I had wonderful students (my peers) they were attentive, cooperative when they were asked to work together, and eager to share ideas. If only their teacher would have remembered to take a breath before starting the lesson, she might have remembered that this was a 15 min lesson not a 20 min lesson. Time was not my friend. The number one thing I learned from this time crunch was simply to calm down before starting. I was in such a rush handing things out and setting my computer up that I wasn't focused on the task at hand, which was teaching!
But it wasn't all bad. My choices of learning activities went over very well. Students were given a GLO and SLO from the Program of Studies and asked to come up with an activity that would be meaningful to students. My students came up with wonderful examples, that connected the students lives to the curriculum. One group made a math activity, in which they would represented algebraic expressions with Pokemon cards.
If I were to do this lesson again I would (set the right amount of time on my timer) build in more assessment in addition to the observational assessment I did. During the group work time I would have given them three tokens. One to indicate "were working leave us alone", one for "help", and one for "done" so that i wouldn't be disturbing any great group discussion. I would also have given some sharing time after students had worked on the word map so that everyone had a chance to fill everything in and everyone was on the same page.
According to Twitter, my students found the activities about meaningful learning meaningful, I'd call that a success. So I'll leave you with this: ALWAYA REMEMBER TO TAKE A BREATH!