At the Friends School Haverford, I was able to teach a 7/8th grade STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math) class, which was slightly different from the normal science class that I had been observing. Because of the structure and content of this class, the art and science teachers decided to create more long term projects for the students to work on and develop skills associated with the class. When the teacher presented what they were going to be doing for this class day to me, it only included instructions for two projects. This allowed me to think creatively about how to expand the subjects of the projects and generate a larger discussion about the ideas presented in the projects.

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Some teacher ticks that I realized that I have after rewatching the recording include distracting movements with my hands, excessive use of filler language, having a non-expressive face, and slight ramblings. Often when I wasn’t using my hands to make a particular gesture, my hands would be clasped together in front of my stomach and engaging in smaller motions like rubbing my hands together or pushing my thumb into the side of my hand. I am not really sure what teachers normally do with their hands, but I know it isn't something that expresses discomfort like my action seems to do. I also use a lot of filler language, such as um, like, and you know what I mean, when I was less sure of what I was saying or where I was going, which was really distracting and took up more space that could have been used by the students. My face was also really non-expressive for most of the lesson. There were places where I smiled when I was chuckling at something a student said, but for the most part my face was pretty stoic. This was especially noticeable when I called on students to answer questions and gave them (what looks like) a blank stare as they answered. The last big teacher tick that I noticed was that I rambled a lot when I could and should have been concise in asking questions or providing my own thoughts. This was most visible when I was trying to explain general ideas about shoes and shooting a basketball. This felt like it could have dampened the conversation slightly by not necessarily allowing students to jump in with their thoughts.

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While I don’t think I spoke in a very monotone voice throughout the lesson, I think generally my voice was really monotone when I was responding to the students specifically, and I had greater intonation in my voice as I was explaining the presentation slides and the projects. I also had greater intonation in my voice when I was asking a question that wasn’t concise and I wasn’t sure how to end it. I think only raise my voice once toward the end of the lesson when the students start talking all at once for a moment. I raise my voice slightly to continue talking which, in another situation, would not be helpful to do if the students continued to talk over me. Although the students quickly settled down in that specific moment, it may have been more helpful to pause and allow them to all express their thoughts and wait for a lull in the conversation before speaking again.

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For the most part, I think it is pretty visible when I felt not confident, especially starting off. It kind of looks or feels like I am trying to appear relaxed but am unable to get comfortable. It also seems that way because I start off not really knowing what to do with my hands, suddenly becoming aware that my hands are weirdly positioned, and then trying to utilize my hands more during the presentation. As the lesson goes along, I am able to find moments where I am less uncomfortable and can articulate my thoughts properly. Moments where I was the most confident was when I was talking directly to a student that I already developed a relationship with, which were about three of the girls in the class. In these moments, I was more aware of what they were likely to say and had an idea of how to respond in a way that would make them feel able to continue participating in the discussion. I am not really sure how this was interpreted by the students other than the fact that I was more engaged in responding to certain students more than other students. What went really well was the overall idea of how to engage in a project like this in terms of the discussion questions and the conversational way it was done (rather than feeling really scripted). The teachers really enjoyed the presentation and appreciated the use of discussion questions to develop greater interest around the projects. The students seemed to really think about their responses when they were giving them, and many of the students participated more than once in answering questions or providing their thoughts.

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Something that I could do better is use more nonverbal cues to engage students better and speaking more professionally or authoritatively. In the video, I kind of gesture at students for them to talk which caused many of the students to be unsure when they could respond. In the future, I would probably model more professional behavior while I am speaking and have more direct lecturing skills that would allow me to be more concise when presenting ideas and questions. I think part of the issue was that I wasn’t completely confident in all of the students’ names and pronunciations even though I knew most of them. In the future, I would also be more intentional in learning the students names and using them in class.