Phase III

Reflection

Assessing Prior Knowledge

a. It is interesting how the original idea we had for assessing prior knowledge turned into a center activity. It became an activity that assesses their knowledge, but not necessarily their prior knowledge. Later we changed our prior knowledge assessment to a KWL chart. Although, this assessment wasn't appropriate for the lesson because our lesson was an end of unit lesson. A KWL chart is an effective and popular prior knowledge assessment on the first day of a new unit. For our lesson, the prior knowledge assessment would be more of review.

b. Based on my experiences, I learned that the prior knowledge assessment needs to match the purpose of the lesson and allow for time to build background knowledge if the prior knowledge is not there. It is also important that the assessment is done before to the activities, so as to adjust the lesson if needed. What the students know and need to know should be the basis for the content and delivery.

Planning Instruction

a. This is the one category where are group received high feedback remarks. It was evident that we planned ahead and worked hard to make sure everything was ready. However, all our planning was to ensure everything would run smoothly. What happens if it doesn't...despite all the planning? I believe an effective teacher will plan for things to run smoothly AND anticipate potential problems. Planning also needs to be worth the time and realistic. We spent too much time on planning...well, I am not sure if there is such a thing as too much planning, but in our case the input did not match the output.

b. One thing we failed to do during our planning was to "try it out". We might have been able to anticipate potential problems if we had run through it once or twice. A motto to implement: Plan and Practice.

Designing Instruction:

a. Previously, I might have used the terms planning and designing interchangeably. Although, they are not necessarily the same. My experiences helped me realize this. I feel that the lesson design is (or should be) closely tied to the prior knowledge of the students. When you know what the students know then you can design a lesson that best suits them. The planning aspect seems a little more administrative.

b. Reflecting back on the experience, it was a bit of a challenge to design a lesson that was appropriate for 4th grade students, yet challenging enough to engage college students for 50 minutes. An example modification to our lesson is the use of blind folds. Not all students were comfortable wearing the blindfolds and this did not take into consideration individual needs. Most of the modifications we made to our lesson were on instruction and delivery; AKA, the design.

Planning Assessment

a. I often find that planning assessments is one of the hardest parts of designing a lesson. My in class experiences continue to support this thought process. Rubrics take time to build and short answer worksheets need not be too easy or too hard. Knowing the students is key to planning these assessments. Otherwise it becomes a "one size fits all" and we all know that this isn't the case.

b. The assessments we prepared were based on our objectives and aligned to those objectives well. However, during instruction I came to understand two things. First, if the students are being graded on something, it is important for them to know before hand. Second, while there are times when it is appropriate to give groups grades, there are also times when it is essential to assess individual understanding. Given that this was to be an end of unit lesson, this would be the optimal time to assess students individually. This is a refinement area and modification for our lesson.

Instructional Decisions/Teaching

a. Personal experience is a great teacher in this category. Being able to handle hiccups and modify instruction during the lesson takes skill and practice. While we stated the learning objectives at the beginning of the lesson, it is important to keep going back to them and reminding myself what the goals are for the students and evaluating if the students are meeting those goals.

b. For future lessons, I need to remember that the students learning the material is more important than completing the lesson. For example, when all the teams were struggling with the compass activity, we should have noticed the problem and modified our lesson by taking the time to stop and model it instead of just plugging along or ignoring it.

Assessment of Learning

a. Assessing student learning is vital to effective teaching, but requires a firm level of fairness and non bias grading. I have learned that this is not as easy as it seems. In fact, I am still not sure where the line is drawn. Part of being a good teacher is being flexible and understanding of students. Another part is, by grading fair and professionally by not letting personal feeling guide grading. This can be a challenge.

b. What I will take from this experience, is that students should not be penalized for poor lesson design and that students like to know what they are being graded on and how.

Survey Feedback

Reading the lesson feedback was both difficult and valuable. I believe that how well I am able take feedback and response to it, is a good indicator of how ready I am to teach and how effective I will be in my teaching career. As an adult, as a senior at the University, and as a professional, being able to accept feedback, learn from it, and discern the good feedback from the bad is a quintessential element that teachers face on a daily basis.

