Psychology In-Class Teaching Reflection

In-Class Teaching Reflection

One principle of teaching we incorporated into our lesson was that we learned how to create an objective, assess, and plan instructive action. We planned out what we wanted the students to gain from our lesson, we planned an assessment activity, and we also planned how much time we would dedicate to each topic and when we would present each topic in our lesson plan. We also prioritized knowledge and skills we would focus on. We decided to spend more time on the Theory of Multiple Intelligences (MI theory) because it had eight parts to it. We thought by planning an activity and focusing more of the instruction time on this theory would help them better remember the principles it entailed.

One of the principles of learning we included in our lesson was that we really tried to emphasize when to apply what they had learned to gain mastery. We did this with the activities that assessed their own MI and children’s MI. They had to think of strategies they could promote certain MI in their own classrooms. We also talked about how knowing your own MI strengths can help you realize what activities you may favor in your own classroom. We also talked about common misapplications for some of the MI theory concepts, this also focused on knowing when to apply what was learned. We tried to use these real-life applications to promote another principle of learning; the student’s motivation effects how they learn. We thought by making everything applicable to their future careers it would be more motivating to learn the information.

I thought we had many strengths and a few weaknesses within our teaching experience. One of the strengths was that we focused a lot on application of the principles we taught, we really tried to help the students realize that the information was relevant to their future careers. We accomplished this by asking engaging questions that forced them to evaluate the relevance to their own lives. We also provided thorough explanations for each of the principles we discussed along with images as mnemonic devices and allowed time for questions and comments. Another strength was that we provided activities to cement the principles of Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences Some of the weaknesses were that we took a lot of time to emphasize the MI theory, but did not spend quite as much time on some of the other theories. We also did not provide activities for all of the theories, this could have aided the student’s memory better if we had. I think we also might of went over a bit on our time.

If I were to redo this teaching experience I would emphasize the other theories besides the MI theory more. I would have also liked to provide activities for the different theories to make them more memorable and more engaging. It might of also been an improvement if we asked for even more feedback from our classmates so they stayed focused and interested. I would have also liked to cut down our presentation time by 5 minutes.