Itandehui Crisanto
04/20/2021
Teacher Self Evaluation
On April 13, 2021 Daniel Cichirillo and I, Itandehui Crisanto, taught a lesson to a group
th
of 8 graders via a zoom call. For that lesson we discussed the Election of 1800 and in particular
the formation of the first two political parties. The lesson was aimed to teach 8 th grade students
but was presented to our class as a way to gain practice in teaching.
One of the main challenges that we faced in delivering the lesson was finding primary
sources for 8th grade students. As college students, we sometimes have trouble understanding
primary sources and we could only imagine the difficulty it would be for 8 th grade students. A
second challenge we faced was engaging students through a zoom call. It was challenging to find
a way to have all students engaged in an online setting. We found that Kahoot was the best way
to have some type of a classroom setting.
The Simpsons video was something that worked well. Reading through the feedback a lot
of my peers stated how they liked the video because it grabbed their attention. I think that it was
something that a lot of people have enjoyed previously and seeing it in the lesson allowed them
to engage more. While it was a useful tool, I do think that we could have done a better job in
connecting how the video related to the overall message of the lecture.
In regard to the lecture, there could definitely be improvement. The student feedback and
the professors feedback stated how short it was. One of the reasons for this was because my
partner and I were a bit afraid to give the students too much information that would give away
some things from the primary source activity. However I do think that there could have been
more that we could have added. One other thing that we could improve was checking for
knowledge through out the lecture. We did not stop to ask if the students had any questions nor
did we give them any to ponder on throughout the lecture. In the personal improvements, a
classmate stated how I used the word “like” a lot throughout the lecture. I didn’t really catch
myself but it will be something that I will keep in mind for the next time.
The feedback I found mast insightful was that providing a variety of primary sources was
more useful than just one for the whole class. I think that this is something I will keep in mind
because in this way more students become engaged in the material. I also found it helpful that we
learned that putting something that the students find interesting will have them more engaged.
These are things that we can always use in the future and it was reassuring that these methods
work.
Overall, I do feel pretty satisfied with how the lesson went. My partner and I wanted to
do something not to lecture heavy and more student oriented. I believe that we did we
accomplish this because the activity would have allowed the students to be at the center of
learning. I also really enjoyed doing this and feel satisfied with the end result.
