Final Reflection

Assessing prior knowledge before a lesson is very important part of planning a lesson; it helps save time because teachers know what to focus on or where to begin with a lesson. As I have planned assessing prior knowledge, I think assessing prior knowledge is a difficult thing to do without having students on a regular basis. The easiest way to assess prior knowledge is to base it off of students’ previous work and lessons but teachers get new students from different schools and different states and we need to be able to assess what they know about each skill; also, not all students enter a grade with the skills that were taught the previous year. Even with adults, it was apparent when one of us tried a lesson before we covered the content well. For my second lesson, I taught how to use the technology for my lesson but had forgotten to discuss the skill of equivalent fractions which resulted in my doing instruction during guided practice.
Once an objective is written, the lesson planning process seems to follow pretty easily. To plan instruction, a teacher needs to choose a goal or standard to be met and decide how the students will demonstrate that they have acquired the skill and/or knowledge anticipated. I know what my strengths and weakness are and realize that I have a tendency to get off task so planning and organizing my instruction is something that will be very important for me to do so that I can be an effective teacher. Planning my instruction will help guide me through the teaching the standards, especially long-term planning.
The part that I really had to work on was figuring out how to implement technology or which technology to use while I designed my lessons. I did not grow up using a lot of technology and I am not familiar with all the technology that is available today. I will have a lot of playing around to do before I decide which technologies to implement into my lessons with students. For my first lesson, I really struggled to find a technological resource to use to assess my lesson and ended up not using any. The students used the internet to research but in my 20 minute lesson, that was all technology was used for. Time was definitely an issue with the planning of that lesson; I tried to get too much done in a short amount of time. For my second lesson, I discovered an interactive website that keeps track of how well a student is doing during an activity; it records how many times a student attempted to create an equivalent fraction and how many times they were correct. That website had a large variety of useful interactive math activities which I hope to use in my future classroom. I found it interesting to see what my peers thought were age appropriate and time appropriate lessons. We were all able to learn what worked well by participating in each others’ lessons and discussing the lessons with each other.
I find informal or authentic assessment to be the most beneficial to the students and the teacher. It encourages students to look at their results and evaluate their work. When I did my equivalent fraction lesson, I had one of my classmates ask me twice if the assignment would be graded in a classroom; each time my answer was no, it would not be recorded as a grade for the grade book. I would want to see how well the students could perform the skill and I would write down what the students scored, but it would not be recorded in the grade book; it was guided practice.
By the end of the semester, it became easier for me to not only integrate technology into the lesson but plan the assessment using technology. I like students to use their higher order thinking skills and they can use those by posting on a class blog or wiki and then responding to their classmates. For my last lesson, students used Pixie to express themselves in a very individualized lesson which I could assess if they understood the concept by their finished products. Students were not assessed on creativity but on the specific tasks that needed to be performed; the finished creation was up to each student.
Before I took this class, I never would have thought of using a program such as Pixie or Inspiration as an assessment tool. By assessing students using technology, it cuts down on papers that pile up and the less clutter I have around me, the less I have to clean up. Some technology such as Spelling City will keep track of students’ scores for you and then you just need to import the grades into your grade book.
Assessing what students learned from a lesson that was taught lets the teacher know if the material or skill was understood and learned; if the skill was not learned, the teacher needs to review the information again or try teaching it using a different approach. I do not see much point in moving on to a more difficult task or one that builds on what was supposed to be learned if a teacher does not assess if students gained the previous knowledge. Assessment is also a way to evaluate if the teacher needs to modify his/her instruction.
I needed to make instructional decisions during my first two lessons to modify the lesson as it occurred. As a group, we discussed what needed to be changed to make a lesson work in a classroom of 20-30 students with the majority of our lessons. I plan on learning throughout my entire teaching career. I have some practice in the classroom but I think that my first year or two in my own classroom will be filled with learning what works and how it could work better. Teachers make decisions all day long every day; I am hoping if I plan well enough then I will have fewer instructional decisions to make during a lesson. I try to write lesson plans that implement differentiated instruction. If most students can be included without instruction needing to be modified, the greater chance each child has to learn what is being taught; I also hope that this will eliminate the feelings of who is “smart” and who is “not smart”.
When I assessed learning from each lesson, it really reflected on how well I had presented the material for the lesson. The feedback from my classmates also helped me understand on how I could improve when I did not teach the skills well for a lesson. There was one person in my group that I never understood how he/she was assessing our knowledge. I don’t understand what that individual will do to assess students in a classroom and I also do not understand the point in teaching a lesson if you don’t assess learning afterwards, unless it is just for fun. I am not opposed to doing fun things at school or in the classroom; I think it is highly effective to make learning as fun and engaging as possible but I also think that teachers should constantly be assessing their students.
I learned about a variety of technology that will be useful to my future teaching career. I was only able to use a limited amount during class but I have the knowledge that the technology is out there for me and my future students. With each week that we had class, I became more familiar with different technologies, how to use them, and when they could be used. I think that collaborating with other teachers, just as we did in our groups, helps keep ideas moving.

