Video Blog Number 1

At first I was somewhat confused what the teacher was trying to accomplish with the button project until I actually saw it in progress. You can tell the large amount of work into planning this lesson for his students. I liked the concept of a re-engagement lesson and I feel like this teacher did it in a really good way. I feel like as a teacher you need to be careful when deciding to use re-engagement. You do not want to run a subject into the ground by over teaching it and at the same time you have to make sure the timing of when you reintroduce a lesson is appropriate. The students still have to remember the general idea of what the lesson was but not every detail. When used correctly re-engagement provides teachers with the opportunity to uncover deeper meaning to previously covered topics. In this lesson the teacher wanted students to use their patterns and adapt them to graphic organizers. I liked how hands on this activity was and I also enjoyed how students had to use their own logic and reasoning to form an outcome. I did also find the input/output activity to be a interesting activity that required a lot of thought and logic from the students, but as far as connecting to the button project I didn't see how that worked. Both required the use of student logic, so on that level it relates. To me however, the button project was much more hands on.

It was cool to see the teachers planning and hopes for what the students would accomplish with this activity come to life. There was a lot of discussion happening amongst the students. The discussions appeared to be really meaningful to the students as well. During the input/output activity it was awesome to see the little boy figuring out the pattern and wanting to share his thoughts with all of his classmates around him. When comparing the two learners strategies to solving the same problem I also appreciated the amount on analysis and understanding that was occurring. Students were really attempting to determine why the learners chose the route to solving the problem that they did. There was a ton of higher order thinking going on and the discussions were all very student led which I loved.

While watching the teachers debriefing there were certain aspects I agreed and disagreed with. The teacher felt his introduction was too long, and that the students were not understanding. Like I stated earlier the introduction was an interesting activity but I did not see it's relevance to the button project, that would be something I could do without. I noticed in watching too that it felt a little long and drawn out. I however, did not feel like the students did understand but more that the instruction was a little unclear. There were obviously some students who did understand as you could see in the clip.  It was a good idea in theory but I think it didn't work as well in practice as he had hoped. There was also a portion where he made it seem that the students had difficulty describing when it came to learn B's solution and I would have to say I disagree. There understanding and descriptions came from their own perspective and their answers were not necessarily incorrect but creative. The students to me were very clear about what they were trying to convey.