Phase 3

This experience was very enlightening. I learned how to create lessons using technology. Another important skill I learned over the course of the semester is how to create these types of lessons, without it turning into a lesson about technology. I learned how to use the standards to guide what I should teach and what my lessons need to build onto. One important thing that I learned in this class is that sometimes you have to change your lesson in the middle of it to cover material that students need. Having one of my lessons backfire on me is going to affect my future teaching in a positive way. I will have an idea of what it can be like to have to change your lesson while you are teaching it. The feedback that we received from our peers after teaching was really insightful. It was really nice to have feedback right after teaching to have an idea of what happened while I was teaching.

Standard 1

        Teaching the lessons I create for this class really helped me to see how I can use technology to encourage student creativity and creativity. Knowing about the subject matter is very important. I figured this out when I was teaching my first lesson which was on negative exponents. I knew the basics about how they worked, but I found that I could not answer questions that my “students” were asking. Because this happened, I made certain that I studied the next lesson’s topic thoroughly before presenting the lesson. In my first lesson I did not use technology in the lesson because it was not something that would have made the lesson better. The second time we taught I did a lesson on the digestive system and we used the computer to watch videos, and I feel that this was a much easier way to hold students’ attention. Using both the technology and having students physically create something was what I think made my second lesson successful. Working with both the virtual world of the video and the physical words of drawing and writing our own stories really seemed to help the “students” connect with what I was teaching.

Standard 2

        This course, along with other courses I have taken in the College of Education have really helped me be able to develop and design successful lessons for elementary subjects. Working with technology is always great, and I really liked how this course showed us how to use technology to supplement lessons and not just teach lessons about technology. Using interactive programs such as kidsiration and pixie can go a long way into making an experience authentic for students. Using these tools is not only a great way to teach, but can be used as a great assessment tool as well. In one lesson that one of my classmates did, we took pictures of geometric shapes we found around the room. This was a great activity for kids to do, and collecting the pictures for assessment was a great plan.

Standard 3

        The lessons that I created throughout the semester realty show the growth I made in using technology. I did not use any type of technology at all when teaching the lesson on exponents, but in my lesson on the digestive system I have technology integrated in the presentations that the students would have performed if I were teaching an actual second or third grade class. My lessons included using tablets or camera to video tape the performances, uploading them onto a computer, and showing the students the finished product. Students were also able to use any resources they wanted to perfume the functions of the digestive system. When using this method for teaching and assessing, it is important to know that we have to be very careful when putting anything one the internet or on a computer that more than one person can access. I learned so much about digital citizenship in this class, and I hope that one day I will be able to ensure that my students are good digital citizens.

Standard 4

        Working with technology can be dangerous if proper “etiquette” is not followed. It is important that anytime we are having students use the internet for projects, papers, and research that we teacher them how to give the proper people the credit for the work. I believe that the biggest reason that plagiarism happens in schools is because kids are not taught how to properly cite sources. Doing anything digitally can have its problems. Things do not download, do not post, and sites go down unexpectedly. It is crucial that we teach our students how to think through any of these problems that they may face. Being digital responsible is something that I take, and believe that everybody should take very seriously. I feel that sometimes we don’t remember that whatever is said, done, or posted online is next to impossible to take back. It is very important that we, as teachers, teach our kids how to be responsible when using these types of technologies. 

Phase 2 of Micro Lesson 2: Assessment Examples

Assessment Examples: At least 2 digital artifacts that:

• Demonstrate what you or your students (peers) have created as a result of your lesson
• Are referred to as you answer #2 (Assessment of Learning)

My "students" turned in stories about traveling through the digestive system like the kids in the video did. They were able to write a story, poem, song, draw a picture, or use any other form of presentation to demonstrate what they thought it would be like.  Two of the girls wrote stories, and the another drew a picture. There was a rubric for the project, they had to show the correct order of the digestive system, and they had to describe at least on function of each part. I was happy with what I collected.


 Story One
Story Two
Picture

The stories and the pictures are upside down, I could not figure out how to get them to rotate.

Assessment of Learning: Describe the evidence you have that indicates

• Your students' level of success in achieving the lessons goals
• The level of success you had in teaching the lesson
  • How do your individual reflections support this?
  • How do the comments from your classmates support this?
  
