Lesson Reflection
I attempted to teach the above lesson plan exactly as it is described. The plan is based off of the 24-hour lesson plan as best as I could for the time constraints and nature of the unit we are currently working in. However, after I completed the lecture on idea based learning, I can definitely tell that my plan falls short of the metaphor objective throughout. I taught the lesson 4 times, each time adjusting to different changes both in and out of my control. Here are a few of the changes I made:
The first hour it ended up taking too long going through the practice activity where students apply details to ideas. They seemed to get the idea pretty quickly, so I decided for future hours not to go through all 4 literary elements. Instead, we only practiced with setting and characterization.
The second time I realized students did not need to print in between each template, but could complete all 4 templates before printing, which would save time. However, then the printer went on hiatus, causing many student documents to be lost (especially painful because the tool we were using does not save work, and many of these students had already logged off the computers).
This next time, I was very clear about waiting to log off until you had your document in your hands! However, this time for some unknown reason, our blog site was not allowing students (or myself) to access pages. So, we had to cut the guided practice lesson short. This probably worked well for this group, however, because they usually take much longer to complete assignments compared to the other hours.
In the final hour, all of the technology worked, but the guided practice examples were very weak. Students had a harder time following directions, even as they were posted and announced orally.
· The benefits of teaching this lesson are most importantly that students had fun. Most parts of the lesson could have been accomplished without technology, but students would not have enjoyed it as much. The guided practice on the blog page was far more interactive too, as opposed to the teacher just calling on students for details and typing them herself. This way, all groups got to share their ideas and instantly see them posted. Also, the templates were nice because students can’t go on to the next part until they complete the step before. Directions pop in for each step when the student is ready to complete it, which also draws their attention and helps them to focus more on directions than they usually do.
· The challenges I faced are the same ones I encounter often when using technology in the classroom. For whatever unknown reason, at some point, the technology will go down. In this case, we faced different problems during different hours, and sometimes no problems at all. The lesson is always to be flexible in dealing with the issues and to be flexible with students affected by the issue. For example, I won’t mark down students whose assignments were lost, even though their decision making wasn’t the best.
· I believe the assignment helped me to assess the objectives for the lesson. Based on the template handouts, I can easily see if students understand the structure of the genre and can apply it to their own ideas. We were also able to use a different approach to pre-writing. We had previously created sensory charts, three-column charts, and plot lines to organize ideas. So this strategy seemed to pull the rest of the ideas together into more well-written thoughts. It is very clear to me that most students understand the structure of the decision story and have enough relevant ideas and details to begin the drafting process. The templates were also much easier for me to read than a student paragraph, since the different parts were easy to look for and organized for easy reading.
If I were to do this lesson again, I would try to see if it is possible to change the headings in the template squares, or I would incorporate this language into my classroom. I did notice that the language I used to introduce the decision story genre, differed from the writing book, which differed from the website. Each said the same thing in a slightly different way, which can sometimes be confusing, especially for struggling students. In addition, I would take note of the changes I made above throughout the course of the day and take them into account when planning timing for each.
The first hour it ended up taking too long going through the practice activity where students apply details to ideas. They seemed to get the idea pretty quickly, so I decided for future hours not to go through all 4 literary elements. Instead, we only practiced with setting and characterization.
The second time I realized students did not need to print in between each template, but could complete all 4 templates before printing, which would save time. However, then the printer went on hiatus, causing many student documents to be lost (especially painful because the tool we were using does not save work, and many of these students had already logged off the computers).
This next time, I was very clear about waiting to log off until you had your document in your hands! However, this time for some unknown reason, our blog site was not allowing students (or myself) to access pages. So, we had to cut the guided practice lesson short. This probably worked well for this group, however, because they usually take much longer to complete assignments compared to the other hours.
In the final hour, all of the technology worked, but the guided practice examples were very weak. Students had a harder time following directions, even as they were posted and announced orally.
· The benefits of teaching this lesson are most importantly that students had fun. Most parts of the lesson could have been accomplished without technology, but students would not have enjoyed it as much. The guided practice on the blog page was far more interactive too, as opposed to the teacher just calling on students for details and typing them herself. This way, all groups got to share their ideas and instantly see them posted. Also, the templates were nice because students can’t go on to the next part until they complete the step before. Directions pop in for each step when the student is ready to complete it, which also draws their attention and helps them to focus more on directions than they usually do.
· The challenges I faced are the same ones I encounter often when using technology in the classroom. For whatever unknown reason, at some point, the technology will go down. In this case, we faced different problems during different hours, and sometimes no problems at all. The lesson is always to be flexible in dealing with the issues and to be flexible with students affected by the issue. For example, I won’t mark down students whose assignments were lost, even though their decision making wasn’t the best.
· I believe the assignment helped me to assess the objectives for the lesson. Based on the template handouts, I can easily see if students understand the structure of the genre and can apply it to their own ideas. We were also able to use a different approach to pre-writing. We had previously created sensory charts, three-column charts, and plot lines to organize ideas. So this strategy seemed to pull the rest of the ideas together into more well-written thoughts. It is very clear to me that most students understand the structure of the decision story and have enough relevant ideas and details to begin the drafting process. The templates were also much easier for me to read than a student paragraph, since the different parts were easy to look for and organized for easy reading.
If I were to do this lesson again, I would try to see if it is possible to change the headings in the template squares, or I would incorporate this language into my classroom. I did notice that the language I used to introduce the decision story genre, differed from the writing book, which differed from the website. Each said the same thing in a slightly different way, which can sometimes be confusing, especially for struggling students. In addition, I would take note of the changes I made above throughout the course of the day and take them into account when planning timing for each.
