Mentor Teacher Pedagogy Analysis

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 My mentor teacher this semester is a Ball State University Alumni, and is in her 3rd year of teaching. Although she's a younger teacher, it's very evident to anyone who walks in her classroom that she 100% knows what she's doing. One of the best things that she does, and that I've learned a lot about, was the way she scaffolded. Of course I've always known about scaffolding, what purpose it serves, and why it's a good teaching tactic to use, but I just hadn't had a whole lot of teaching experience with it. 

My mentor teacher is in the middle of teaching 12 Angry Men. When she introduced the movie/play, she started the first day discussing differet crime shows, degress of murder, and the way the court system works. The days that followed included, mini-assessments over the new information, an introduction to the 12 jurors, court terminology, and a fun and engaging assignment that required students to pick characters from movies/shows and actors that they thought would best fit the given juror from the play. 

Before my mentor teacher began this part of the unit, I was teaching lessons concerned with anatomy of an argument, ethos/pathos/logos, and logical fallacies. Students needed to be presented with this information before reading 12 Angry Men so that way they would be able to better understand and engage with the text. As my mentor teacher teaches this play, she's constantly stopping to ask what the claim is or what fallacy is being used, the list just goes on and on. 

This is just one of the many examples of good scaffolding that I've been able to observe this past semester. I'm excited to take everything I learned and implement it into student teaching and my own classroom! 


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