Final Reflection About This Semester

Standard 1: Promote, support and model creative and innovative thinking and inventiveness

            This standard was achieved throughout the use of both of my lessons. My first lesson was on finding out the area of different shapes. As a teacher I thought it would be fun to figure out the area of shapes that are used to create the student’s names. Each student was asked to use unit blocks to create their names using Kidspiration. This allowed the students to use their creativity and innovative thinking to come up with ways that cube blocks could produce their names. From here, the students were asked to calculate the area of each letter of their name which was later added up to get the total area of their names. For my second lesson, the students were asked to recreate a day in the life of a soldier that fought in the civil war as if they were the soldier themselves. The only criteria was that they had to include a beginning, middle and end of the day and the events had to be accurate to those that could have actually happened for that time era. The students were directed towards various resources that they could use and encouraged to be as creative as they wished to be.

Standard 1: Engage students in exploring real-world issues and solving authentic problems using digital tools and resources.

            My students were able to engage in the exploration of real-world issues. During my second lesson, the students were asked to examine letters written by soldiers from the civil war. As a class, we had begun the lesson by examining the lifestyle of soldiers from back then and comparing them to the soldiers we are familiar with seeing. From there, the students were asked to use given resources to complete their own investigation of what life was like through the use of primary sources. Each student was asked to view at least three letters in order to begin their own interpretation of that lifestyle. This allowed each student to not only have a frame of reference for their own artifacts but it also made them think about what life had been like back then and compare it to what they take for granted in life today. If we had been given more time, I would have liked to see the technology by used to see if these students could figure out other ways that the war could have been handled or solved. I think it would have been cool to see the students try to come up with alternatives and then brainstorm other ways that countries can deal with conflict both within their borders and out.

Standard 1: Promote student reflection using collaborative tools to reveal and clarify students’ conceptual understanding and thinking, planning and creative processes.

            Although, I did not get a chance to demonstrate this standard throughout this semester I think that given different time constraints that I could have. In my future classroom, I would like to be able to incorporate this piece within every lesson because I think that it is important for students to be able to reflect on their own learning and experiences. Throughout reflection, the lessons become more individualized and meaningful. One thing that I liked about this class was that I was asked to reflect on my own teaching styles which made me think about things that I may not have thought about before being asked certain questions. At the beginning of every lesson I was asked to reflect on my own lesson plan as I made it then after it had been taught I was asked a different set of questions which made me think about how effective it was. This made the experiences I had meant so much more to me because I was challenged to reevaluate every step rather than teach and be done.

Standard 1: Model collaborative knowledge construction by engaging in learning with students, colleagues, and others in face-to-face and virtual environments.

            Throughout the creation of my two lessons and the lessons about the smartboard that we presented to the class and virtual field trips I have been given multiple opportunities to engage in learning with my colleagues. This to me has been one of the best parts because I believe that the best way to learn is to do it in a way that makes the content meaningful and important to the student. Learning alongside some of the greatest people I know has helped me to implement the two lessons I did and they have helped me to better myself as a teacher. There are multiple times when the girls at my table and I have discussed various elements of our lessons when planning them because we value the input of each other and our learning.

Standard 2: Design or adapt relevant learning experiences that incorporate digital tools and resources to promote student learning and creativity.

            Both of my lessons had to be adapted to incorporate technology into them. I started out by coming up with lessons that I thought would be interesting and exciting to teach. Once I came up with the plan of what I was going to teach, I began to wonder how I was going to teach that specific content to my colleagues who at the time were pretending to be the ages that my lessons were geared towards. My professor would come over to me and we would begin to discuss the vision that I had for the lessons that I wanted to teach. Together we would adapt my vision to include various uses of technology that would enhance the content being taught in a way that was engaging to my students.

Standard 2: Develop technology-enriched learning environments that enable all students to pursue their individual curiosities and become active participants in setting their own educational goals.

            Within my own classroom, I would like to be able to supply a checklist of things that the children should have accomplished by the end of the week. This allows the child to work in the order that they would like and allows them to implement their own time management plans. Each week the students will be asked to complete activities that are hands-on, technology centered, research centered and some beneficial elements. Technology could be used to help the student’s research something of interest in the class’ topic of study. It could help them get better at math facts through various virtual games that are intriguing to the students.

Standard 2: Customize and personalize learning activities to address students’ diverse learning styles, working strategies, and abilities using digital tools and resources.

            Throughout the creation of each lesson plan, I was asked to reflect on how I would change my lessons to meet the needs of diverse populations. Every class in the real world is full of students from diverse backgrounds. It is my job as a teacher to use technology in my classroom to help give the students a successful path towards their diverse futures. I have learned that I can use various technology programs to differentiate the way I present content to my students and how I ask them to prove their knowledge to me without having to compromise the content itself.

Standard 2: Provide students with multiple and varied formative and summative assessments aligned with content and technology standards and use resulting data to inform learning and teaching.

            This is a standard that I did not achieve very well. Most of my assessments were informal and formal. I used a lot of observation throughout my lessons to assess the students on what they were able to understand versus what they were not able to understand. For formal assessments on the lessons that I taught I used rubrics and creative assignments. Based on the timing available for this class, I was unable to use the data in summative assessments because we only had time to do two short lessons rather than one continuous lesson twice. In the real world, I would be using assessments to rethink lessons and in the creation of new lessons.