  
  
  
  To show me that they understood the lesson, I had the "students" write a story about going through the digestive system. This is what happened in the video we watched, and it shows me that they understand the order and functions of the parts of the digestive system. I think that I was really successful in teaching this lesson. Unlike the other lesson that I taught, the girls in my group were not learning anything new, so I was able to proceed with the lesson as planed. Comments from my classmates said that I was well prepared, and that they liked the lesson. I feel that this lesson went really well, and that not many changes would have to be made to teach this to an actual second or third grade class.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

Phase 2 or Micro Lesson 2: Instructional Descision/Teaching

Instructional Decisions/Teaching: Discuss the implementation process and describe

• What you did and learned from the teaching/facilitating process
• How alignment to goals and objectives was maintained
• Modifications made for individual needs

 I learned a lot from the teaching process that we did. Something really important that I learned was that teachers have to be sure they are teaching at the ability of their students, not just teaching the standards. During the second lesson I taught, it was difficult to keep my "students" attention because the lesson was meant for second graders. I feel that my alignment to goals and objectives was maintained. My "class" followed the lesson and gave the correct output I wanted in the assignment I gave them at the end.The were able to sequence the digestive system, and they all did so in a creative way. In this particular lesson, I did not have to make any modifications. I do have modifications built into the lesson. I have closed captioning options for the videos, and allowing them to express their answers in different ways are the strategies I used to be able to modify the lesson if need be.

Planning Assessment: Embed or link to your assessment tools and describe how you will demonstrate

• the performance of linked goals and/or objectives
• student engagement in higher order thinking
• meeting individual student needs

 https://w.taskstream.com/RubricWizard/RubricPrintView/PrintView?encLegacyRubricId=urcucqc6csc0cqcp&platform=LAT

I plan on assessing a few different ways during my lesson. The first way is to just discuss how they THINK the digestive system works. Then we are going to act it out, and watch a video and then write a story. This way I am assessing in different ways, and I not only meeting any special needs, but I am getting the students engaged in higher order thinking. They will have to perform, remember, think about, create, and write a story all in the same lesson. Each part is on a different level of Blooms Taxonomy pyramid, ensuring that they are learning as best they can as they move through the lesson. 

Phase 1 of Micro Lesson 2: Designing Instrction

Designing Instruction: Include a link to your lesson plan and discuss how your instructional design

• is contextually and logically organized
• uses varied instructional methods that meet individual student needs and target higher order thinking skills
• aligns with research based understanding of technology integration
• Addresses or does not address:
• Safe, legal, and ethical use of digital information and technology
• Digital etiquette and responsible social interactions
• Meeting diverse needs of learners through learner-centered strategies and equitable access
• Global awareness and digital-age communication

https://w.taskstream.com/Lesson/View/6BC16C0EF511CDCEFE0BC1FF58407450

When creating my lesson, I used Blooms Taxonomy to structure the way that my activities are done. This way I make sure to try to build on what we are learning. I have the students turning in a physical form of assessment, along with showing me what they know through creating a skit, etc so that they are able to communicate to the best of their abilities. As far as using technology, we are practicing safe, ethical use by just not bring the internet into the equation. The students will be performing, and as the teaching I will video record what they do for them to see. To be able keep students safe, teachers need to not post ANYTHING onto the internet without the child and the child's parents permission! In the lesson, I am sure that we are using technology to help my lesson, and not to make my lesson about technology. 

Phase 1 of Micro Lesson 2: Plans Instrucion

Plans Instruction: Discuss how your goals, objectives, and outcomes are

• clearly stated
• appropriate for students
• aligned to state standards

I clearly stated my goals, outcomes and objectives in the lesson using short, clear statements. I believe that the best way to write clear, measurable goals and objectives is to be sure that you do not talk too much about what you are trying to accomplish. I try to make sure that when I am writing my lesson plan, that if for some reason someone else needed to teach the lesson, there would be no questions. This way I know that they are clear and easy to understand.  I use the standards to create my lesson objectives, this way I can be sure that I am covering the standards while teaching the lesson that I choose.