Digital Age Best Practices

I did a lesson on natural resources. In the lesson, the students were to research a natural resource and look at what happens to the earth when the resource is removed or used. I would like to improve the lesson by promoting shared expertise with networked collaboration (digital age best practice 1). I think it would benefit the students to work in groups for the lesson and discuss the effects using natural resources has on the earth; I also would like for students to collaborate alternatives to the natural resource they are researching. When students collaborate, it helps them build on their own knowledge and/or ideas by applying it in discussion and by gathering information. If a student has to explain their information to other students it will stengthen an understanding of what they are learning.
This same lesson could be improved by personalizing and globalizing content by making authentic connections (digital age best practice 3). While students are researching how the use of natural resources affects the earth, they could also investigate how it affects people; what happens to where people live, jobs, water sources, etc., . Students could also look globally at where, throughout the world, the natural resources we use come from; imports and exports of resources.
To assess the students using technology, which I did not do in the lesson I have discussed, I could have the students clarify understanding with formative assessments (digital age best practice 6). For the natural resource lesson, students should write a reflection discussing what they learned from the lesson and post it in a class blog or wiki. This would allow me to read what was learned in the students' words and provide other students with the opportunity of gaining knowledge from their peers.

Equitable Access

• Technologies for learning typically set learning goals for the learner. Technology for learning is created so that it can be utilized any student; it is meant to provide and measure dependable results. This type of technology guides the learner through the skill being acquired. The learners are in charge of the learning process when using technology made for learners; learners can set their own goals with this type of technology. Technologies for learners focuses on things like search engines, wikis and blogs. These technologies do not provide reliable outcomes; students may start with one goal and end with another.


• The current use of technology in schools creates equitable access for students because it is available for anyone to use. It does not matter if a child is a student at a public school, charter school, online school, or home schooled; it can be accessed through any computer. The current use of technology can create inequitable access for students because not all schools have the same resources. Technology requires money and adults who are knowledgeable and willing to implement technology into the curriculum.


• I would like to change the current system by ensuring proper training for teachers so that they are more capable of implementing technology. Teachers need to be willing and excited to use technology with their students and they need to understand how to use the technology available to them and how it can benefit their students.

Assessment of Learning Lesson 3

The lesson was successful;it was my favorite of my three lessons. As a group, we were able to complete the lesson and everyone appeared to like their finished product. I felt that I taught the lesson well overall but I did not like that I felt rushed and had to leave the students as they began the lesson to go across the room to take the silhouette pictures; this is not the way it would be done in the classroom with younger students but I felt it worked best for this lesson. I also had a checklist that I wanted to show the students so they could check to make sure their project contained specific elements but I forgot about it until the end of the lesson.
My peers seemed to think the lesson went well also. They all mentioned how technology was definitely integrated, or the main part of the lesson and one of my peers stated that I reverted back to prior knowledge and gave plenty of examples (of acrostic poems).

Instructional Decisions

I learned that I could have used a little bit more than 40 minutes, but not much more, to teach the lesson I was doing. In a classroom of 30 students, I would have needed to split this lesson into 2 separate lessons or have taken the silhouette pictures and have them downloaded before the lesson began. By looking at the outcome of the 3 different projects, my directions were either not specific enough or they were interpreted differently by at least one student. One student had several words to describe herself per letter so they only made it through their first name in the acrostic poem lesson.
The objective of making an acrostic poem with students’ names was met. I encouraged one student to move onto their middle name because he finished his first and last name but he continued working with the Pixie program and helped another student; this was appropriate behavior and he was being helpful so his lesson did not get modified. It was acceptable for the student who only made it through her first name because that was as much as she was capable of doing and she was content with her product. I thought the lesson went well.

Assessment Plan 3

I will be able to understand if students can identify and create an acrostic based on their final product. Students will be able to brainstorm describing words together; even though it is an individualized finished product, students can help each other find kind descriptive words and help each other with the Pixie program. I think it is always best to be able to walk around to assess how students are doing so that instruction can be modified during the lesson and to help students, or ask another student to help, as needed.

Instruction Design 3

My lesson is designed to begin with the description of what an acrostic poem is. We would then move on to examples of acrostic poems and I would demonstrate my own personal acrostic poem to the students. I varied instruction so that students who have difficulty brainstorming, writing, or using dictionary skills would only be required to make an acrostic using their first name; students who move through assignments quickly could also make an acrostic using their middle name in addition to first and last name. Students need to use their higher order thinking skills during this lesson because they need to think of kind descriptive words that fit who they are. This assignment also allows for as much creativity as the students would like to put into their project.
Students are using technology to complete the final product, they can use an online dictionary, or search for character traits that begin with the letters in their names.