Unfortunately I had just moved house when we conducted the mictoteaching session and I was unable to find my tripod. As a result I couldn’t set up a second camera to film the sculptures with like I had planned. Not having two cameras like I had originally intended left me quite frazzled, and I am conscious that I say “um” a lot in this video and am not as composed as I would have liked to be.
“Describe Me!” – Microteaching Padlet
https://padlet.com/zullebow/tft8504mxwa1qkdy
Overall I was really pleased with the way my colleagues on the course interacted with the lesson I had planned. I think having the Padlet ready and waiting to go really helped in this regard. Since the camera quality on my laptop is not very clear because it is old, I am very glad I made the decision to use a picture of the sculptures from my degree show as a background image on the Padlet. That way even if the video quality was not clear they were still able to participate in the session. Each person wrote more than one response and some were very keen to embrace the new method of description I was asking them to think about.
Responses to my teaching
I really appreciate the feedback my colleagues gave me. One piece of critique was that it would have been helpful if I had written the instructions down and added them to either the Padlet or in the chat box on BlackBoard Collaborate. I usually try to do this when I teach my students but I quickly forget about it when I become frazzled. However, if I am going to discuss small changes in teaching practice which can make a huge difference in terms of accessibility, writing down instructions and putting them in the chat or on a slide on screen is an important step. I also think I may have given myself too much to do in terms of monitoring, and there were times when there were awkward silences while I waited for the responses on the Padlet to come in. In the future I think I will try to streamline the session so that there are less moving parts and more discussion. As you can see from the video, there is a lot of me speaking and them listening. Although the participants were active and engaged on the Padlet document, perhaps it would have been better for them to say what they were thinking out loud.