Phase 1 of Micro Lesson 2: Assessing Prior Knowledge

Assessing Prior Knowledge: If you were teaching this with the targeted grade level students

• How would prior experience have been assessed?
• What would you expect to learn from assessing your students' prior knowledge?
• How would this information be useful in the planning process?

If I were teaching this lesson to the targeted group, 2nd grade, I would assess my students prior knowledge through a discussion.This would be a fairly new idea to the class, depending on what grade they are in, and what they have learned so far. I would no be surprised to learn that their knowledge of the subject is not very extensive. It would be useful to know what they do or do not know about my topic before hand to see if I need to make modifications to make the lesson simpler or more challenging.

Phase 2 of Micro Lesson 1: Assessment Examples

   Assessment Examples: At least 2 digital artifacts that:

o    Demonstrate what you or your students (peers) have created as a result of your lesson

o    Are referred to as you answer #2 (Assessment of Learning)

I collected three different physical artifacts from my “students” that show me what they knew before had, and what I had taught them. Each artifact is a worksheet with a set of problems. For each set of problems, I planned on having students work alone at first, and then in groups before I give them any direct solutions to the problems. The fist set of problems were meant as a quick review for the class. When I was teaching this lesson to my peers, the review part of the lesson became the main bulk of the lesson. The second set of problems was were I planned on the "class" brainstorming ideas on how to solve the problem on their own, when I was actually teaching however, we used this set as more practice with exponents. The third was going to be practice, but we did not really get to work with the last set of problems the way I planned. Because we did not get to my assessment, I will use the problem sets as a way to assess the level of my "students" comprehension. 

Links to two artifacts that I collected:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxPrs7ZfWJCaMGZVRDdDQlVlZkE/edit?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxPrs7ZfWJCaLUQzZTdUN2hzX00/edit?usp=sharing 

Phase 2 of Micro Lesson 1: Assessment of Learning

1.   Assessment of Learning: Describe the evidence you have that indicates

o    Your students' level of success in achieving the lessons goals

o    The level of success you had in teaching the lesson

§  How do your individual reflections support this?

§  How do the comments from your classmates support this?

Achievement of my lesson was not what I had originally planned it to be. Looking at the worksheets and problems that we did together, my new goals became teaching the exponent rules needed to work with negative exponents. With the new goals set, I feel that achievement of learning was moderately successful. I feel that my "students" would still need more work on the "basics" of exponents if I were teaching them the same topic again. Based on some comments that my peers made, and some personal reflections I have thought of things that if I did differently would have made the lesson flow a little easier. I would make sure to have some notes for them to refer to, or once realizing what they didn't know, I should have written some notes out for them to look at. Another thing I would do differently is have a print out of my lesson plan, to have examples to refer to. I was having a hard time working with each girl individually, and at one point during the lesson I got mixed up and told two of them to do the problems wrong. I eventually figured out that this happened and corrected the problem, but I feel that if I had my lesson plan printed out with me I would have been able to organize my thoughts a little bit better. Another comment was that I the problems on my worksheet were hard to read, and I feel that I could have avoided that by having someone proof read them before coming to class. 
As far a success in teaching, I feel that I was successful. I had to make some modifications, and decisions based on where my student were in their knowledge of exponents. I feel that my "students" learned something from my lesson, it just was not what I had originally planned on them to learn. 

Phase 2 of Micro Lesson 1: Instructional Decisions/Teaching

1.   Instructional Decisions/Teaching: Discuss the implementation process and describe

o    What you did and learned from the teaching/facilitating process

o    How alignment to goals and objectives was maintained

o    Modifications made for individual needs

During our teaching, I learned that teachers need to be really careful of this estimations they make about their students. Going into the lesson, I assumed that exponent rules was something that was common knowledge, or at least knowledge that would just need to be recalled with a review. Once I started to review with my "students" I learned differently. This taught me that I need to be careful about the assumptions I make about students, over estimating can cause just as many problems as under estimating student ability. My goals and objectives were not aligned very well with the lesson that was given. My goals were that students would be able to show that they can work with negative exponents, but once I began teaching those goals changed into wanting them to be able to know the exponent rules. I ended up modifying my entire lesson for the needs of the "students". We worked a really long time on learning the "basics" of exponents before we got to the content that was originally planned for the lesson. I modified some of the problems on the worksheets to better work with learning  exponential rules, and to make them simpler than they were before. Overall, I really had to make major modifications to work with the level that my "students" were at. 

