Phase III- Ashley Wharton

Assessing Prior Knowledge:
I learned that it is even more important to assess prior knowledge when teaching a lesson. We pre-assessed students at the beginning of the lesson through questions and having them respond by raising their hands. I thought that the students we were teaching knew how to use a video camera because when asked everyone seemed to say yes, which led to my description being shorter. I know if this was in the real classroom I would have given the direct instruction on how to use a video camera to students. It is important for the teacher to know exactly where the students stand in understanding. In the future I will be sure to make sure that I always assess my students’ prior knowledge before teaching and assuming anything about what they may or may not already know.

Planning Instruction:
In the past I have not done many co-teaching lessons, so this was a great opportunity to practice planning a lesson with someone else. I enjoyed that we were able to come up with more ideas as we talked and that our lesson activities became more engaging because there were two people instead of just one planning. In the future I would love to have the opportunity to plan my instruction with other teachers. I know that by planning with others my lessons will become better for my students.

Designing Instruction:
After designing and teaching our lesson there were a few areas of the lesson that needed improvement. Those changes and additions were made in the revised lesson plan. The lesson format was pretty easy to follow and was a good tool in directing the lesson. I personally like more detailed and laid out lesson plans because it makes me reflect and think more before teaching the lesson. I again liked that when designing instruction it was a team effort between two people. I felt that this was a great benefit to designing instruction. We wanted an engaging and fun lesson that would be something different from what a lot of students would be doing on a regular basis in the classroom. In my future classroom I want to integrate technology as much as possible. I think that the students enjoy it and it differentiates the curriculum.

Planning Assessment:
When planning assessment we thought it would be great to use an authentic assessment when grading students. I really liked that the students were assessed on something that they produced and worked hard on. It was hard to create a rubric for grading because it made us reflect on what we really were grading and wanted to see in their films. This lesson would be one of many introducing and learning about the founding fathers. It was designed as an introduction and not a final wrap up. In the future I want to continue to use authentic assessment to assess my students. I would also like to work on improving my rubrics so that they are stronger assessment tools.

Instructional Decisions/ Teaching:
I think that our lesson went pretty well, though there were some technical difficulties at the end. I think that we should have monitored the students better when they left the classroom. We did not because we figured that because these students were in college, they could have appropriate behavior outside of the classroom. We stayed in the classroom mainly to help those groups who were still around. In my own classroom this would never be the case. My students would need constant monitoring to make sure that they are on task and displaying appropriate behaviors outside of the classroom. In the future this is something that I will do. Another thing was that the videos did not want to upload to the computers which made us switch the things that we were planning on doing. In the a real classroom we would not have watched the films immediately after filming, this would give the teacher time to fix any kinks that may occur and give students time to edit their clips if needed. Additionally it would be important to discuss with my students the legal and ethical use while doing this lesson. That might include talking about what is appropriate when filming and publishing a film on the computer, and what is acceptable when researching a topic.

Assessment of Learning:
As previously mentioned we used authentic assessment to assess our students. We used a rubric that is attached to our lesson plans to assess students. The rubric made assessing the projects easier because what we were grading based on topics that were already laid out. The students’ assessment was based on the standards the lesson was aligned to. The students would be further assessed at the end of this unit with a quiz or something similar based upon the founding fathers. In my future classroom I want to use rubrics when assessing because I think that they help both the teacher and students to understand what is being assessed.