Reflection on lesson planning:
The 3
lesson plans in unit 7 were based on the English Language Arts Standard for writing- CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.7.3.B
“Use narrative techniques, such as dialogue, pacing, and description, to
develop experiences, events, and/or characters.”
I
focused on the following objectives for my lessons in order to achieve these
student performances:
Objectives:
Ø
SWBAT discover the difference between direct and
indirect dialogue used in writing.
Ø SWBAT create character identities through
dialogue.
Ø SWBAT
write detailed directions to communicate an experience
Ø SWBAT incorporate pacing to develop plot events in a story using a story
mountain
Ø
SWBAT create a story
using descriptive words and pacing.
The 21st century skills framework
requires “the development of core academic subject knowledge and understanding
among all students.” (P21) . My lesson plans were designed for students in the
Learning support Study skills program to be able to access requirements in
their core subjects. Although these students are in the regular language
classes they need assistance to fill the gaps due to varied learning needs to
be on par with the grade level students. As the 21st Century
framework requires essential skills such as critical thinking,
problem solving, communication and collaboration to enable student success, on
analyzing my learning plans I noted the following:
Creativity &
Innovation requires that students use a wide
range of idea creation techniques. In my lessons the students are required to
create a small moment story with dialogue, description and pacing to
communicate a story where prompts are given to assist their thinking. Although the framework requires them to “Create new and worthwhile ideas
(both incremental and radical concepts)”(P21) ,considering
their needs firstly having the prompts
from the narrative grid will give them a head start however I could also be
limiting their creativeness if they had more ideas than the prompts and if they were asked to something
new altogether. I could have also included peer review for their final product
for the purposes of refining and analyzing to improve their creative efforts.
Another aspect
of the creativity and innovation is that students are able to communicate their
creativity with others and be open to feedback and input.
There were two group activities that the students were able to
communicate their creativity with one another. In lesson one they developed a
dialog between two characters and presented it to class. In lesson two they
will pair up once again to write detailed directions to communicate to their
partner how to make a burger. They will be able to discuss what details they
missed out on when working on the directions. However I think giving them a more open
ended task for the summative with specific guidelines would help them to
further develop their originality.
I would like to help them to
understand that “failure is an opportunity to learn & creativity and
innovation is a long-term, cyclical process of small successes and frequent
mistakes” (P21) after
the summation of the activities. Many students are fearful of creativity as
they would feel a failure. I would want to encourage them to be fearless in this
area.
· Critical Thinking and Problem Solving is also an area that I have focused in these lessons. I developed the critical thinking process on the following lines of student performances throughout the three lessons :
The areas of student performances I
concentrated on were:
·
-Knowledge: Students will
be able to discover the difference
between direct and indirect dialogue.
·
-Comprehension: Students
will be able to describe using
detail to communicate an experience.
·
-Application: Students
will be able to apply the process of
pacing and dialog to write narratives.
·
-Synthesis: Students will
be able to create a small moment
story using descriptive words, dialog and pacing.
The objective in my second lesson was to write
detailed directions to communicate and experience. I believe through the
tactile learning experiment they will be able to comprehend that detail in
description is necessary in writing.
In addition another of my objectives in my third lesson
was that students will be able to apply pacing and details to a create small
moment writing task. Part of critical thinking is to reflect critically on learning experiences and processes.
Even as students are guided through this activity I would expect them to listen
– think- feel and understand through the visuals and videos how in reality they
would feel when reading a story. Hopefully this will filter into their writing
when they are asked to apply their
knowledge in using dialogue, description and pacing in their summative task present
their understanding through the creation of a short story which will be
presented in written form and digital media. They would have to problem solve with
non-familiar problems in both
conventional and innovative ways when they work with digital media.
It is important that in these lessons that the
students know that writing is a complex system that involves many parts to have
an overall outcome. Even as the 21st century framework defines this
as “Use systems thinking- Analyze how parts of a whole interact with each other
to produce overall outcomes in complex systems”-
(P21)
Communication and Collaboration in The 21st
century skill framework requires
“Use
communication for a range of purposes (e.g. to inform, instruct, motivate and
persuade).
-Utilize
multiple media and technologies, and know how to judge their effectiveness a
priori as well as assess their impact.-Communicate
effectively in diverse environments (including multi-lingual)” (P21)
In considering the above and understanding that the students in the
classroom today are digital natives ,it is important to recognize as rapid
changes are happening in the world of technology using it wisely in the
classroom can bring in another dimension to learning. In my lesson plans my
instruction would be mainly through power points, videos and digital
applications. All my lesson instructions were done on a power point to enable
student understanding visually. The videos were incorporated as an auditory and
visually learning tool. Hence I could say I have used media and technology
skills to inform, instruct & motivate my students. Varying
the technology is important to assess its effectiveness. In my lesson plans the
students use the storyboard in a summative assessment to create a story.I would think of incorporating more technology in formative assessments in the next line of lessons.
I would also explore further in time to
come in incorporating relevant technology to enhance student learning as the
students and I gain gradual confidence in its use.
In communication in the 21st century skills frame work it requires students to “Articulate thoughts and ideas effectively using oral, written and nonverbal communication skills in a variety of forms and contexts.” (P21)In my lesson plans student communication has been worked into a class summing up activity where students present a dialog.In lesson 1, they present it with expression to communicate a cartoon dialog they created. In lesson 2 the students read directions to a partner to complete making a burger thus communication will be once again encouraged in this activity.
Overall I believe there are some aspects I still need to incorporate into
my lesson plans as noted earlier such as peer review, more open ended creative
tasks, reflections & varied technology in their lessons to build a more comprehensive
learning to prepare them for the 21st century complex life and work
environments.
Bibliography
P21. (n.d.). P21. Retrieved 3 22, 2015, from
Partnership for 21st Century Skills:
http://www.p21.org/about-us/p21-framework/60
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