Phase 1 of Micro Lesson: Planning Assessment

         

This is a post explaining my assessment. I will demonstrate how my assessment will show the students understanding of the goals and objectives while engaging my students in higher order thinking and meeting their individual needs. 

        My assessment is one that allows students to self-assess while I am assessing them. Being able to correctly pick a group to join, having the ability to participate in discussions with their peers about the content, and being able to formulate questions to help them better understand are all ways that I am going to assess how well student comprehend what I am teaching. The group assessment that I want to use for this lesson allows for higher order thinking by providing them the chance to go deeper into the concept with their peers. Asking and answering each other’s questions is how I am going to encourage higher order thinking in my assessment. My assessment meets individual needs by allowing students to choose where they are as far as understanding the content, and being able to receive assistance based on that choice.

Phase 1 of Micro Lesson 1: Designing Instruction

In this post  I will be explaining the design of my lesson plan. How I have organized this lesson to use various instructional methods, ensured alignment researched based understanding of technology integration, and the in what ways I actual integrated technology into my lesson. 

https://w.taskstream.com/Lesson/View/7BA9BD74B8EC79993EF27E40637FD470

         My lesson plan is designed using NAU's 5 E lesson plan outline. Using this lesson plan helps to organize my lesson logically, and helps me to ensure that everything moves in an easy flow. Being able to use this lesson format, I am able to state my goals, objective, standards, and content in a detailed, and organized fashion. Something that I really like about this lesson format is that there is a section for me to state ways that I am going to incorporate methods for special needs students and ways to create high order thinking in my lesson. The lesson that I created for this project did not give me the opportunity to integrate technology in any significant way. Using calculators is as much technology as this lesson requires, however I can see how technology can be integrated into the class in later lessons. 

Phase 1 of Micro Lesson 1: Plans and Instruction

This post is discussing how I have clearly stated my goals and objectives, how my goals and objectives line up with the standard, and how these goals and objectives are appropriate for my students. 

         I used the state standards to create my goals and objectives for this lesson. Using the standards to form my original goals for my students helps me to ensure that they are learning material that is grade level appropriate, and that I am following what they standards are expecting me to teach. After setting a goal, and stating the standard's objective, I then modify the terminology to make them understandable for students. Using simple, clear, and short goals and objectives enables that students and any person in my classroom will be able to know exactly what we are aiming for today. Having clear goals and objectives is very important, and as a teacher I do everything in my power to make sure that I am very clear when stating them.

Phase 1 of MIcro Lesson 1: Assessing Prior Knowledge.

This post is about how I would assess the prior knowledge of my students if I were teaching this in an actual eighth grade math class. Along with how I would assess their prior knowledge, I will also discuss what I would expect to learn from their pre-assessment result, and how this information would prove useful with deciding how to proceed with my lesson.

          If I were teaching this to a real class, assessment of prior knowledge would be assessed through a review session. I would use review games and sheets along with class discussions over the material that we last covered, and skills they would need to be able to accomplish our new objective.

While assessing students' prior knowledge, I would expect to learn what they have learned and understood overall so far as a class. While doing a class review it would be hard to assess each individual students comprehension. However I would expect to learn the average level of the class. 

        Learning the average knowledge and comprehension of the class would be useful because I need to make sure they understand the previous lessons before I move on to new ones. If the class is behind as a whole, and does not have the understanding that I believe they need, I would not move onto my new lesson. We would review the old material until I feel that they have shown me that they understand it. Moving on without this information would just put students farther behind. As a teacher I need to make sure I do everything thing in my power to ensure student understanding.  

Global awareness and digital-age communication

Communicating in Today's World

Today, so much of our communication happens through technology. We have Skype, texting, emailing, blogging,YouTube, and social networks that all help us to interact with the world around us. It is important that as a teacher we teach our students the complications of communicating in our digital world. A very important aspect that we need to inform our students about is that there is no emotion in text. The way you read it when you write it, is not always the way someone else reads it. Being careful of how you phrase things can save you a lot of trouble.

