2013-2014

UMU Lesson Plan Template

Name: Cassidy Ott

Grade Level: College freshmen and sophomores
Subject: Introduction to Education

Date: 4/17/14
Class Period: T & R 12:30-2:10
Lesson # & Title: Chapter 5: Priming the Positive
Environment
Big Idea/Lesson Focus: To teach students to nurture a healthy learning environment by demonstration,
facilitating, and motivating.
Essential Question: How do I prime a healthy learning environment?
Context for Learning:
The class consists of college level freshmen and sophomores, ranging from ages 18-20. We have about 30 students (15
females and 13 males), whom are looking to have a career in education.
Function of the Lesson (check all that apply):
Introduce New Skill or Content
Review
Practice
Remediation/Reteaching
Learning Objectives: The students will learn how to support a positive learning environment including three major
goals of demonstrating, facilitating, and motivating good behavior.
Academic Language (or A.L. Demands, A.L. Objectives):
Instructional Materials and Support: Computer, SmartBoard, Trivia game, spot the difference game, illusion,
PowerPoint, and hand out.
Prior Knowledge: Basics about U-Turn teaching, how to teach students to love learning, and how to build trust with
students. Also how to build a collaborative and interactive classroom.
Assessments:
Assessment(s) during the lesson: Before we begin with our presentation and lesson, we will ask if they
remember the first group presenting about using positive reinforcement in the classroom, and being careful
about not discouraging the student. We can also ask questions like Have any of you had any experience of
teachers discouraging you? Do you remember ever resenting a teacher because of this?
Assessment(s) at the end of the lesson: We can go over our fill-in-the-blank hand-outs and make sure they
filled them out. We can go over the key points as well.
Strategies & Learning Tasks
Introduction: We will start the lesson by playing the song Pompeii by Bastille to calm the students down, and make
sure theyre paying attention. Trivia game (explain that the trivia game gets students thinking more critically, making
them eager to learn about the lesson). After this we will give the students a hand out that has the notes from the
chapter with missing blanks, so they will have to fill it in themselves. This way we know they will pay attention.
Presentation/Explicit Instruction: PowerPoint where we will explain how to promote a positive environment in
three ways: demonstrating, facilitating, and motivating.
Structured Practice/Exploration: We will use the spot the difference activity, and give some assistance to students
who may be struggling.
Guided Practice/Specific Feedback: We can help the student achieve all of the fill in the blanks so they have the
thorough notes and can study/learn effectively.
Independent Practice/Application: The student will actually fill out the fill in the blank sheet.

Closure: We will review the main points made, as well as giving any examples where the material may have been
confusing.
Differentiation, Individualized Instruction, and Assessment: Ask if anyone has any questions about the material,
and if we could explain anything further. We could also ask if anything from the lesson is relevant in their lives.
Research and Theory: Adolescent development theory (cognitive and behavioral), Blooms Taxonomy

