Live Lesson Reflection
December 11, 2013 Leave a comment
Concept:
The unit involves employing vocal tools that make human speech interesting. This centers on the previous Asynchronous Lesson of creating a Speech to Persuade. After the first week of working on the lesson and creating their rough drafts, we would have a collaborative online chat. At this point, I would seek to get them to articulate what they hoped to gain from learning how to deliver a Speech to Persuade. This would flow naturally toward learning/validating what they know about the 5 Essential Vocal Tools. Adobe Connect would permit me to assess via poll if they completed their rough draft and make most of their selections as we implement the 5 Tools.
Execution:
Life hits all of us hard sometimes. My student lost her mother December 6, 2013. My 99-year-old father is having oxygen saturation issues and is in Urgent Care out of state. My wife and I returned from a family trip, only to have Noel (my student) let me know a very narrow window she could offer to accommodate my lesson. I was only in my house less than fifteen minutes and I needed to be online to be ready to host. I did not set myself up for success.
Each time my practice partner and I worked together, polls stayed in a “built” mode and I did not recall having to rebuild them. Also, I did not remember reloading a previous draft of my PowerPoint, but I must have done that. I did not use my checklist because I assumed I remembered all of it.
I uploaded a Screenshot of a practice screen of Adobe Connect so I could use the pointer and my cursor to guide both Mary and Noel how to activate their microphone and their video camera. We explored a few of the features, as I wanted Noel to see the value of the tools.
Moments before we started on the lesson, I discovered all my polls were gone and the old version of my PPT was loaded. Once I loaded the proper version, I inadvertently hit a button I had not used before. It changed my layout and I could not get back to the screen I needed to use for a short time. I know it was short but it felt like an eternity.
I gave the lesson in fast forward, getting brief responses from Mary and Noel as we moved through. My goal was to achieve the 15-minute delivery time Dr. Rice specified during our online class chat. I discussed with Noel the culminating activity and how that could work. We did not do all the things I would have done in the lesson.
This was the first time I had heard Noel’s voice in almost 25 years. I wanted to make a better impression. Yes, I wanted to accommodate her needs and my own; but I should have made it a different time. I should have used the checklist. I am still proud of the lesson and that I did it. I got a small taste of how this would have felt if I had a larger number of students.