Teacher Project Reflection

Take a few minutes to reflect on your experience preparing for your presentation.

    •       Provide rationales for your choice of activities. Why did you choose your activities? Did you consider other possibilities before deciding?

            We chose the activities based on our individual interests and what we thought would most enhance the project. We asked the questions about cultural differences and how they effected the classroom because it was most relevant to them and the topic. The matching activity was based on the Deaf and Hearing differences. We chose that stereotype specifically because our interest includes the Deaf culture. We chose a matching activity because we wanted the students to see all the different stereotypes that are associated with the Deaf community.

    •       Describe how you chose what role each presenter would play in the development and delivery of your presentation. What personal strengths did you consider in the process? 

            Lisa took the main “teaching” roles because that is her desire: to be a teacher. I took the role of explaining cultural differences within the deaf community and gave the instructions for the activity to most match my role and a representative of the deaf students or clients I will have in the future.

Take a few minutes to reflect on your presentation experience.

    •       Describe how your presentation most accurately reflected the instructional strategy you used. What criteria of your teaching style did you address?  How might you have improved your presentation? 

            We tried to keep it collaborative and interactive, unfortunately it seemed to come out as a lot of expository. Although that wasn’t the intention, because we waited so long to do the matching activity and didn’t have a lot of group discussion, the presentation became exposirty-like. We could have made the questions we proposed in the beginning a group discussion and focused on that more. Also, we could have done the matching game before we discussed the cultural differences and stereotypes; so the class could have seem where they thought wrong about Deaf people.

    •       Reflect on your learners’ responses to your presentation. What aspects do you feel worked well, what would you change, and why? 

    It seemed a lot of people enjoyed the activity with bringing in a “deaf” and a “hearing” person into the classroom and the differences in how they enter a room or conversation. Also, the class liked that we focused on the Deaf aspect, liked that we provided a handout and sent the videos before hand. Lastly, one person said they actually liked the way we had the activity because they were able to construct their own understanding of the deaf and hard of hearing culture.

    On the other hand, most people were confused by the matching activity because of our minimal explanation. Also, a lot mentioned our presentation was heavy on the expository and while we were having technical difficulties we could have engaged the class. Finally, some said we could have discussed our source more.

How is your personal theory of learning demonstrated in your activities and the reactions of your peers? Use specific examples of your teaching as well as peer comments/responses as evidence for your analysis.

I think my Personal Theory of Learning came through by the building on what we already know about stereotypes and cultural differences and applying it to the deaf and hard of hearing culture (constructivism). But because I tend to focus more on social cognitive theory, this was applied through the activity with the matching. Through that activity we were able to learn about stereotypes that a student may not have thought of before if they hadn’t discussed the situation with others.