Assignment 2B

I decided to test one of the areas of all my lessons that tend to be the most difficult for my students; THE PRESENTATION!

I honestly don't know what it is about having to get up in front of a group of people that you know and share your story that makes people lose all their composure, but it seems to happen in EVERY class i teach regardless of age or experience. So I decided to focus this assignment on the presentation potion of the lesson. I delivered the lesson to the same students I have been working with all year. Last week each student was asked to step up to the front of the class and present their Fantasy/Reality Timelines to their peers. What I found most interesting was that simply because these students are the advanced members of the school population didn't mean they had a clue on how to present any type of information without being nervous and ready to fail just to get out of having to be center stage.  

This was my desired learning of the students experience after the presentation:

 MCA-Day 5: PRESENTATIONS

Students will be able to engage with their classmates and enhance their public speaking abilities by sharing their timelines.

They will gain insight to their peer’s timelines and learn to appreciate the diversity within their classroom as well as the unique goals and realities of others

Unfortunately after my experience with this lesson I realized that I can't expect students to know what they don't know simply because they are bright. I did not set up my students to speak in a public manner withoiyt being uncomfortable and I did offer them support through the lesson plan to prepare the. I do have a public speaking seminar and lesson plan that I offer to students at the end of the lesson. However, what i absolutely need to change is when this lesson on public speaking is offered to the students. There are so many interactive lesson plans within Life Skills that I now believe that public speaking should be one that is offered very early on to prepare everyone from feeling uncomfortable and compromised.