April Barry

AC 636 Reflective Narrative

Planning

When planning a lesson plan or unit, you, as the teacher, have to know what your

students currently know so you know what your lesson(s) should focus on or center around. You

also need to know what students can do and what they are learning in order to know if your

teaching methods are working or not. Learning all of this information can be gathered from

observations of their conversations during class, recess, questioning the students, filling out a

KWL chart, quizzes, projects/assignments, and interactions during free time, lunch, recess before

school, after school, throughout the school day, and different forms of notes. The discovery of

what you want the students to learn isnt really up to the individual teacher but really is

predetermined through state standards (in our case WMELS and Common Core). Also within the

carious school districts, there are set curriculums for most subjects that either tell you what to

teach or give the general idea. Granted there are other ways to teach the subjects but having

guidelines to a helpful tool. A big thing I found helpful for my lessons, was having visuals. It

didnt matter if the visual was something I wrote out on an anchor chart, used a PowerPoint, or

created a smartboard file for. The students always had something to look at to help them stay

focused and to give them concrete pictures/words to go with what I was teaching them. For me

to learn what the students knew about the various lessons I taught, I would ask them what does it

mean or what is it. For examples in fall 2015, I did a lesson on visualization with reading.

Before I gave them the definition of visualization or even examples, I asked them to tell me what

it means. Doing this told me whether they knew what the word meant or not. Besides asking

them what something is, Ive asked my CTs for lesson ideas. This past field experience (spring
2016) my CT actually gave me charts that showed the topics for reading (letter), math

(number/topic), and integrated material/topic. This was helpful in knowing how long each topic

is covered in all areas but also gave me a focus for designing my lessons. When preparing my

lessons, I knew that for instructional strategies there would be questioning, scaffolding and

modeling based on what was planned in my lessons. Every lesson had questions that lead the

students through the lesson and that also guided their thinking. If there were certain things in my

lesson that I wanted the students to do, I would first model it before they would do it, so they

knew what to do. Then with scaffolding, I would take them from where we started at with the

lesson, expand their idea of the topic and guide them through the lesson by adding on to the

previous idea.

In order to organize the materials, meet the state standards, and know everything about

your students to successfully teach them, there is a lot of thought and background work. So this

understanding goes with Alverno Abilities diagnosis, conceptualization, and coordination. This

is because in order to know how to develop a lesson plan to start out at the general topic idea and

get more specific you need to understand how a child learns through scaffolding and modeling.

There may be times that you can just tell them what to do (usually in the older grades) without

modeling everything for them but students need the scaffolding to grow their learning

(conceptualization). When interpreting the observations of the students during the lesson (and

even outside of the lesson, helps to understand who the students are. Using the observations

during other times (outside of the lesson), allows you to see where they need help and where they

excel. I was able to see during the lessons I did and other lessons that were taught by my CT, the

students that always raised their hand to answer a question and those that did not raise their hand.

But I knew from doing the random name chooser in my lessons that even the students that dont
raise their hands to answer questions normally, had no problem answer a question or doing

something on the smartboard, when their name was chosen (diagnosis). In order to plan a lesson,

it takes knowing the topic the lesson is going to be about and then thinking and looking for ideas

of how to go about teaching the lesson. This does mean gathering all the materials that are

needed for the lesson, plus organizing the lesson in a logical sense. Another important part here,

is showing the students that you are also interested in the topic because if you are not interested

in the topic at all, then they will not be (which could be problematic) (coordination).

Instructing, and Engaging Students in Learning

I started each lesson by either connecting to the previous week (if it was the same

theme/topic) or I would give an introduction to the lesson. I would guide the students through

the entire lesson plus have them help with various things on the smartboard and I made sure that

the activities for them to do on the carpet or at the tables were things that they could do with little

to no help. During any of my lessons I learned to ask thumbs up if they understand and thumbs

down if they do not. This allowed me to get an idea of who understood and who did not. Then I

would ask that student that had the thumbs down, what do they not understand. Once they told

me, then I would re-explain (most of the time a different way with the same information) for

them to understand. Then I would re-check in to see if there were any more questions and most

times there were no more questions but if there were more questions, I would answer them.

Usually I would wait until I have all thumbs up before I moved on and usually after 1-2 students

questions to re-explain a topic, I would have all thumbs up. Then I would move on to the next

part. Depending on the lesson, it would depend on how many check-ins are done with the

students. When it came to writing up lesson plans, I would have them done ahead of time to
email them to my CT, so she could look it over and make suggestions or answer any questions I

had. This part of the field experience (spring 2016), I had 2 students that I had to write specific

accommodations or modifications for them due to them being Special Education students and

having IEPs. There were times that I wasnt too sure how to accommodate or modify for these

students or had an idea of where to start but would question my CT to make sure the lesson

would be able to include all the students. I also made sure that for each lesson there was some

sort of activity on the smart board that I could use the random name chooser to choose a student

to come up to the board to complete the task. Each student loved the thought and chance of

coming up to the board to do something. So I did my best to have several slides in my lessons to

get more than a small handful of students up at the board. Also my last few lessons dealt with

movement in different forms. The students seemed to really enjoy doing those lessons and I

know I did. The students didnt have to sit on the floor or at their tables for the whole lesson but

rather was able to do quite a bit of moving around. No matter if I was teaching a lesson or

working with the students during other points, I never once up a student down or gave them a

negative comment; I did my best to give them positive feedback as much as possible.