We received a lot of valuable feedback from our classmates. Several of the items that stood out to me are the following:

• Running through it once prior to teaching: This comment popped up several times and I agree. A lot of the other improvement comments could have been thwarted by doing this one step. Both my team mate and I thought it would be a good idea to run through it once prior to teaching and planned on it; however, that week was a busy week for both of us. She has a full time job, family activities, and homework. For me, I was moving out of my house and completing closing paperwork and my son was sick. Life happens, I am I not saying that as an excuse it is a reality. That whole week we scrambled to get things prepared and even met twice for several hours. We really felt hurried to finish and we really tried to do a good job. By randomized fortune, we were one of the first groups to go and it presented a challenge...I think the experience has stretched our character and we are now more prepared for the next challenge...however a challenge none-the-less.
• Google Earth/Google Map: During the lesson, we did expect that students would already know how to use these two resources because we would have previously taught it to them. However, that wasn't the case during our lesson presentation. We definitely assumed college students would have sufficient background knowledge or trouble shooting skills to navigate the sites. I am not saying that to be disrespectful or sarcastic, after all, I don't think I ever used Google Earth until that activity. Consequently, several students had difficulty with the activities. It would have been good to model how to use the sites prior having them us it. This would be a change to the existing lesson.
• Securing sites before hand/Introduction before hand: Technically, we did secure several websites before hand and provided each team with a list of those websites, but the handout was not very user friendly. Nobody really knew which website went to which question. We could have improved upon the list by putting the suggested website underneath the question is pertained to, or (as mentioned in another comment) we could have introduced the sites before hand. This will likely be a revision to the lesson plan. Originally, we planned on making a class website and students could just go to the web page and click on the link to access the resource site with ease. Again, time to prepare was an issue. We were really hurrying.
• Being creative and putting in effort: We also received a lot of this comment. Our classmates could tell we worked hard getting things together. They noticed that we put the effort in. They felt we did a good job at being creative. Given that we DID put so much time and effort into the lesson, it was good to know that it resonated with our classmates
• Stepping out of the teaching role: Offering the "students" explanations to some of the decisions we made would have helped to clarify some confusion and gave our classmates a better understanding of our lesson plan. We failed to do that except once...that I can remember, and that was just to remind them that they are fourth grade students.
• Age/Grade Appropriate: Several students commented on the lesson being too advanced for fourth grade. Both my team mate and I believe its important to challenge the students. While, yes some of the questions posed to be difficult, they may not have felt the same way after 2 weeks of instructions and scaffolding...again, this would have been a good area to step out of the teaching role and do some explaining!
• Grouping formations: One piece of feedback mentioned that it is important to ensure students are comfortable with who they are grouped with. I going to say...yes and no. I feel that grouping students with various people, even on occasion, people they are not comfortable with, teaches necessary life skills. Sometimes in life you just have to work with people you don't want to. Although, I also understand that it is important to group students so they will be successful and enjoy the learning experience.
• Other good suggestions/feedback: Lots of good ideas to consider during the revision of our lesson.
• Have the students create a map on the computer or a compass -good idea!
• Have paper maps or a globe on hand to teach with and to use as a back up -good idea!
• Give each student a scavenger hunt worksheet to complete instead of groups; therefore, to check for individual understanding -again good idea!
• Cost: The last area I want to address is the cost of the lesson. Of course this wasn't on the feedback because the students did not know, but it did have an impact. For example, one of the activities said to sort 7 maps, although, there were only six in the bag. This is because I messed up when I was printing them and printed two of the same one. At the time, my printer wasn't cooperating so I went to a printing place. The cost for printing all materials...$30.00 (it irritates me just to think about it). Then some students commented on the maps being too small...the truth is, if I made them any bigger it would have cost me more money. I understand the students did not know this, but it just becomes a lesson of bitterness. I also know that my team mate invested money into the lesson. It was just too much...we should have considered alternate ideas, but I felt we were running out of time to prepare so we just ran with it.

Phase II

Instructional Decisions/Teaching:

During the lesson, I noticed that there were various aspects that proved to be challenging for some teams. I would attribute most of these difficulties to lack of needed input and modeling prior to lesson activities. Nevertheless, the lesson was designed to be at the end of a unit where the necessary input would have been taught over a 1-2 week period in a real 4th grade classroom.

During the lesson itself, we simply reviewed. Subsequently, there were several questions and much needed help for many teams. Had this been the outcome of a real 4th grade classroom (even after the 1-2 week unit), certainly there would be cause for much concern because all the students wouldn't have gotten it. The modification to the instruction came in the form of guidance, assistance, and answers for those teams who needed the help as Mindea and I facilitated the activities.

For example, we did not anticipate that Google Earth would not be loaded on the technology lab computers. When students asked if they were supposed to download the program, we weren't sure if that would be permitted, so we modified instruction by routing students to another resource to located information. Some teams took the initiative, and just downloaded the program. Both ways provided answers to the scavenger hunt questions.

The Internet resources handout that was included in the "bag 3" also was slightly modified. Instead of referring to the handout (some teams did), we directed students to specific websites verbally.

Artifact 1: Internet resources handout

Another "during instruction" modification was the use of the KWL chart. Its original intent was to understand what the class knew about maps so we could clarify anything prior to the activities; however, it did not really fit the whole lesson because the lesson was an end-of-unit and the KWL chart seems more like something to use the first day of the unit. Therefore, we nix going back to the chart to complete it at the end of the lesson because it was out-of-place and didn't serve its intended purpose.

