Reflection - Advertising (04/06/15 - 90mins)

I had the opportunity to run a lesson on advertising which particularly focussed on - What makes a
good advertisement?. The two aims of the lesson were: 1. That students will understand what
techniques are used in effective advertising and 2. That students will create their own effective
poster ad. This lesson followed an English comprehension lesson run by N which introduced
students to persuasive and expositional texts.
The transition from English comprehension to talking about advertising seemed to work well
because students were already thinking about persuasive techniques. The beginning slide (see
portfolio for powerpoint slides) encouraged students to offer their own opinions about - what an ad
is, some examples of ads that they were familiar with, tag lines from ads etc. I then asked students
to turn to the person next to them and discuss what makes a good ad. These answers were then
shared with the class. There were many opinions and answers offered at this time and students
seemed engaged with the topic. I found it encouraging that students were excited about offering
their thoughts and opinions and that there wasnt the silence that I was worried about. I had always
been worried that I wouldnt have the capability to be able to engage students at the start of a
lesson. This experience showed me that asking the right open questions can be the key to helping
students to engage with the topic.
We moved on to looking at the powerpoint I had prepared in order to further scaffold students
learning. Using the acronym A.I.D.A - Attention, Interest, Desire, Action - we looked at particular
examples of good ads that incorporated these techniques. When I was preparing the powerpoint, I
found it a struggle to come up with a simple way to describe what a target audience was. However,
I think that the nutella ad example worked well to describe the different audiences ads can appeal
to. Being able to look at examples of good ads and the techniques they used visually engaged
students and gave them a reference point on which to base their thoughts and opinions. For a list of
specific questions used - see powerpoint slides in portfolio. I was originally worried that this part of
the lesson which involved more explicit teaching would disengage students after a while. The use of
a simple acronym (A.I.D.A) helped to make the information concise and accessible for all students
and this was confirmed by the fact that the students could repeat the acronym concepts back to me
successfully. I tried my best to validate the responses students had by either repeating their answer,
summarising or saying yes.
Having explored What makes a good advertisement?, I then explained that students were to create
their own poster ad (A3 paper) which advertised either a toothbrush or a stapler. I encouraged them
to be creative, make it eye catching and make me want to buy your product. In my lesson plan, my
assessment expectations for this lesson were formative. R suggested that creating a rubric would
make the assessment more concrete and would help to let students know what was expected of
them (see rubric in portfolio). This suggestion really helped me to see that students need clear

outcomes when it comes to tasks. This was confirmed further as I was walking around the
classroom observing students work as they kept making sure that what they were putting on their
poster ad would fill the criteria of the rubric. Students did not finish their work this lesson (which was
expected) so it will be important for me to recap what is expected of them - using the rubric - in the
next follow on lesson.
I found it hard to think about how to conclude this lesson. My lesson plan outlined that I would recap
the A.I.D.A acronym and remind the students that they would have another opportunity to finish their
poster ad. I found that in the actual lesson my recapping was very quick and not very well planned. I
hadnt thought enough about how to clearly communicate to students that the lesson had ended and
how to involved them in the recapping. By getting students to repeat the acronym back to me would
have helped consolidate the information further and would have aided their memorisation of it. Rs
feedback (see portfolio) confirmed that I did indeed rush the ending of this lesson because I didnt
make sure all students were listening before recapping/ending the lesson. Further, I didnt think
about what students were going to do with their work after the lesson had finished as so students
were at a loss as to what to do when I asked them to pack their desks up.
The most challenging part of this lesson was classroom management. The students were fairly
restless - probably because it was the end of the day - and this made it hard to gain their attention
for a substantial amount of time. N and I had decided to try a particular attention grabbing technique
which was to put our hands up and we expected the students to mirror us by putting their hands up
too and also to stop talking. This technique had varying results today - sometimes it was effective
and sometimes it wasnt. I found that I had to point out particular students who were being noisy
(mention them by name) which seemed to quiet them down for a while. On reflection, I should have
been more deliberate about pointing out the good behaviour of other students so that the noisy
students had something to aspire to. R suggested that I should aim to try as many different attention
gaining techniques in my future lessons as I can while I am on placement. I think that this would
really help me to see which techniques work well and which ones dont.
Overall, I was really happy with how this lesson turned out. It achieved the aims that I had originally
envisioned for students and generally students seemed engaged and excited about the topic. I was
particularly encouraged that I managed to project my voice as this was something I was worried
about. Some general things that I would like to improve on for my next lesson would be encouraging students who do the right thing, gaining students attention more quickly, being more
clear at the conclusion of a lesson and defining formative assessment in a clearer way for students
(and also for my benefit too).