Pre-Lesson Reflection:
My goals, objectives, and outcomes are appropriate for students because they will be able to work in pairs, groups, and individually (once students have developed a better understanding of the material). This fits different learning styles. It will also be engaging because students are able to use technology and be social during the majority of the activities. There will also be assistance available for anyone who needs it, from fellow students or from the teacher.
Designing Instruction:
My instructional design is contextually and logically organized because it begins with discussion, then some short instruction, then group activities, then individual activity.
My instructional design uses varied instructional methods that meet individual student needs and target higher order thinking skills by allowing students to explore their own understanding prior to instruction and activities, giving them some knowledge to build on. They will also be working in groups and individually, which is varied, and their will be a lot of student choice and exploration. My instructional design aligns with research based understanding of technology integration because web quests have been suggested as good technology learning resources. It helps students master skills of using the internet for educational purposes.
Addresses:
Safe, legal, and ethical use of digital information and technology by giving them one website to explore rather than the entire internet. Digital etiquette and responsible social interactions having students work together while using technology to practice these skills. Meeting diverse needs of learners through learner-centered strategies and equitable access such as exploration and student choice. Global awareness and digital-age communication.
Planning Assessment:
My assessment tools demonstrate the performance of linked goals and/or objectives by assessing student understanding of concepts discussed throughout the entire lesson in their individual writing at the end of the lesson.
My assessment tools demonstrate student engagement in higher order thinking by having them apply their knowledge in a new way, in their own folktale. Transferring knowledge is a high order skill and individualizing the activity makes it engaging.
My assessment tools meet individual student needs by allowing students to work in groups until their understanding of the content is strong, then allowing them to work individually to display their knowledge. This allows them to have assistance and clear up and misunderstandings prior to the final assessment.
Post-lesson Reflection:
Instructional Decisions/Teaching: My implementation process included a detailed description of folktales, an outline of how I would teach the lesson in an actual classroom setting, and a small activity that my peers completed.
My first lesson focused on language arts, specifically folktales, and I used a webquest found on the internet to integrate technology. This allowed students to refine their technology skills, working on reading and writing, while still having plenty of student choice and a mix of collaboration and individual work. The link to the webquest is as follows: http://schoolweb.missouri.edu/nixa.k12.mo.us/sullivan/tales/index.htm
Assessing Prior Knowledge:
If I were teaching this with the targeted grade level students I would assess prior knowledge and experience during the introductory discussion. This is where I brought up folktales that students might be familiar with, such as Rapunzel or Hansel and Grethel. Some students may be familiar, some may not, but the class discussion should familiarize everyone with the basic elements of a folktale. To ensure it does, I will conclude the discussion by reviewing the basic elements I want students to understand, such as the moral of the folktale.If I were teaching this with the targeted grade level students I would expect to learn whether or not my students are familiar with any popular folktales or the major elements of a folktale.This information will be useful in planning for who will work together. If there are students that don't have much prior knowledge about folktales, they might be best paired with students who know folktales well.
Plans Instruction:
My goals, objectives, and outcomes are clearly stated because multiple times during the lesson I plan to reiterate the elements I am looking for students to recognize and utilize in their final product, such as main character, moral, plot, etc.My goals, objectives, and outcomes are appropriate for students because they will be able to work in pairs, groups, and individually (once students have developed a better understanding of the material). This fits different learning styles. It will also be engaging because students are able to use technology and be social during the majority of the activities. There will also be assistance available for anyone who needs it, from fellow students or from the teacher.
Designing Instruction:
My instructional design is contextually and logically organized because it begins with discussion, then some short instruction, then group activities, then individual activity.
My instructional design uses varied instructional methods that meet individual student needs and target higher order thinking skills by allowing students to explore their own understanding prior to instruction and activities, giving them some knowledge to build on. They will also be working in groups and individually, which is varied, and their will be a lot of student choice and exploration. My instructional design aligns with research based understanding of technology integration because web quests have been suggested as good technology learning resources. It helps students master skills of using the internet for educational purposes.
Addresses:
Safe, legal, and ethical use of digital information and technology by giving them one website to explore rather than the entire internet. Digital etiquette and responsible social interactions having students work together while using technology to practice these skills. Meeting diverse needs of learners through learner-centered strategies and equitable access such as exploration and student choice. Global awareness and digital-age communication.
Planning Assessment:
My assessment tools demonstrate the performance of linked goals and/or objectives by assessing student understanding of concepts discussed throughout the entire lesson in their individual writing at the end of the lesson.
My assessment tools demonstrate student engagement in higher order thinking by having them apply their knowledge in a new way, in their own folktale. Transferring knowledge is a high order skill and individualizing the activity makes it engaging.
My assessment tools meet individual student needs by allowing students to work in groups until their understanding of the content is strong, then allowing them to work individually to display their knowledge. This allows them to have assistance and clear up and misunderstandings prior to the final assessment.
From the teaching/facilitating process I learned that my lesson was relatively well thought out. While having my peers test out my lesson, I wanted to make sure to emphasize that when the students are reading their folktales, they will be choral reading in pairs. However, during my test-lesson with my peers I just had them read to themselves. It felt boring, but I am confident that the choral reading will be successful and entertaining in the actual implementation of this lesson. I also learned that I may need to provide more time when I use this in the classroom.
There were two final products, a compare and contrast worksheet (comparing two different folktales) and a student-written folktale. I did not have time for my peers to write their own folktales because that would take much more time than we were allotted. However, my rubric was tailored very closely to the requirements of the comparison worksheet and the guidelines that I set out for the student written folktale. During my real classroom lesson, I would allow students more time to search the webquest website for a folktale that they are interested in, but I pre-assigned folktales to my peers to cut down on time needed for searching and explanation.
Assessment of Learning: The modifications I made for individual needs are having students work in pairs, this allows them to read chorally, rather than individually, to keep the pace more consistent and make the process of reading the folktale more interactive and social. It also helps students who struggle in reading. Then, rather than having each pair read two folktales, the pairs combine into a group of four, and then explain their pair's folktale to the other group. This gives each group a more solid understanding of the folktale they chose because they have to explain it, and it also gives both pairs a good idea of what each folktale was about. Additionally, for students who do not like to work in groups, the final product (the student written folktale) is completed individually to ensure each student understood the content of the lesson.
I could tell that my students level of success in achieving the lessons goals will be ideal in the classroom because my implementation with my peers went so well. I genuinely felt like they had a more solid understanding of the major elements of folktales and enjoyed completing the learning processes. Because the lesson will be even more student-oriented during the real classroom implementation, I am confident that students will learn thoroughly because they will be doing a lot of exploration. Additionally, I will have the student-written folktales that will reflect clearly whether they understand capitalization and the elements that make a story a folktale.
I believe that my level of success in teaching the lesson was high because I could tell my peers learned and were engaged, even without completing all of the lesson. However, I think I should have relied on the website even more to lay out the process for my peers. When I implement this in the classroom I will go through the website with the students on a smartboard so that everyone stays together and I am not left to explain the whole lesson myself, which is close to what I did with my peers in the practice lesson.
My individual reflections support this because I felt confident in my implementation prior to completing the lesson because I knew it would support learning.
The comments from my classmates support this by giving generally positive feedback. They felt that I was successful in designing, explaining, and partially implementing my lesson for them based on their completion of my survey. They also commented on me using a note card, which I would not have had to do if I relied more on the website.
