I really enjoyed this video for a number of reasons. First of all, I really liked that she was
already a good teacher to begin with. We
often hear about how a teacher is doing a bad job if they do this or that and
need to make corrections. She wasn’t
making corrections because she was doing a poor job, she was simply improving
herself even more. I also enjoyed that the techniques the teacher was
recommended to use were very clearly stated.
She wasn’t told “You need more literacy practice in the classroom”.
Instead, she was told to create vocab activities, have more interaction with
the board, and have different activities for different tables and skill levels
in the classroom. Additionally, the video showed her before a class, during a
class, doing the meeting with the expert, preparing for the class a week later
(and the subsequent challenges/strides), conducting the class, and reviewing
with the expert as follow-up. I felt
like I really got to see every element of the story and understand how and why
these were effective in the classroom. 
There were
two strategies that really stood out to me that I would have never thought of
on my own. The first was to attach
relatable images to vocab words. The
students could see boiling pasta for evaporation, for example. The vocab cards added to that, since she was
familiarizing the students with a common learning strategy for high school and
college students. I also would have
never thought about the importance of having students write on the board. It’s
exciting to see them come up and feel more special than if they had just called
out something, and, as they said, it does keep them engaged since they may be
called up. When teachers are writing on the board, they often call on students they
know will answer correctly. This strategy could be used to get students ready
to go up whether they were meaning to or not, and it wouldn’t take long for
this to have the effect of having students more comfortable making mistakes and
learning from them in your classroom environment.
There were
two strategies that really stood out to me that I would have never thought of
on my own. The first was to attach
relatable images to vocab words. The
students could see boiling pasta for evaporation, for example. The vocab cards added to that, since she was
familiarizing the students with a common learning strategy for high school and
college students. I also would have
never thought about the importance of having students write on the board. It’s
exciting to see them come up and feel more special than if they had just called
out something, and, as they said, it does keep them engaged since they may be
called up. When teachers are writing on the board, they often call on students they
know will answer correctly. This strategy could be used to get students ready
to go up whether they were meaning to or not, and it wouldn’t take long for
this to have the effect of having students more comfortable making mistakes and
learning from them in your classroom environment.
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So glad you enjoyed the video, Callie. It's definitely one of my favorite videos to share with pre-service teachers because the teacher provides a great professional model. Despite being a good teacher, she's excited to get constructive feedback and use it to improve her practice.
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