Book Chapter Presentation

This was a good project because it gets us up in front of our peers to discuss with them something they should have read.  I like projects like this because I am shy and have a hard time getting up in front of people and talking sometimes.  I feel the more often I have to do it, the more comfortable I become and since I want to be a teacher I should probably learn to be comfortable talking in front of people.  I may not always enjoy doing the project itself, but I am always grateful for the experience and practice I get from doing the actual presentation.  My group and I spent about two hours going over the chapter and deciding what we wanted to incorporate into our discussion.  This chapter was quite long so we knew we wouldn’t be able to cover everything, but we wanted to make sure we touched on the bigger points and pick topics our peers would find interesting and relevant to their future as teachers.  Like I mentioned earlier, facilitating course content prepares us to get up in front of our future classes and teach.  We must learn the content and be confident in our knowledge of the material before we can teach it to our students.  Having to do this project prepares us for that task.  We had to read the chapter, make sure we knew what we were going to talk about and then put it together and present it in a way the rest of the class would understand.  Discussing this content with my peers prepares me to discuss content with my future classes.  It makes me a more confident speaker and helps me to practice my ‘teacher voice.’  It also teaches me to use different technology and not only rely on the familiar, but get me out of my comfort zone a little bit.  If I’m not willing to make mistakes in front of my students, I shouldn’t expect my students to take chances and potentially make a mistake.

I thought our presentation went well.  We had a good discussion with the class and many different people participated and gave their ideas.  I know personally I had some uhms, but tried to fix them once I realized that I was doing it.  I thought that we did a good job of getting the class to talk about the chapter and think about how these things will affect them as future teachers.  I was a little nervous before we started and at the beginning, but after I got going I felt better and was not as nervous.  I thought the discussion was really good, especially for the last question.  Overall I thought our presentation went well and that the class participated well.