Reflection of Lesson
When it came time I implement my lesson plan, I realized that I had made a big mistake. I
had chosen to use the same content for my lesson plan that I used for my audio project. The
problem is that by that time, I had already passed that content in my lessons. But I really liked
how the lesson was designed, so I decided to simply change the content and tweak the lesson.
The original content was the rise of the Populist Party and I had chosen that material because it is
not a content that either my students or I enjoyed. Therefore, I felt that I had to find similar
content that would benefit from this lesson plan. I chose to do the lesson on the many acts and
agencies that were created during the Great Depression and New Deal Era. This is also a content
that is difficult to teach because they created so many different agencies and acts to try to help as
many people as possible.
I kept the majority of the lesson and just switched out the content and I believe the lesson was
for the most part a success. This was a two day lesson that had students create a Prezi
Presentation that was narrated using Cam Studio. At this point of the school year, students have
already been introduced to Prezi and just need to learn how to use Cam Studio. The first day
consisted of the teacher leading a class discussion where students will give answers to create a
word web on the New Deal. Teacher then led a lecture on the New Deal and all the acts and
agencies created and why it was so necessary. Students were then asked to find their pair share
partner and discuss the essential questions of the lesson that were listed on the board. Teacher
then introduced students to Cam Studio and modeled how to use it to narrate a Prezi
Presentation. Students were then put into groups of three to create their Prezi Presentation and
Cam Studio recording. In the Prezi presentation, students will be given a list of ten acts/agencies
created in the new deal and they will have to create a slide for each one. Each one of these slides
will describe what the purpose of the act/agency was and how successful it was. The
information needed to complete this assignment will come from the lecture notes and textbook.
The homework for students for day one was to go home and download Cam Studio on their
home computers and create a 15 second self introduction that was emailed to the teacher.
Students who do not have a computer at home will be given time to work on the classroom
computer or others computers around campus to get the introduction completed. Day two was
taught in the computer lab. Teacher once again quickly modeled how to use Cam Studio and told
students that their introduction is due the following day. Teacher then led a quick formative
assessment of the New Deal acts and agencies covered in the lecture by asking random students
some of those essential questions discussed the previous day. This will show me if I need to go
back a touch upon any of the content they don’t seem to grasp. Teacher will then give a short
lecture on how these acts helped people and the economy get back on their feet toward the end of
the Great Depression. For rest of the period, students met with their group to start working on
their Prezi Presentations.
Well, as I wrote above, this was supposed to be a two day lesson for my 11th grade U.S.
History classes. It didn’t turn out as I expected. There were some great positives and some parts
that I will need to change if I want to implement this lesson again. The lesson ended up taking
three days to implement because I underestimated how long it would take me to discuss with
them the ten acts/agencies they would have to cover in their Prezi. I think for next year’s project,
I will have them only work on five acts/agencies instead of ten. Plus, I also didn’t think they
would struggle with Cam Studio as much as they did. I had to go over how to use Cam Studio
three times and ended up making a video using Cam Studio to show them exactly how to do it. I
set it up on my school website and that helped a lot. I also had to extend the due date for the
project to give them more time to work on the project itself. But once those parts of the lesson
were taken care of, the rest of the lesson ended up being successful and ultimately I had several
students telling me they enjoyed making the project because they got to explain what they wrote
in their Prezi. They liked that they didn’t have to fit so much information into the slides because
they were going to be able to explain it using Cam Studio. So, overall it went pretty well.
Hopefully with these problems out of the way, this project will lead to more students
understanding of the New Era acts and agencies.
In creating this lesson, I wanted my students to be able to answer the essential questions that I
introduced to them in the beginning of the lesson. Overall, I feel that they did a pretty good job
of explaining those questions in their Prezi project. But I am not 100% content with this project.
I feel that even though it was an improvement on my lesson from last year, that it still has a lot of
room to grow. Some of my students created excellent projects that showed me that they got the
content and could explain it well. It showed that they had gotten a deep understanding of the
material and made this project a success. But I also had some students turn in project that
showed the opposite. I’m not sure if it was the technology chosen or if it was the lesson itself
but I don’t think I did the best job in getting those students prepared to create a successful Prezi
presentation. Just like with many new lessons, there are mixed results. But I am still optimistic
that this project can become a good and effective lesson plan that will lead students to a deeper
understanding of the material.