The two big Alverno Abilities in this section is integrative interaction and

communication. The lessons all had interaction at some point or another, with not only me but

with each other. I knew from being in the room that the students loved to be able to move

around and they seemed to like to do things what were not worksheets (since they did so many

already). The only type of worksheet I had them do was the sorting activity for lesson 2 that

dealt with weight (integrative interaction). Communication is always an important part of

school, let alone a lesson. Throughout my lessons and my time in the room, I made sure to talk

with the students and show an interests in what they were doing and learning. I know that
showing a student that something is interesting, also gets their attention on that topic/item also

and could be help get them more interested in it to the point that they pay attention without

reminders.

Assessing Student Learning

For most of my lessons, when it came to assessing them, I was mainly looking at the

students to do the task and that was it. There was one lesson I did this semester that dealt with

weight (light vs heavy) and I had a sorting chart for each one to do on their own. As I walked

around to see what each student was doing or how they were doing it, I would talk with them to

figure out why they did what they did. As long as the student could tell me why an item that we

would classify as one category but they put in the other category, I knew that they knew the

difference between light and heavy. For example, there was a picture of a truck. We would

think of a truck as being heavy but I had some students put it in the light category. When I asked

them why they put the truck in the light category, they said it was a toy truck. When we went

through the pictures for their table work, we only went over the name of each picture but I did

not tell them if it was heavy or light because I wanted to see how they would distinguish between

the various pictures. So as long as they could justify why they chose to put a picture of the item

in a certain category, it showed me that they understood the difference between light and heavy.

Ive done lessons where they had to create an image with things we talked about and as long as

they had those specific things, they did what was needed. I even assessed a few movement

lessons. I would mark by their name with a + if they could do it, a if they could not, and a _/ if

they attempted it. For the most part there was a good mixture of students that could do the

movements and ones that at least attempted to try the movement. It was really clear on my last
lesson that the students would benefit from doing the movements more often (especially the last

song My Aunt Came Back. I knew it was going to be on the tougher side but with some

practice, they would have gotten it. During my lessons, when I would ask students for answers

to my questions, I would try to not say thats right or thats correct because that signifies that

there is a small amount of answer; when at times there could be quite a bit of answers. I wanted

the students to feel that they could give an answer and if it wasnt exactly what was needed,

being questioned and lead to the actual answer.

In this last section on assessing student learning, I feel the Alverno Abilities that best fit

here are: communication and coordination. In order for the students to learn anything from the

lesson there has to be communication (both verbal and nonverbal). The lessons were always

taught in a way that it commutated to the students the importance of various items. When

teaching a lesson or even helping out someone else that is teaching a lesson or helping during the

various stations, communication is always key to getting the point across but also for getting a

better understanding of what the students are thinking or how they are understanding. Just like

in my lessons when I would do the check in with the thumbs up or down, it would tell me

nonverbally whether they understood what we just went over or if I have to find out what they

didnt understand and reteach it. If it wouldnt have done this and would have just continued

through my lesson just to get to the activity part, then the students probably would have been lost

during certain points and probably would have gotten herself hurt (somehow). Coordination also

comes into play with this as well because the lessons were built to support the learning goals for

all students. Every part of the lesson, from the information to the activities, were all about

meeting the learning goals for the students.

 As for the Wisconsin Teaching Standards, there are quite a few used in all aspects of

teaching (as I see it right now for me). Under planning, I would say the standards that fit best

there are Standards 1, 2, 3, and 7. All four of these standards in my opinion go with planning

lessons. You need to know the concepts being taught, knowing there are broad ranges of

abilities within the classroom, understanding that there are various ways to approach learning

and that each student learns differently (those with disabilities and exceptionalities and those

without), and being able to arrange the information in the instruction so that it makes sense and is

in a logical order. Under instructing and engaging students in learning, I would say that

standards that fit best are 1, 2, 4, and 6. As a teacher knowing the concepts being taught, and

knowing there are broad ranges of abilities within the classroom not only helps with planning a

lesson but also when teaching the lesson. Also when teaching a lesson, using a variety of

instructional strategies will help students learn better and be able to develop their thinking skills,

and being able to communicate throughout a lesson verbally and nonverbally will also help. Just

like when I do the thumbs up/down check in with the students; its just a nonverbal way of

letting me know whether what I am teaching them is making sense or if they are completely lost

(and it doesnt cause the students to shout out answers or thoughts). Under assessing student

learning, I would say the standards that fit best are 8 and 9. This is because as a teacher you do

use a variety of assessment strategies to get a better understanding of what the students know and

dont know. This helps focus teaching topics to be able to help all students be successful. Also a

teacher at the end of a lesson reflects back on what when on during the lesson and makes notes

of what worked and what didnt work, so then they can make changes accordingly to better help

the next time that topic is taught. Also being able to reflect, lets the teacher know not only how

the lesson went but how their overall teaching is going and whether they need to look at making
changes. So in the end there is a lot of thought and time that goes into creating any lesson

because not only do you have to cover the topic as accurately and completely as possible but also

be able to reach all students (no matter if they have a disability or not).