Name: Donald Thomas

School: Poca High School

Teacher: Mr. Harper
Subject 11th Grade 20/21st Ct.

Critique

The lesson went excellently. Students participated in the discussions fully, and the lecture
portion went without a hitch. The students scores have been put into two charts, one chart
represents the Pre-Test and the other the Post-Test. I saw a great increase in scores after my
lecture, and the average scores went up in almost all cases.

I planned for this lesson extensively because it is very important in understanding

intricacies of the government involvement in American society today. I followed the lecture style
of my supervising teacher, so as to not throw the students out of routine with my teaching. This
lecture style includes writing key points on the board, and then expanding on those points during
the lecture. I enjoyed this form of lecture, because it closely relates to how I arrange my
PowerPoint presentations.

The class began with a discussion of the North Carolina game, as a way of getting
students used to me being in front of the class. From that discussion we moved into the Pre-Test,
which I allowed them 10 minutes to complete. The Pre-Test consisted of five multiple choice
questions and one question which asked what did they want to learn from the lesson. The
responses from the last question were very entertaining.

The lecture portion is something that I wanted to improve on, because my lectures have
always felt to forced. I interspersed some humor and questions within the lecture, it lightened the
mood and kept students engaged. I also wanted to work on the speed of my delivery, a frequent
complaint I receive from students. I asked after every expanded point if anyone needed a subject
repeated, and I think it made the difference in some of the test scores.

The Post-Test was given immediately after the lecture, and the students were allowed to
use their notes. The questions on the Post-Test were the same questions on the Pre-Test, but the
students were asked for much more in-depth responses. The score improvement was very
impressive, except for questions number 1 and 3. I addressed these responses tuesday and gave
the students handouts that covered the information they had trouble with on the Post-Test.
 The responses saw improvement in most cases, and the students will be taking their
chapter exam next week. I have already went back over the information the students had trouble
with, and distributed to them a paper with supplement information. I need to figure out why the
students did not improve in the two questions.

I believe the reason for the decrease in the correct responses were the amount of time I
devoted to the subjects. The first question focused on Frances Perkins and her role in the
government of FDR. She was introduced, or was supposed to have been, in notes from the
previous day, but students seemed to have trouble identifying what policy she worked on, which
I did not pay much attention to because it was the focus of the previous days lecture. The third
question focused on Mary McLeod Bethune and her role in the NYA. Students seemed to have a
difficult time identifying her as the head of the Division of Negro Affairs of the National Youth
Administration, and I blame this on me not emphasizing that distinction enough. Most students
either told me she was the head of the Division of Negro Affairs or the National Youth
Organization, not the head of the Division of Negro Affairs of the National Youth Organization.

My plan to correct these weak responses involved a brief lecture and the distribution of
handouts with the information on them. My plan to prevent this in the future is to explicitly state
the information that I plan to assess the students with. I feel that the reason the students did not
get perfect scores was because I did not convey the information to them properly.