Artifact 2: Partially completed KWL chart

Assessment of Learning:

We used two forms of assessment 1) the scavenger hunt worksheet 2) technology/team work rubric. In regards to the scavenger hunt worksheet, there was one question (question # 5) that caused a lot of confusion for the majority of the teams. The question was: What Arizona city's latitude and longitude is 33.10 N/ 115.00 W. When students entered the latitude and longitude they ended up in a mountainous region. The immediate picture did not show a city. Since only two out of six teams got the answer correct. We decided to remove the question from the assessment and not deduct points for getting it incorrect.

Artifact 1: Google Earth Link

http://www.google.com/earth/index.html

We considered giving the bonus points to the two teams who got it correct, but decided against it because it was an after thought and not presented to the students before hand. It seemed unfair.

The technology/team work rubric was a little more difficult to grade....well yes and no. It was difficult in the sense that some teams did not score as high as we would have liked, and we had to put the lower grade on the rubric...that was the hard part. We would have liked all students to score 100%. All students got a score of either an A or B on the combined assessments. The majority of the B's came from the technology/team work rubric.

Artifact 2: Grade book scores with student names removed

Phase 1 Continued

Assessing Prior Knowledge:

We have decided to go with a KWL chart to assess prior knowledge. It would be great if we had access to a Smartboard for this activity; however, the document camera will be an effective alternative.

Artifact 2: KWL Chart

Designing Instruction:

Instructional design has taken way too long for the amount of time taught in class. The lesson planning and preparation shouldn't take more time than the lesson itself. I think part of the reason for the continuous planning and organizing is because neither myself or my classmate are currently teaching in a school. Certainly, the more daily practice in planning lessons, the less time they will take. Secondly, when working in the classroom environment (depending on the school and/or principle), many teachers do not have to write lesson plans to the full extent we have to as pre-service teachers.

We really keep going back to our objectives and standards to make sure that instruction was aligned and well organized. Since the lesson is a modified version of the TV show Survivor, there is a lot of variation in instruction and a lot of focus on student exploration and team work. Students will be working through several hands-on activities, which will require them to apply their knowledge of mapping skills and communicate this knowledge to their team mate. All the activities draw upon a range of thinking skills both basic and higher order.

Artifact 1: Compass Rose Challenge Directions

Artifact 2: Road Map Challenge Directions

Planning Assessment:

Given that there is a content objective and technology objective, we decided to have multiple assessments. One is a short answer worksheet and the other is a rubric which will be used to observe student performance when using technology. If you view our objectives we also included a sub-objective. Since the whole lesson requires the students to work in teams we also felt it important to include in the rubric team work/collaboration. Our assessments do well to assess what we are asking the students to be able to do in the objective. We have numerous modifications and scaffolding strategies in place to help meet individual needs.

Artifact 1: Link to Rubric

http://rubric.taskstream.com/rubric/print.asp?qyz=fCwyMgdiaHmSMk4h7pD&xyz=u6clhshohdfpz6em&rid=p3cuhlzyhmh9ebzn&ticker=0&printOnly=1

Artifact 2: Scavenger Hunt Key

Phase 1

Assessing Prior Knowledge:

Our group's lesson is very much in the preliminary stages; therefore, there is much revision still needed. We discussed that our assessment of prior knowledge might be with a whole group activity which also serves as an anticipatory set. Our lesson focuses on 4th grade geography and the reading/using of maps. Our activity should give us a good idea how much the students know and understand about maps. To do this activity, we need to have pre-printed google maps. We need to determine if the students will receive maps in groups or if there are enough maps for every student. Given that this is a preassessment, the less maps the best...less complicated. In this class, there are 12 students and 12 maps. We will have to collaborate to decide. The information received from the preassessment- will be instantaneous and easy to identify any misconceptions or lack of prior knowledge. These misconceptions will be addressed during the "input" part of the lesson.

Artifact 1: The tentative maps being used for preassessment: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=10237+West+Encanto+Boulevard,+Avondale,+AZ+85392-4702+(Rio+Vista+Elementary)&daddr=455+North+Galvin+Parkway,+Phoenix,+Arizona+85008+(Phoenix+Zoo)&hl=en&geocode=FT-9_gEdtcJO-SG7CxYONvK-Qg%3BFe9z_gEdn8tT-SFP122iE1S3ww&mra=pd&mrcr=0&sll=33.647255,-112.162086&sspn=0.763661,1.229095&ie=UTF8&z=11&layer=c&pw=2


Plans Instruction:

Our lesson started with an Arizona state standard for 4th grade. It is clearly stated, appropriate, and aligned. The lesson goal will also be given to the students when the lesson is taught. Our objective is that we want the students to be able to interpret maps and use them for real life purposes. Certainly this is not the completed objective because we understand it needs to be both observable and measurable.

Artifact 1: Fourth Grade Social Studies Standard