of reflection that allows one to learn from an experience.
Overall, in regards to the previously mentioned circumstances I believe my lesson went well, although there were definitely aspects of it that could be altered to allow for a greater level of success in the future. One thing that worked out well was the set up of the lesson. I had everyone sit in a circle so I was able to easily walk around and see everyone’s facial expressions in regards to any uncertainty and/or confusion. I made sure that I first demonstrated how to make the Cottie Catcher with everyone watching and after this I gave everyone their materials and we made it as a group. This worked well because people were able to cognitively and visually pay attention to the creation of the Cottie Catcher, and with this knowledge they were then able to make it with guidance of myself making it with them and answering to any questions and concerns. I also brought examples of the Cottie Catchers I already made with different questions on the inside to act as a visual aid for the participants. Judging by my groups engagement and facial expressions they seemed to enjoy the task and there was not much disengagement that may have been caused by an excessive amount of down time or having the task being too complex, although asking them specific questions after how they felt during the lesson could have helped me learn from my experience more. Things that didn’t go as well, firstly was my original fast and impatient pace. I first started demonstrating the task fairly quickly; unintentionally acting like the participants already knew what to do when this was not the case. Based on my impatient and fast paced personality this in general is something I need to continue to reflect on in many aspects of my life. After reflection on-action, having more materials would have been very helpful, as I only had a
handful of markers and one pair of scissors, causing the task to take longer than necessary and may have caused my participants to be bored. If it was in a situation with those who had a lower attention span they may have become off task very easily. I also think having a video or visual instructions, such as the YouTube video (where I learned to make the Cottie Catcher) would be very beneficial as it would have decreased uncertainty and would have been an additional method of guidance, especially for those who learn better through visual instructions. I also didn’t demonstrate how to use the Cottie Catcher until participants began asking, this is something I should have done ahead of time to ease the confusion and uncertainty. Furthermore, having a more detailed lesson plan is something I could change in the future, as it would have decreased feelings of lacking confidence especially when Tim was watching, as having something to refer to would have been very valuable. Lastly, a majority of the participants were unsure on what type of questions to ask the Cottie Catcher and what type of responses would have been good, I could helped prevent this feeling of ambiguity by creating a list of exampled questions and responses to help guide the participants when creating the Cottie Catcher.
Through self-reflection of my lesson, there are certainly things that were taken for granted in this situation making it a better experience than how teaching a lesson may typically go. Firstly, I was in a group with 20+ year olds that were also responsible for teaching their own lesson that day. This would definitely have contributed to their behaviour as to my perspective them knowing they had to be in the same position as me shortly probably made them more cooperative and respectful. Also, the fact that it was only a 20-minute presentation allowed their attention span to be considered, as it is a lot easier for myself as a teacher to teach and for the learners to pay attention for that small portion of time. If my lesson was longer I believe that I would have noticed more boredom and would have faced more challenges. Also, if a person had a smaller attention span they may have also been more affected by other distractions in the physical environment; this being the other groups teaching their lessons in the same room. As this did disrupt my group very quickly but it wasn’t very detrimental to the quality of my lesson, as it could have been a lot worse based on having different students. Also, reflecting more on my experience I began to consider the following; how do I really know that my peers weren’t bored, yes they said they enjoyed it but how would I know this for certain. Also my peers said they have never made a Cuttie Catcher before, but could they have just said that to be helping me out and instead pretended to learn a skill they were already familiar with, thus easing my teaching with a decreased feeling of unfamiliarity from my peers. There is unquestionably a lot to think about when reflecting on teaching, and it’s the in-depth and critical aspects that have the potential to be the most important when deeply reflecting on both teaching and learning.