Transitioning and time management were the main obstacles duringour presentation. Upon receiving feedback from many of my classmates, I learnedthat they all agreed as well. Our group divided up the material based on eachmember’s interests, but we did not account for the depth of the materialdiscussed therein. We assumed that since each section was largely independent,and since we all were confident in our knowledge of the material, each membercould take care of their own part and everything would be fine.
Israel Galindoin Mastering the Art of Instructionstated that preparation was the first stage of instruction and our seventh weekclass discussions focused on this. With that we would have been able to identifythe four components of instruction to access our content and the process, whichI felt would have been better.My section, for example, was the Seymour reading. It was anaverage length, but the material integrated clearly with the context andpurpose of the teaching moment.
During the presentation, I was overtlyconscious about my section, and tried to avoid talking too much about Seymour.I found this made the transition from Seymour to Wimberley a little difficultto follow. As Galindo stated and Dr. Haythorn affirmed, communication isimportant to bridge that gap between what the teacher explains and what thelearner understands. As I considered the logistics, trying to ensure thepresentation flowed, I grew uneasy on DeVonte’s section as it took a lot oftime, and I didn’t feel his topics were as important to discuss.
Though,unsuccessful, I tried to communicate that we needed move on, even advancing tothe next slides. As such, Cameron was not given as much time on his section asneeded. The necessary adjustments I would advise for a similarlearning experience are to communication, practice, and intentional planningaround the four components of instruction. In hindsight, in person meetings todiscuss the outcome, context, process (mainly our issue), and context wouldhave strengthen this teaching exercise. We have become so accustomed tohandling business through means of technology, that we felt our grouppresentation could have succeeded this way. For weeks, we shared our ideas andthoughts through emails, but little collective research. As the presentationdrew near, we scrambled everyone’s input together.
Although I believe wecurated an effective group presentation that integrated media with effectiveslides, we access the content and process. Emails are not substitutes formeetings and working together in person, and should rather be a supplementarymethod of communication and organization, rather than the primary.
