Reflection on lesson planning

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 21^st 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 21^st 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 21^st 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)
  I need to ensure that at the culminating activity I address this and ask that students to write a small reflection on the process of creative writing and what they learned.

         Communication and Collaboration in The 21^st 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 21^st 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 21^st 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

 

Reflection on expectations for clinical practice:

The Teach-Now program thus far has been a grueling ground for me. It has shaped my learning and teaching in a multitude of ways. The technology drive it has created in us 21^st century teachers has been exhausting but rewarding. Having come to the final lap looking at the clinical teaching ahead I am glad I have spent time and effort learning many skills that could be applied in my classes.

In my area of teaching i.e. learning support I’m constantly in touch with the students having being in their classes for co- teaching I’m confident of the students I will be dealing with. The class I will be teaching will be a study skills class that my mentor takes. I have observed him during these lessons and I have an idea of how his lessons flow. Hence the environment I will work in is not new in anyway. During my collaborative meeting he shared that he expected through classroom management I needed to ensure things go smoothly. He suggested taking seating plans into consideration to promote optimal student learning. In order to manage disruptions he shared that it’s important to explain the classroom rules clearly to the students. Use the tally system to let students know what is expected of them and let them know the consequences. He also Indicated that it is important that students are treated with respect when disciplining them ,so that they are not embarrassed in front of others.

He advised that I connect lessons with the previous lesson with previews so that the students will make connections. Having formative assessments at the beginning and end of lesson will ensure their understanding this can be done by way of drawing a picture, acting, writing, and questioning. He stressed the importance of individualized instruction as much as possible.  Differentiating through reading levels using the map and lexile scores will ensure students learn.

My concern for the clinicals will be the time schedule. I need to plan ahead as the interim holidays, summer holidays are coming up. I will have to cover 200hrs of teaching of  six informal and three formal evaluations. In addition my Praxis tests are scheduled for April and May. Hence the work load will definitely increase in order to keep up with the teach-now requirements. Therefore to stay on target I made myself a plan with the lesson plans I’ll teach informally and formally aligning them to the Clinical rubric for Intasc standards along with dates and session times. I believe this will be useful for my mentor as well because he can plan his days and sessions.

My mentor Mr. Wasko has been very supportive. As we all work as a team in our learning support unit we have the opportunity of communicating with each other when needed. He has many years of experience as a Special education teacher and I would look forward to learning more strategies that are practical to be used in classroom settings. He has ideas on varied resources that he uses in class and his suggestions will enable me to expand my teaching. I would reflect on his comments and incorporate suggestions for further improvement in every lesson.

REFLECTION ON IMPORTANCE OF LESSON PLANNING & PREPARATION

The importance of having a lesson plan cannot ever be overstated. Having a lesson plan is the map to achieving the objectives of a lesson. As Gini Cunningham in her book ASCD -New Teacher's Companion says   “Every day is special, every day students need to learn, and every day you must have a plan.” (Cunnigham)

                 I always felt I have this excellent opportunity of supporting students through inclusion, which gives me an opportunity to observe a variety of teachers and their teaching strategies. I have been able to see which strategies and lessons were successful and those that were not. Hence when I chose the teachers for further observation I picked the best that had lesson plans that made a difference in student learning. It was also observed those teachers who did not have lesson plans followed a text book coverage method or worksheets.” Although years of experience can shore up less-than-complete planning, nothing compares to well-planned lessons. Comprehensive plans increase the likelihood that lessons run smoothly, so that students receive quality instruction.” (Cunnigham)

Hence in setting off to do my plans I wanted each class to be an inspirational and motivational experience for the students. Considering the challenges they face in many of the regular subject classes, I wanted to treat each student uniquely for their abilities and make them feel they were gifted. Personally I’m a very detail oriented person, who wants everything planned ahead as much as possible. Thus creating the lesson plans required some extra work. However I must say at one point I enjoyed it so much as great ideas were coming in and I had to restrain myself from trying to do too much!

Although many of the lesson plans I observed did not have any written format for differentiation, the teachers at times differentiated lessons based on learning styles. This enabled all students being able to receive something in that lesson. However when differentiating it’s important consider the product, the technology, the process and student interests wherever possible to encourage maximum learning.

The unit plan being the bigger map of the lesson plans brings all the learning in class to perspective. As it consists of concepts and learning goals over a period of time it can stretch to over two weeks. My lessons I believe will be done over a course of two weeks with the summative assessment. The inclusion of skills and desired outcomes keeps the teaching and learning focused. The school unit planner is in the Atlas Rubicon system where any teacher can access the contents of another teacher’s plan. This enables the school to work cooperatively and design cross curricular units that bring wholesome learning to all students in every subject.

                Overall the most valuable section in lesson planning I believe is the reflection. I noticed that on the Atlas System there is a section for reflection of the unit. The teachers have reflected and thought what additional things would assist to make the unit better. I would add that to every lesson to see how the technology used assisted the lesson, whether materials used were appropriate or changes noted for further fine tuning for the future. “Great lessons and well-planned units increase knowledge and leave imprints of competence and understanding.” (Cunnigham)

 

Works Cited

Cunnigham, G. (n.d.). Lesson Plans and Unit Plans the basis for Instruction. In G. Cunningham, ASCD -New Teacher's Companion. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.