Chapter 6c &7a

Chapter 6c

Chapter 6 focused on building a successful lesson plan. Lesson planning is a critical part of teaching and often separates the good teachers from the bad. Many of us have written several lesson plans and often feel that it is a pain to write out all of the standards, objectives, rationale, materials, time limits, procedures, assessment, adaptations, conclusion and so on. What’s the point of writing out an entire lesson plan when you can just keep it in your head right? As a first year teacher, writing your lesson plan down and printing it out will help your teaching go more smoothly. Throughout the day there are so many different things happening that it is important to have your lesson plan printed out that way it can be used as a reference. It is very difficult for a teacher to remember the entire lesson plan along with the materials needed, the type of assessment that will be used, any guiding questions that will be asked and a conclusion activity. Having this lesson plan handy will allow you to quickly look back at it if needed that way students can get the most out of the learning activity. Also, taking time to remember what you should be teaching allows time for the students to create disruptions which will take even more learning time away. When I have my own classroom I plan on writing up each lesson plan and printing it out. Some lesson plans may just include the materials, procedures, assessment and conclusion activity (after all, the conclusion activity is very important because it allows the students to reflect on what they have learned and why they have learned it.) but I feel that I should print this out so there are not any gaps in my teaching. One thing that I also found interesting while reading was the point about the “anticipate noise level.” I never really thought ahead about a lesson to determine how much noise I should allow during the activity. This is a great point to think about because it will allow the teacher to monitor and correct the noise level before it gets out of hand.

Chapter 7a

Chapter 7 dealt with assessing students and states that there are three general avenues that should be used for assessing student learning. These three are (1) assess what the students says-for example, the quantity and quality of a student’s contributions to class discussions; (2) assess what the student does-for example, a student’s performance (the amount and quality of a student’s participation in the learning activities); (3) assess what the student writes-for example, items in the student’s portfolio (homework assignments, checklists, project work, and written tests) (Kellough). These three components will be very important when the time comes where I will need to assess my students. Assessment is not just something a teacher does at the end of a lesson yet something they do consistently prior, throughout and after the lesson. It is important to assess students to see which students are growing, which students are struggling and which students may need to be challenged. When assessing what a student says you can keep a teacher’s log, list desirable behaviors for activities and record observations. Tools such as audio and video can also be used. When assessing what a student does you can listen to what the student says such as their questions, responses and interactions with others. You should also keep an eye on nonverbal cues. When assessing what a student writes a teacher can use written worksheets, papers journals, etc. I plan to be organized and keep running records and observations of all of my students that way I can benefit each student, as they need.