3.6 – Synchronous Activity Guide, Screencast-O-Matic Guide, and Think Aloud Procedure Guide
In preparation for the Peer Microteaching episode you will teach to your PMG between June 29-July 1, we’ll devote some time to learning more about the process itself. We’ll begin by reviewing two procedural documents that explain how you’ll create a video Think Aloud of your PMG teaching experience. Those are the Think Aloud Procedure Guide and the Screencast-O-Matic Guide. You should also take this opportunity to review the Synchronous Activity Guide (Links to an external site.), which provides details on your peer microteaching assignment. Reviewing these three guides now will give you enough time to ask any questions you may have prior to conducting your peer microteaching learning episode in week 3 of our course. As a reminder, any technical questions should be posted to our Technical Assistance Forum and any other questions to our General Questions Forum.
We have observed teachers Pei-ni, Amy, and Magara reflect on their teaching experiences using what is called a Think Aloud Protocol. When we talk out loud about our teaching experiences it helps us to reflect critically on our teaching practices, and the results of those practices. This is what we will do after our peer microteaching activity. The following guides will help us do this.
Think Aloud Procedure Guide (Links to an external site.): This guide will help you plan, develop, test, record, and publish your 5-10 minute reflection on your microteaching experience. It is also located in the Course Guides, Documents, and Forms section of our Resourcesblock on the main page.
Screencast-O-Matic Guide for Think Alouds (Links to an external site.): The Think Aloud Procedure Guide explained the technique you will use for reflection of your Peer Microteaching Episode. This guide explains how to use the technology for recording the Think Aloud. You can also find this in the Course Guides, Documents, and Forms section of our Resources block on the main page.
This is the order in which you will complete these activities:
- Determine the date and time for your peer microteaching activity.
You and members of your Peer Microteaching Group (PMG) will teach your learning episodes to each other during our third week together. As a group, you should determine a time and date when you all can meet together to share your respective teaching episodes. - Schedule one session, not multiple sessions.
Each of you will teach a 10-minute episode, so you’ll want to devote the requisite amount of time for all of you to teach with some built-in time of approximately 5-10 minutes between teaching sessions for each of you playing the role of students to provide feedback to teacher. We suggest you schedule one meeting time rather than several.
- Make arrangements using your PMG Discussion Forum.
You can use your Peer Microteaching Group (PMG) Forum for work out these arrangements. You can find your PMG Discussion Forum in the Forums for Group Communication on our main page.
PMG Teaching Episode Process
During this peer microteaching session each of you will teach a learning episode of approximately ten minutes in duration to your peers, who will be acting as your “students”. As students you will also be providing your “teacher” feedback on the teaching using our CLASSRoad Startalk Evidence Form (Links to an external site.). You will find detailed information on this activity in the Synchronous Activity Guide (Links to an external site.) found in our Resources block on the left side of the main page of our course. We’ll discuss this more in Module 4.
You must conduct your peer microteaching sessions between June 29 and July 1. Your Think Aloud Reflection on your peer microteaching experience is due July 5 so it is important that you conduct your peer microteaching session no later than July 1. This will ensure you have enough time to incorporate your peer feedback in your reflection.
To give you a better sense of how to construct your Think Aloud, please watch this Think Aloud from Ryan Lower, a teacher of Chinese, who was a member of our 2014 CLASSRoad Startalk cohort. As you watch his reflective Think Aloud, note where he has placed his webcam and his content so that he doesn’t cover his materials with his image. See how he has all his materials readily available so that his Think Aloud flows well. Notice also how Ryan uses his Think Aloud to explain why he chose specific content for his lesson, how he reflects on his synchronous teaching experience and how he incorporates his “students'” feedback in his reflection. Consider: While Ryan’s Think Aloud exceeds the 10-minute guideline, we strongly urge you to keep your Think Aloud to 10 minutes or less.