 

Another important aspect of communicating in today world, is that anyone has access to what you put online or send over text or email. Using any of the above communications tools has become day to day life for most people. Sometime it is easy to think that you can put whatever you want up and it is okay. As teachers we need to make sure that students under what is acceptable to send and post and what is not.  

Safe, Legal, and Ethical Use of Digital Information and Technology

Being Safe and Ethical while staying inside the law when using technology can be tricky. There is so much information out there, sometimes it is easy to forget that you need to give credit to those people who put the information out there and that not all websites are okay to use. 

Tips on Digital Safety in the Classroom

• Let students know about the dangers of the internet. So often we forget that it is easy to over look a shady email, or to not realize you are giving information that you shouldn't be. Have a talk about it, make sure that students understand that there are rules to using the web.
• Set up blocks. Block websites that you do not want students to be able to access during class. You cannot block every potentially dangerous website, but you can make sure that students are not getting on to inappropriate sites during school.
• Be involved. Being active in the students directly will not only help them learn the material better, but will let you help them stay safe and ethical while doing their research and their projects.
• Would your mother be okay with you doing/seeing this? When all else fails, if you are not sure if what you are doing is okay or not, ask yourself if your mother would be okay with it. Generally the answer is no, which means you should probably not take part in it. This is a "light" way of teaching students how to make good decisions when using the internet. 

Ethical Use of Digital Information

• Is it right? Teach students to recognize the right and wrong way to use information that is on the internet. 
• Copy and Paste. Students need to learn that if they are going to use someone else work, they need to give them credit for it. Growing up with the technology that they do, sometimes students do not understand that just because it is there, doesn't mean you can just take it. 
• Citations, citations, citations! Be sure that students understand how to properly cite the information they use. Just putting the URL down in the references page is not the right way to cite information that is not yours. I know growing up that is all I did, then I got into college and learned that doing it that way does not give proper credit to the proper people. Teaching students how to use APA format would be simple way to ensure that they are using information ethically. 

Keeping Students Inside The Law

• Think about others. Making sure that students understand that posting pictures or information about other people without their permission is not okay. A good way to help them understand this is to ask them, "would you want someone posting something of yours online?" 
• Piracy is illegal! We all know how to get movies and music off the internet for free, or know someone who can do it for us. This is illegal. As teachers, we need to make sure that we enforce this law in our classrooms. Teach them that it is both unethical and illegal to do so. Downloading movies or music can get you into a lot of trouble. 
• Could you do that if you were in person? Threatening someone's life over the internet is just as serious as doing it in real life. The same goes for ANY sort of harassment. This means that you have to be very conscious about what you are saying, and who you are saying it to.  

Meeting Diverse Needs of Learners Through

Learner-Centered Strategies and Equitable Access

Meeting the needs of every student in a classroom is always a goal of a good teacher. Living in today's world, meeting those needs has become a little easier. We can us technology that allows children to move that their own pace, helping us be able to assist the needs of not only the students who are below where they should be or the ones that are above most of the other. Leaner-centered games, lessons, and other technological tools are a way that we challenge EVERY child. Often times, the students in the bell part of the bell curve get overlooked. Making sure that every student has access to learner-centered strategies in the classroom is one step towards being able to meet the special needs of every child in the classroom. 

Digital Etiquette and responsible social interactions.

Social interactions can be great, we just need to be sure that we follow proper digital etiquette when interacting in public places with others.

• What is Digital Etiquette?
• Digital Etiquette can be explained as a set of "unspoken" rules that one should follow when on the internet. Following these rule can make the use of the internet better for you and for others as well. Much like "dinner etiquette" and "sports etiquette" there are certain things that are appropriate and certain things that are not. 
• Ways to have good Digital Etiquette
• Treat people online as if you are in person
• Do not take other people's work without permission or without giving credit 
• not only is the bad Digital Etiquette, it is plagiarism. 
• Do not post photos of people without their permission.
• Keep conversations appropriate
• If you are in a chatroom, remember that they are for everyone. You need to be considerate of others when making your opinion, view, and beliefs heard.
• AVOID TYPING IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS
• This gives the appearance that you are shouting, and no very many people like to be shouted at.
• Be appropriate with pictures, videos, or anything else that you personally put on the internet for others to see.