Colette Monod

EDUC359
Professor Reilly
LIVE Reflection

While teaching Jack the live lesson we set language as well as content
objectives. Although Jack is in fourth grade we made the material fifth grade appropriate
to challenge his vocabulary and language development. Our lesson was on synonyms and
antonyms. We used an interactive smart board lesson to teach the content provided.
By the end of the lesson Jack needed to be able to recite what a synonym and
antonym were. He was also required to supply knowledge on vocabulary words discussed
throughout the lesson, and compare these various words to categorize them by synonym
and antonym.
I feel as though we did challenge Jack with the vocabulary and language
development because it was a fifth grade level as appose to a fourth grade level, however
Jack caught on very quickly and proved his intelligence to us. I do not feel that there was
a part of the lesson that was too difficult for Jack to complete, rather there was a lack of
organization/ preparation on our part. While teaching the lesson we encountered some
technical difficulties that made for and interesting situation. It forced us to think on our
feet and come up with a solution to continue the lesson. The PowerPoint we used was
suppose to be interactive so that when Jack came up to the board he would be able to
circle the synonyms and antonyms in different colors, however the technology disabled
us from executing this part of the lesson properly. In turn we had to help Jack highlight
the words in different colors, which added unnecessary time to the lesson.

If we were to repeat this lesson with an ELL student of the same age I think the
level of the vocabulary words would have to decrease in difficulty. I would also add more
images to the PowerPoint for the student to get a better idea of the content that was being
taught. And last but not least I would make sure that the technology was working
properly. Having these technological difficulties would only confuse the ELL student
even more.
Overall I feel that this lesson could have gone a lot better, however I do feel that
Jack walked away with a better understanding of what synonym and antonym were. I also
feel as though he learned a couple new vocabulary words, which doesnt hurt. All and all
I think that this lesson would need to be edited in order to be taught to an ELL student.