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Current Understanding (December 2007): I have learned a lot this semester through writing lesson plans that I actually was able to teach to either the 7th grade students at LCWM or to my peers during my methods course. The planning process was very exciting as I worked to incorporate best-practices for math and as many learning styles as possible into the lessons. I also learned how important it is to be flexible with scheduling and able to adjust lessons on short notice due to unexpected things that come up in the classroom. Two experiences jump out at me as being significant in my journey to learn more about planning and instruction. The first was my experience teaching the Equivalent Fractions lesson at LCWM. It was the first time during this academic year that the students had seen fractions, and so it was partially review, but also touching on new information. I was able to guide the class through several different activities, such as recording vocabulary in their math vocabulary notebooks, working with pictures on the board to express fractions, working with fraction strips to create equivalent fractions, asking questions so that students could discover the idea of the lesson on their own, and discussing equivalent fraction examples in pairs. Because I used a variety of instructional strategies, the students were very attentive and actively participated in the lesson. I received several comments on the informal assessment that I gave regarding these various strategies, and so I will continue to use these teaching styles as I teach other lessons in their classroom. After teaching this lesson, I felt very confident in my abilities to plan and execute lessons. My lesson plan and reflection are attached as artifacts for this standard and highlight the things I have mentioned here and others. The second experience was the "discover-a-relationship" lesson I created for one of my methods classes. The lesson was designed for a high school geometry class, and was taught to my peers. Working with this lesson forced me to think outside the box while planning. Teaching lessons for students to discover a concept or relationship is hard, but also very rewarding. When lessons are taught in this style, student tend to have a better understanding on the topic because they formulated the idea themselves. The things I found most difficult in executing this lesson were not giving the answer away when students asked a question and answering the questions students asked that touched on much higher-level concepts. It highlighted how important it is to think about possible student questions and how you will respond to those questions to guide the students so they can discover the concept/relationship on their own. The lesson plan and student activity sheet are also listed as artifacts for this standard as evidence of my planning and instruction for this lesson. It is through these experiences and others that I have developed my planning and instructional styles. I will continue to experiment with different strategies and styles so that I can best accommodate students' needs and enhance their learning experience. I look forward to incorporating various technologies into the curriculum to enhance student learning as well. August 2007 Understanding: Managing a classroom can be a difficult task, especially if the subject is not as interesting to some students. This is where effective planning and instruction come into play. As teachers, we need to have a sound knowledge of our students, our subject matter, and the goals of our lessons. It is important that we think through our long-range and short-range goals for the year, and then evaluate our progress and success, and set new goals if need be. In a world that is highly driven by standardized testing, we need to make sure that we are always aware of the standards the students will be evaluated on, as well as the goals of the school district and curriculum. We can then modify our instruction styles to still cover the same material, but use varying approaches so that we reach out to all students in our classroom and encourage higher level thinking. Although I have not had a lot of practice with planning and instruction, it has been exciting to plan short lessons for my methods courses, especially when we were able to teach those lessons to actual students. There was a large learning curve in those two short hours I worked with students over the course of two days, but I was able to understand how important and difficult planning a lesson can be, especially when you are trying to reach all students and encourage higher level thinking. Baseline Understanding: There is nothing worse than being in a class where no one knows what is going on. This is why it is so important that as educators, we have our lessons planned out in advance, with all the necessary items ready when the first student walks into the classroom. This helps ensure respect and good behavior among the students as they know you are in control of the classroom. Also, when lessons are planned, it is easier to assess the student’s reaction and understanding to the material. Return to Standard 7 |
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(507) 625-8256 l karipratt@charter.net |
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