I enjoyed seeing everyone's lessons tonight. I am always curious to see how people think and create their own lessons from scratch. I think, even with a uniform format, we still find ways to be creative and show our thinking through our lesson plans. Sorry about the technical difficulties tonight with my lesson, guys. I had no idea how to put my lesson on Blackboard! Thanks for being patient. I really enjoyed the hero lesson and I think this is something that teaches students morals and how to be good people, which is a skill that will be used throughout their entire lives.
There are three types of assessments that we learned about this evening: summative, formative, and authentic.
Summative:
These are typically given at the end of a unit or semester, depending on the lesson and age. Summative assessments are comprised of the whole with lots of different elements and parts. An example of this type of assessment is an exam.
Formative:
This type of assessment can be given each day, and it just involves the students doing something that shows what they know and how they are doing. Examples of formative assessments include exit slips and quick writes.
Authentic:
MY FAVORITE. This type of assessment relates the information/material students learn to the real world. Authentic assessments are something that the students would really do in real life. Examples of this include: making a menu after a nutrition unit or explaining how you adapt to Missouri weather after learning about animals and their adaptations.
As a teacher, it is important to have a good understanding of each of these assessments in order to make sure the students are on the right track. I feel that students take away much more from the lessons that are authentic because it is connected to real-world applications.
I think an authentic assessment for a different lesson plan that I have is for students to go home and take an inventory of their fridge. I will challenge students to write at least 15 items down and then sort them into each food group like an inventory. The food group categories would be grains, meat and beans, fruit, vegetables, and dairy. This is authentic because people take inventories of the contents in their fridge before they go to the store and buy more items.
Wednesday, April 27, 2016
Wednesday, April 20, 2016
Strategies to tap into higher-level thinking
Hello class,
Tonight's class was very interesting. I really enjoyed watching the lesson plan presentations. Even though each person does a different grade or subject, it really does tie into the fact that all of these reading strategies can be utilized effectively. It is so great to see what everyone is doing and how creative they are getting on their lesson plans in order to really reach the students. Speaking of creative. . .
I love how these recent strategies are tapping into students' creativity. I think creativity is something that does not go away as long as it is continually practiced and displayed in some way. Another way to reach student creativity is by having the higher-level thinking strategies, such as the RAFT and TPRC. Whereas RAFT is a writing strategy, TPRC is a reading strategy. Often, students are given a reading or writing task and they are immediately shutting down and annoyed. We, as teachers, should use strategies such as these in order to get students engaged again through creativity and higher-level thinking. If students create pieces of writing that are unique and personalized to them, then they will have increased motivation and make real-life connections when working on that assignment.
Tonight's class was very interesting. I really enjoyed watching the lesson plan presentations. Even though each person does a different grade or subject, it really does tie into the fact that all of these reading strategies can be utilized effectively. It is so great to see what everyone is doing and how creative they are getting on their lesson plans in order to really reach the students. Speaking of creative. . .
I love how these recent strategies are tapping into students' creativity. I think creativity is something that does not go away as long as it is continually practiced and displayed in some way. Another way to reach student creativity is by having the higher-level thinking strategies, such as the RAFT and TPRC. Whereas RAFT is a writing strategy, TPRC is a reading strategy. Often, students are given a reading or writing task and they are immediately shutting down and annoyed. We, as teachers, should use strategies such as these in order to get students engaged again through creativity and higher-level thinking. If students create pieces of writing that are unique and personalized to them, then they will have increased motivation and make real-life connections when working on that assignment.
Wednesday, April 13, 2016
New Strategy: Semantic Mapping
So, tonight we learned about semantic mapping, and I LOVE this strategy. I am just a very visual person and I constantly find myself organizing and categorizing information after brainstorming or brain dumping about a random topic.
Semantic mapping is basically the teacher choosing a topic and placing it in the center of a piece of paper. Then, students contribute and add words that come to mind that relate to the topic at hand. Once everyone includes what they would like to include on the paper, then the teacher has the students pause to observe all of the words without speaking. After a minute or two, the teacher guides the students in organizing the words into different categories. This is a great way to organize information, both on paper and in our minds. This strategy would work well on a Smart Board because the teacher could type the text in multiple text boxes and then move the words into their own categories, similar to the way we did this during class tonight.
I think this strategy would work well for many age groups. I am observing second grade and I think they would do well with this strategy. In order for them to be successful, I would need to explain what we are doing and why we were doing it. As a student, it is so frustrating to me when teachers do not explain the purpose for doing something and everyone is just wondering what in the world is going on.
An example of incorporating this into a lesson plan is to review concepts and vocabulary as a second day lesson. Say the topic is life cycles. Life cycles could be the main topic and the students could take turns adding related words to the document. Students would probably include names of animals, processes such as life and death, and so on. Then, we could categorize the animals and the processes, as well as whatever else the students contribute. This is a great higher-level thinking strategy that helps students work on analyzing.
