Reflecting On My First Interest Approach

SAFETY SAFETY SAFETY! We all know that safety is not something that is usually fun to learn about, but it is one of the most important units whenever it comes to the well being of our students. Because of the importance, I had a hard time thinking of a way to grab the students attention and make them want to learn how to avoid injuries in the shop!

I was shared a safety glasses video that really grabbed my attention whenever I watched it and I thought that it would do the same to my students and make them pay attention to what it had to say. The video explains the importance of safety glasses, the amount of eye injuries per year, and real life examples of what could happen to your eye without wearing the proper eye protection. While I was playing the video, I heard many "Ewww", "ughhh", "ouch", and sighs that indicated to me that students were actually paying attention, and that they did not want something like this to happen to their eye. Now, whenever I have a student that is not following my eye protection procedure, I can refer to this video and it will remind them of the possible consequences.
 Here is the video I showed in class:

A video may not always be the best interest approach to a lesson, but for a lesson on safety, I think this did a good job on getting the students attention and I believe that they will want to wear their safety glasses whenever working in the shop.

Besides safety glasses, I went over all of the proper PPE for welding/ metalworking. I had the students come in front of the class and "model" the PPE for the other students. I thought this was a good way to demonstrate how it should be worn instead of just showing a powerpoint.



What needs work:

1. I think that I still need to work on my excitement and changing the tone of my voice. Whenever I am teaching, I think that I sound more exciting than I actually do. Watching myself on video really helps remind me that in fact, I sound kind of boring. I feel that showing excitement will be the hardest barrier for me to climb over throughout this learning process.

2. Transitioning my students from watching the video to explaining different types of PPE was not as smooth as I would have hoped. Using transitioning/ segue questions would have made this more fluid.

3. I wanted to implement Lancelot's "interest is created and sustained by a state of suspense" idea, I did a very poor job of doing this. I did not feel that my students were hanging on the edge of their seats throughout my lesson.

What went well:

1. I think that I managed the class well, I caught on to students who were chatty, on their phones, and I did not allow only one student to address my questions. I think that I addressed these situations in a non-confrontational way, ensuring that the problems did not escalate. Having to manage the classroom is a whole new added level of what I need to be aware of while teaching.

2. I thought that my interest approach was good and caught the students attention and will stick with them every time they are working with power tools.

Overall, I am happy with how this lesson went and I look forward to improving my teaching skills! I know that I am going to make mistakes along the way, but that is only half the fun!

Thanks,
Mike