Module 4: Reciprocal Teaching Critique

The first reciprocal teaching video I watched was a 2^nd grade class making predictions. The video was broken down into sections: preview the text, make a prediction, clarify your work, ask questions, determine importance, and summarize the text. The students were reading both fiction and non-fiction books. I liked how the students said which type of book they were reading before they started talking about their predictions. I also liked how each student read their predictions and then stated “I confirmed/rejected my prediction because…”. In addition, I think it was great that students wrote down questions before reading and then shared their findings during the lesson. Overall, I think this was a great reciprocal teaching lesson.

The second reciprocal teaching lesson I watched was involving 5^th grade, where the teacher was the one videotaping. The students here were “teaching” the lesson, but the teacher definitely helped/guided them if they seemed to be struggling a bit (which I think was great to see). In my opinion, this might have been a group that seemed to be struggling a bit. The teacher would ask small, guiding questions to start conversation. Overall, the students definitely knew their material and how to explain everything.

The third reciprocal teaching lesson I watched seemed to be several years older than my previous 2 videos, but just as beneficial. This lesson was done with a group of 5 young students at a reading table. The reading teacher read the book in parts as the students followed along. After reading a page or 2, she asked a main idea question and the students all answered and started discussing from there. This question definitely helped guide students. One thing I liked about this video was that it looked somewhat professionally done. There was a narrative voice explaining the whole reciprocal teaching process and overall I believe this just made the video very clear and easy to follow.