Semantic mapping is basically the teacher choosing a topic and placing it in the center of a piece of paper. Then, students contribute and add words that come to mind that relate to the topic at hand. Once everyone includes what they would like to include on the paper, then the teacher has the students pause to observe all of the words without speaking. After a minute or two, the teacher guides the students in organizing the words into different categories. This is a great way to organize information, both on paper and in our minds. This strategy would work well on a Smart Board because the teacher could type the text in multiple text boxes and then move the words into their own categories, similar to the way we did this during class tonight.
I think this strategy would work well for many age groups. I am observing second grade and I think they would do well with this strategy. In order for them to be successful, I would need to explain what we are doing and why we were doing it. As a student, it is so frustrating to me when teachers do not explain the purpose for doing something and everyone is just wondering what in the world is going on.
An example of incorporating this into a lesson plan is to review concepts and vocabulary as a second day lesson. Say the topic is life cycles. Life cycles could be the main topic and the students could take turns adding related words to the document. Students would probably include names of animals, processes such as life and death, and so on. Then, we could categorize the animals and the processes, as well as whatever else the students contribute. This is a great higher-level thinking strategy that helps students work on analyzing.
Wednesday, April 6, 2016
Strategies: DR-TA vs GMA
A Directed Reading Thinking Activity is a reading strategy in which the format of the reading is already constructed. Teachers just have to plan where to put in the required steps. (Ruddell p. 113) The steps are as follows:
1. Select the reading assignment.
2. Determine stop-points.
3. Prepare questions to be asked at the stop-points.
4. Obtain/prepare cover sheets for students.
5. Assessments.
This strategy could also be used to help students understand an assignment from the reading. This strategy is interesting because it involved the students stopping multiple times during reading and reviewing/discussing. Usually, teachers try to limit stop-points when it comes to reading a selection.
I could see myself doing the DR-TA as a pre reading, during reading, and post reading strategy during a guided reading lesson, say, in science. Before students read a short, nonfiction text, I could begin this process and prepare the DR-TA.
A GMA, also known as a Group Mapping Activity, is a great strategy to check for comprehension. An example of this could be to retell a story and explaining that you remember what you read through basic words, pictures, and symbols. It is called a map because it is literally a visual map that helps the students remember what they read and how they have made meaning from it. I like this a lot more than, say, writing a summarizing paragraph after reading something. Group Mapping Activities do not seem like busy work, and I think students could really show their creativity with this.
I could see myself doing the group mapping activity after reading any guided reading or read-aloud book. This is just a great visual for students to see and make those connections.
1. Select the reading assignment.
2. Determine stop-points.
3. Prepare questions to be asked at the stop-points.
4. Obtain/prepare cover sheets for students.
5. Assessments.
This strategy could also be used to help students understand an assignment from the reading. This strategy is interesting because it involved the students stopping multiple times during reading and reviewing/discussing. Usually, teachers try to limit stop-points when it comes to reading a selection.
I could see myself doing the DR-TA as a pre reading, during reading, and post reading strategy during a guided reading lesson, say, in science. Before students read a short, nonfiction text, I could begin this process and prepare the DR-TA.
A GMA, also known as a Group Mapping Activity, is a great strategy to check for comprehension. An example of this could be to retell a story and explaining that you remember what you read through basic words, pictures, and symbols. It is called a map because it is literally a visual map that helps the students remember what they read and how they have made meaning from it. I like this a lot more than, say, writing a summarizing paragraph after reading something. Group Mapping Activities do not seem like busy work, and I think students could really show their creativity with this.
I could see myself doing the group mapping activity after reading any guided reading or read-aloud book. This is just a great visual for students to see and make those connections.
Creating My Lesson Plans
Anyone else struggling to make ample progress on their lesson plans? I observed for the first time in my field placement today and really enjoyed the second grade class and teacher. I feel like if you get time to talk one-on-one with your teacher, that time is pure gold. Luckily, I talked to my cooperating teacher the entire recess period about my goals in this placement and my apprehensiveness toward teaching the lesson in front of the CC supervisor. My teacher made me feel much better about it all and like I had her full support.
As far as the teaching of the lesson and creating the lesson plans, my teacher told me that she rotates between 4 weeks of Social Studies and 4 weeks of Science during the time that I observe her classroom. So, that being said, I think I will focus my lesson plans on social studies or science for second graders. I may do 5 of each. I did notice that she incorporated a lot of reading/writing activities into her economics lesson today. For example, she read a book aloud about a child with an eye patch and did a T chart about costs/benefits that the child experienced throughout the book. Then, the class related this back to economics with a fun worksheet activity.
As far as the teaching of the lesson and creating the lesson plans, my teacher told me that she rotates between 4 weeks of Social Studies and 4 weeks of Science during the time that I observe her classroom. So, that being said, I think I will focus my lesson plans on social studies or science for second graders. I may do 5 of each. I did notice that she incorporated a lot of reading/writing activities into her economics lesson today. For example, she read a book aloud about a child with an eye patch and did a T chart about costs/benefits that the child experienced throughout the book. Then, the class related this back to economics with a fun worksheet activity.
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