Here is the Planning Commentary for the Lesson Plan for AYA/MCH 175 re: edTPA
1. Content Focus
In this lesson, we will teach students how to promote good behavior through positivity rather than negativity.
There are three aspects to it, the first being demonstration. Students are always looking at the teacher and observing
what they do. Since you are being a role model for students, you really have to make sure you are being an example for
the type of behavior you desire, such as not swearing or yelling. This also means you should have a positive attitude in
the classroom. This means you shouldnt complain about having to teach or about other students/teachers behaviors.
You attitude is contagious, so make sure you have a great one. Another aspect of demonstrating is making sure you
really focus on good behavior. Even if a student shows the slightest good behavior, you should reward them with a
compliment, smile, or something of the sorts.
Another aspect to promoting positive learning environment is by facilitating. There are five ways to do this: by
expecting good behavior, giving students the benefit of the doubt, making directions clear, using transitions, and by
keeping your students accountable. By expecting good behavior and goodness from students, you will probably receive
respect and kindness in return from them. If you go into a classroom with a mindset that all the students will
misbehave and be rude, then they might pick up on this and act in defiance. If a student does have bad behavior, giving
them the benefit of the doubt is very beneficial in the end. The student will feel like you are trying to help them rather
than get them into trouble. Making your directions clear can really help students achieve what you expect in a timelier
manner. If you ramble directions quickly, students will almost never comprehend everything youre telling them, which
results in them asking again. So instead of having to repeat yourself, you should simply slowdown in giving your
directions and make sure every student is doing as told. The next part of facilitating is using transitions to make sure
your students get to where they need to be in an effective manner. Using music to do this is a perfect way to do so, for
example if your students are moving into the reading part of class, put a popular song on and when the music stops,
the students should know to start focusing on the material for the day. Holding your students accountable for their
behavior is another part. When students are working in groups, you should use the lean in and listen technique,
which means you stop by a group and listen to what theyre talking about to make sure theyre on topic and
understand what theyre doing. You can also do drive-bys which is the same as leaning in and listening, just briefer.
As a teacher, you shouldnt order students around, but simply guide them in the right direction. Using the techniques
previously mentioned, you can do this in an effective manner. By catching a students mistakes early, you can make
sure they avoid the hardships of trying to re-learn material a different way.
The next, and last, aspect is being a motivator. At every chance you get you should give students positive
feedback for something they did correctly, even if it is something as small as a smile. This could give students the
confidence boost they need to continue doing work and behaving correctly. Some ways you can give positive feedback
is by giving mini-messages to students, which is just sending a personal note thanking them for behaving or
congratulating them on a good test score. You could also have students earn their recess by giving them a letter in the
word recess each time they behave or do something good, then once the whole word is spelled out, they get extra
recess time. You could also do super hero awards by letting students nominate each other for being good. This way
the students will look at their peers in a different way, and will respect each other more. Another example could be
inviting students who have shown exemplary behavior to a breakfast of champions, where you provide donuts or the
breakfast of choice. These all motivate students to behave the way you want them to by giving them incentives.
One last part of our lesson plan includes talking about dealing with students with disciplinary issues. As a
teacher, you should never single a student out in class because they will feel rebellious and start to resent you as a
teacher. You should always keep calm and simply ask to see them after class or in the hallway. By doing this, you can
calmly explain why they behaved wrong, and ask them how they think they should fix it. By asking them, you are giving
them the power to behave how they want, but also let on to how you think they should behave.
2. Respond to bolded and italicized PROMPTS in the next sectiononce again BE THOROUGH! So be sure to answer prompts
a), c), and d) from Knowledge of Students to Inform Teaching and prompts a) and b) from Supporting Young Adolescent
Learning in the Discipline.
Knowledge of Students to Inform Teaching
For each of the categories listed below (ad), describe what you know about your students prior learning and experiences with respect
to the central focus of the learning segment. What do they know, what can they do, and what are they learning to do? Consider the
variety of learners in your class who may require different strategies/support.

a.

Teachers probably dont know what they should be like to make their students pay attention to class; they do not know
what they should do at the beginning of class, what they should do when their students are distracted from learning
during the lesson. In this class, students can learn about the skills which teachers try to use to teach their students to

c.

d.

nurture a healthy learning environment. When they learn about it, they might realize that the methods teachers use
really are for the best of the students.
Students among this group have some background on this chapter by going through it on the other end of the
education spectrum, as students. The students have gone through the negative and the positive of the topics discussed
in our lesson through many different schools with many different teachers. There are some foreign exchange students
in this group whose culture may also affect how they have experienced this.
In this stage of their lives, the students are developing a lot morally. A big part of their moral; development is being
generally idealistic, and desiring to make the world a better place, becoming socially useful. Students are at the stage of
their student career as future educators where they want to make an impact on society by influencing their kids. They
have to be an example for their future students so that they will grow to be moral and citizens that will later on repeat
the cycle as educators or whatever career they will choose.

Supporting Young Adolescent Learning in the Discipline

Respond to prompts af below to explain how your plans support your students learning of history/social studies related to the central
focus of the learning segment. As needed, refer to the instructional materials you have included to support your explanations. Cite
research and theory, including concepts addressing young adolescent learning, to support your explanations.

a.

b.

We used a variety of attention getters that will get the attention of the students in the class, therefore making them
more engaged in our lesson plan. For instance, most kids have seen Disney movies, so we decided to incorporate that
into our lesson to grab their attention and also keep it throughout the whole lesson plan. Also, we are using other
groups lessons in our lesson because that will bring back memories of their past learning experiences and apply them
to our new lesson that we are teaching. We also like to use materials like a fill-in-the-blank handout. This keeps the
students engaged and almost HAVE to pay attention, especially if we tell the class we are collecting the handouts at the
end of the lesson for a grade, this will enforce them to pay attention to each slide and they will pay attention through
the whole presentation.
Students can relate this topic back to the other groups presentations and what the learned from their presentations.
For instance, the first group presented and talked about Priming the Positive Environment. This is our topic and we
can relate things we are doing in our topic back to their lesson so their prior knowledge is also incorporating into our
lesson along with previous lessons. For new knowledge, we can teach in our own ways how we did this lesson plan on
our own and how we learned from it and use various teaching methods in our teaching of the lesson to the students.

SIGN HERE I _____________________________________have designed a LESSON PLAN for teaching and am aware of the edTPA
PLANNING COMMENTARY prompts.