Hannah W. Phase 3

Assessing Prior Knowledge:

When deciding what to do for our assessment of prior knowledge, we chose to show a trailer of the movie that was made based on our book we would be reading in class. The video was a good introduction that would work well to get students excited about the book, but if they haven't seen the movie, then it probably didn't make very much sense to them. I believe the students enjoyed the movie, but I don't believe that it really assessed any skills that we were going to be requiring them to do for the assignment. In the future, I would still use the video because I think that it is engaging and gets students excited, but I would also require them to do some type of retelling of a story as well to ensure that they have prior knowledge on how to successfully do that. I believe this would be key to ensure that they will be prepared for the new content that the lesson will be bringing.

Planning Instruction:

When planning our instruction we decided to first choose a book that we would like to use for instruction. After that we decided what type of skills we wanted to assess and from there came up with ideas of activities that we could do with the book. The book tended to be a little long and I think we could come up with a more exciting and interactive way to read through the book as a class. In the future I would first decide what type of skills I would like to assess and then come up with the best way to help my students learn those skills. When planning instruction I think that I would try to come up with multiple activities to help the students practice the skill before having them come up with their own project.

Designing Instruction:

When we were designing our instruction, we first chose a book and then decided to go from there. After we chose a book we decided what type of lesson we were going to teach based off of the book and from there decided which computer programs and other technological devices we could use to enhance this lesson. Based off of my experience in this class, in the future I would first choose what type of content I was going to be covering with my lesson. I think it would have been more effective to have this lesson as an introduction to a unit such as weather, instead of just have it as a random lesson about a children's literature book.

Planning Assessment:

After teaching this lesson and watching other groups do their lessons I learned that it is important to consider all aspects of the lesson and think of different possible ways that you can assess your students. It is also important to keep in mind all the different aspects that you can include on a rubric that will help ensure that your students are grasping the concept. I think that it would also be helpful to have more than one assessment taken for certain types of lessons so that you have alternate ways of seeing your students' progress since they all learn in different ways. In the future I would consider this when planning my assessment and possibly come up with more than just one rubric for the entire lesson.

Instructional Decisions/Teaching:

After watching other classmates teach their lessons, I've learned that it is effective to sometimes break up a lesson into different parts and have students do more than one activity in the course of a lesson instead of having one long part to it. I also saw that it was effective to communicate with your co-teachers and plan who is going to say what and what part of the lesson each person is going to cover. Looking back, I believe instruction would have gone much smoother and less confusing for the students if my co-teachers and myself had planned that aspect out more thoroughly.

Assessment of Learning:

Assessing students' created products whether it be a presentation or another type of assignment, I believe it is important to assess more than one skill or find a way to assess a particular skill in more than one way. When students are allowed to come up with multiple ways of portraying their learned knowledge and skills then they are more likely to come up with something creative on their own that is suitable to their learning style. In the future, I would also implement self-assessments and group-assessments as a closure to the lesson. I believe that this can be very applicable in certain situations and would be helpful in the students reflecting on their work and contributions to projects.