Luke Orlando

This artifact was created as a component of my student teaching internship through East Stroudsburg University. For this project, I chose to analyze two assignments I had taught during my placement. The first was an alternative project in which students rewrote fairy tales into modern versions. They were to do this by making comics on poster board which were then presented to the class. The purpose was to develop meaning-making skills. The second was a media literacy assignment in which students created sales pitches to try to convince their peers of a topic. They presented these to the class and attempted to get their peers to "buy" their product or idea. Their peers then assessed the sales pitch for persuasive techniques like bandwagon, selection bias, appeals to authority or emotion, and so on. During my reflections on these topics, I point out that even badly done projects can become a learning experience. Even though several students attempted to subvert the lesson by using conspiracy theorist rhetoric and bullying language based on the 2017 political climate, I was able to use their joke as a genuine learning moment for the class by talking to them about how those methods, while not ethical, do in fact work on millions of people every day. Through these artifacts, I learned that challenges create opportunities and that negative behaviors do not always create negative lessons.  At the end of the artifact, I include student feedback forms that rate my performance as a student teacher. I include both positive and negative reviews and reflect deeply on how the students in my class perceived my ability to manage the class. I learned that my soft spot for the more behaviorally challenging students caused well-behaved students to resent my classroom management techniques. This shows my willingness to improve and take criticism seriously.