My LifeKnowledge Lesson

Recently I had the great opportunity to teach at the greatest learning place of all times, the home of the Greyhounds, the one and only Shippensburg High School!  I truly do love my cooperating center because it has a very welcoming atmosphere and has the ability to live out the 4-H motto and “Make the Best Better.”  In addition Mrs. Bier, my cooperating teacher, is a phenomenal mentor for an aspiring teacher like me!

While my school is a perfect fit for me and will help me to grow beyond my own imagination, it quickly taught me that I am not the perfect teacher, at least not yet.  I taught something known as a LifeKnowledge lesson during my Thanksgiving break.  A LifeKnowledge lesson is one that is based on leadership and is geared towards helping students reflect, develop intra- and inter- personal skills, be effective team members, etc.  Mrs. Bier asked me to present this lesson to her leadership class that has 7 students in it who were the Chapter Officers. 

In my head I thought this would be the perfect time to re-connect with the officers and to get them to reflect on their progress as a team since I last saw them together.  I followed the lesson plan and asked the students to draw things, to make actions to express techniques for reflections, to verbally share and I felt like the students did not want to give me anything to work with.  They seemed to do the bare minimum and were hardly engaged.  Now part of this can be contributed to the fact that it was right before Thanksgiving, perhaps another reason was that a snow storm was on the way, and a different factor was that I moved them into the shop so they could be all circled around the shop table.

At the conclusion of my lesson I spent some time truly reflecting with Mrs. Bier and shared with her that I was unpleased with how the lesson went, and that I thought the officers would be really into it because after all, it was a leadership class.  I also shared that I know I can do better but I needed her help.  Mrs. Bier provided me great insight.  She said that I should not have moved the students into the shop, and instead had the students move the desks in a circle in the classroom.  Additionally, I should have written the information on the board instead of having everything visual on the handouts.  That way the students can get the same thing from multiple places.  Also, it would have probably worked better if I gave students specific examples applicable to their chapter instead of expecting them to develop their own. 

Overall, despite the fact that the lesson delivery was not state of the art, I can say that I, the teacher, learned A LOT!  Mrs. Bier shared with me simple yet powerful techniques that will serve me well as I prepare to enter student teaching.  This experience was not perfect, yet it assured me that my mentor has a plethora of knowledge to give.  It was certainly a “LifeKnowlege” lesson for me!