Reflecting on Planning and Instruction

Reflecting on Planning and Instruction

ED 5500 Standards Based Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment

Capella University

Reflecting on Planning and Instruction

As I reflect on the development of my mini unit, there are many take a ways that come to mind. The development stage required a great deal of critical thinking and research. The critical thinking came in when choosing a standard and then decomposing the chosen standard. I really had to think about what standard would allow me to gain a clear understanding of what it means to decompose a standard as well as one that would be sufficient enough for a 3 day unit. I decided to go with a math standard that my students had previously done but could use some reteaching. The standard I chose for my unit was  CCSS.Math.Content.1.NBT.A.1CCSS.Math.Content.1.NBT.A.1 – Extend the counting sequence. Count to 120, starting at any number less than 120. In this range, read and write numerals and represent a number of objects with a written numeral. http://www.corestandards.org/Math/Content/1/NBT/ . Upon choosing my standard for this unit I then began to decompose the standard by first picking out the verbs in the standard. This gave me a better understanding of what it is students were expected to do to master this standard. It also helped to guide me when it came to choosing performance tasks and creating the assessment. After getting an understanding of the verbs, I then focused on what learning events would correlate with this standard. It was important to me that I included hand on activities for my students. Being that this unit was for a 1st grade classroom, the use of manipulatives would make a big difference in the outcome. The next step in the development was researching performance tasks that matched my standard. This wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be. I collaborated with my team mates and we developed a common unit performance task that we all would use in our classrooms. So I kind of killed two birds with one stone here, so to speak. The last part of development included creating the assessment. Here is where I had to be sure that everything that I found when decomposing the standard is covered in this one assessment. This task was a little tricky in the fact that I wanted to limit the number of questions on the assessment but still cover everything that the standard includes.

As I continue to reflect on the development of my mini unit, I look at the different stages that were followed and reflect on what changes if any can be made to the plan. Stage one was establishing goals for the unit. When it came to the goal(s), I went back to look at what were the key skills that students needed to know in order to master tis standard. From that I cam up with the goal that says: Students will be able to use their learning to . . . solidify their ability to read/write numbers through 120, as well as develop a deep conceptual understanding of numbers. I am satisfied with the first part of this goal as it clearly states what I want my students to be able to do. As far as the second half, ( develop a deep conceptual understanding of numbers), I think I would continue to specifically list the tasks that I wanted to students to be able to complete. I think that with that being clearly stated it just reinforces what the standard want’s students to achieve.

The next stage in the development process was creating assessments. When it came to this stage, as mentioned before I found it to be a little of a challenge. When there’s quite a bit of information that you want to cover in a unit, it can be difficult trying to get all the content in one assessment without it being overwhelming for the student. In my opinion, one has to be very careful with this in the lower grades. In this stage, I decided to collaborate with my team mates and we created a common unit assessment for this unit tht we all decided to use in our classroom. We went about this by pulling multiple sets of worksheets that went along with this standard and choosing a questions from each until we felt that each part of the standard could be measured in the assessment. We narrowed down to ten written questions and one oral task. As far as stage 2, I would not make any changes here. I felt that the collaboration played a big part in the success of the assessment and I fell that all components of the standard were covered within the assessment.

Stage 3 was the stage where the learning events were developed. I did not find this stage of development to be difficult for me. In this stage there were not many changes I found needed to be made. If I had to choose one I would say that next time, I may research and find more ways to use manipulative sin this unit. I definitely saw that students performed better when they were using manipulatives to count.

The next part of my reflection goes into the implementation of my mini unit. Overall I will say the unit went well. One of my goals when teaching any unit is to make sure that my students are engaged in whatever task they are completing. So it was no different for this unit. For each learning even I started with a counting video as my opening. I am very fond of Jack Hartman videos and the students seem toe enjoy him a lot. I used the videos that covers counting to 120. This was a way to engage my students but it also was a way for me to informally assess. As the video plays students are asked to get up and sing along. As they are ‘engaged” in the song, I walk around singing as well but observing to see if there are students that are counting incorrectly or that get confused multiple times or that are just not participating at all. Students looked forward to those videos everyday. The learning events that I used appealed to each type of learner. One included the use of manipulatives. Being able to touch each object as they counted helped a lot of students focus better. The second learning event included filling in a blank number chart and the third one had the students to depict a numeral using drawings. These events allowed the visual learner to see and create. When it came to monitoring student progress, it was very simple. I was able to monitor progress through the performance tasks students had to complete which included, correctly counting sets of objects and representing with a written numeral and counting on from a given number using number cards. I did not face any challenges with the performance tasks and students were able to complete the task with at least 80% success which was a goal. If a student was not able to complete a task and showed weakness in any of these areas then those weakness were addressed, which brings me to the next part, differentiation. There were a few students that struggled with one to one correspondence as well as others that struggled to complete a 120 chart in numerical sequence. For these students, I decided to use flex grouping. The students that were already mastering the standard and ready to move on I placed them on activities that involved place value (ones and tens) as well as activities that increased the counting sequence to 300 and then 500 for those that were ready. For the middle group, which were the students that caught on to the standard but could use a little more reinforcement. These students worked on fill in the blank number puzzles as well as counting on games. The last group was split between me and para educator. This is the group that I mentioned above that showed weaknesses in some areas. My para worked with 3 students on simply counting to 120. They used number cards and puzzles as well as blank number charts and dry erase markers to complete activities. For my group, which contained 3 students as well, we worked on one to one correspondence. With the use of manipulatives, we practiced a variety of activities that required students to “grab and count” then write the corresponding numeral. These learning events helped and allowed a more one on one experience for those that needed it most.

The courses competencies were the expected outcomes in order to be successful in this course. Out of the four competencies, I believe that I have progressed the most on competency one which states: analyze national and state learning standards in selected content area or grade level. I feel that I have a better understanding of how to break down a standard, as well as identifying the verbs in a standard. The competency that I feel I could use more help with is competency two which says: develop assessments that are aligned to learning standards. As mentioned above, I collaborated with team mates to complete the assessment for this unit but as a personal goal of mine, I would like to be knowledgeable enough to complete this task on my own when needed. To do this, I can continue to do research on my own that shows the break down of assessment creation and the components that a satisfactory assessment contains.

As I come to the end of my reflection of this course, I have learned many things that will help me in my educational setting when it comes to lesson planning and implementation of lessons. The one thing that stands out the most for me is learning the UBD template. This course was the first time that I have ever used this particular template for lesson planning and I will not go back. This template gave me the opportunity to really plan a lesson or unit in great detail. This I something that I had not been in my current educational setting but I can certainly see how beneficial it will be to start using it from this point on. As I continue to move through my coursework, I hope to gain more skills that will allow me to be successful in the many years to come.

References

http://www.corestandards.org/Math/Content/1/NBT/ .