Standard 3: Demonstrate fluency in technology systems and the transfer of current knowledge to new technologies and situations.

            In today’s society it is uncommon to find a lot of people without different technology systems in their possession. I think that it would be interesting to let the students do what my class did this semester. Every student will get in a group and choose a piece of technology to research and present to the class. This will give every student a chance to learn how to use multiple technology systems in ways that can enhance their learning of content in and out of the classroom.

Standard 3: Collaborate with students, peers, parents, and community members using digital tools and resources to support student success and innovation.

            In my future classroom, I would like to have a class website that is updated at least once a week. This will help the students, parents and community members stay involved within what is taking place in my classroom. I would like to be able to create a website that will include things like things that are being taught that week, homework assignments, upcoming events, themes for certain projects, pictures of the students work, and what parents/ members from the community can do to help out within my classroom. Resources like glogster could help with this later on.

Standard 3: Communicate relevant information and ideas effectively to students, parents, and peers using a variety of digital-age media and formats.

            This standard relates very closely to the previous one. I think that I would love to use technology as a way to communicate with my parents and students as best as possible. This may not always work and sometimes technology will have to be used through the use of me creating something to stick in folders for hard copies to those parents who may not have technology readily available.

Standard 3: Model and facilitate effective use of current and emerging digital tools to locate, analyze, evaluate, and use information resources to support research and learning.

            This is another standard that was not necessarily present during this semester’s class but I have been given some ideas on how to demonstrate this standard out in my own classroom. Currently, in the classroom that I have spent my semester doing practicum in has allowed me the opportunity to watch technology improve the lives of things like keeping track of grades, holding teacher parent conferences and the learning the teachers are doing. There is a system that will create charts and graphs to show a student’s progress over time and how their success compares to that of the rest of the class. Things like student surveys and blogs help the teacher to analyze and evaluate their lessons performance.

Standard 4: Advocate, model, and teach safe, legal, and ethical use of digital information and technology, including respect for copyright, intellectual property, and the appropriate documentation of sources.

            In a previous blog post, I had written about this topic. I want my students to be able to feel free to use the technology as a resource into past lives and future ones without having to worry about all of the wrong that could take place on the technology. My students will know that it is okay to use someone’s research but that I want to know what they are taking away from that research. If I wanted that author’s take on the subject I would have looked it up on my own instead of making them do twice the necessary work. My students should feel safe when they google something for a project and not have to worry about what could pop up during that search. Technology is an amazing gift that our society often takes for granted but it is also a place where a lot of horrible things could be found and that is not something that children should be exposed to.

Standard 4: Address the diverse needs of all learners by using learner-centered strategies providing equitable access to appropriate digital tools and resources.

            Technology allows for children to learn at a pace that meets their developmental growth. Too often, schools try to force 25 students to learn the same material, the same way at the same time. Any great teacher would know that this method does not work. No single content can be taught one way and reach every child on that same day. Children need to be allowed to have the flexibility to work alongside their developmental stages so that they can advance instead of fall behind. Technology is a great way to meet the needs of all students while addressing the standards that are set in place for that grade level during that year. Students can explore various modes of representation and find different ways to express their understanding in a way that makes them excited to learn.

Standard 4: Promote and model digital etiquette and responsible social interactions related to the use of technology and information.

            Technology is a right not a guarantee in life which means that if it is used incorrectly that there will be consequences. Students in my class will learn from day one that bullying is not an acceptable way to handle difficult feelings. Whether this bullying is in person or online there will be consequences as a result to bullying. Students need to remember that the things that are posted online can be seen by everyone and there is no way to permanently erase the words that have been written. This can seem like a hard concept to understand especially at a young age, as it is even difficult for adults to comprehend. It is important that children understand the repercussions of the actions that they do while using technology.

Standard 4: Develop and model cultural understanding and global awareness by engaging with colleagues and students of other cultures using digital-age communication and collaboration tools.

            A blog post written earlier this semester describes the importance of using technology to communicate throughout the globe. The world is becoming a place that relies on global communications to keep it running smoothly (or in war’s case not so smoothly). Students should learn that the education that they receive in school is something that will transfer to their futures. Technology allows people to communicate with one another from throughout the world. Since the evolution of technology, people have been able to translate between languages and communicate with a world outside of the one that they can experience in their everyday lives. This is why it is important to let students explore other cultures through the use of technology. 

Reflecting Assessment Lesson #2

Assessment of Learning 

     

The above artifacts are representing the student's progress over the course of the hour long lesson. The pieces of lined paper are what the students observed from the photo presentation that was projected onto the smartboard at the beginning of the lesson. The students were asked to write down the types of things that they observed while looking at each photo. These photos consisted of two from the civil war era and the modern day war era. The videos are the student's IMovie's about their life as a civil war soldier. Each student was instructed to create a movie that explains the daily life that they would live as a soldier from that time period. This movie had to contain morning, afternoon and evening events that they researched throughout the reading of letters. Both of my students achieved the standards and objectives extremely well. However, one of my student's was able to complete the entire project using all three parts while the other one completed only the morning and the afternoon pieces. I think that outside of the using of IMovie, that I succeeded in implementing this lesson really well. Overall, my students thought that the lesson went really well. The only thing they wish had been different is the explaining of the IMovie and how it works. I think that if we had had more time within this lesson that touching on the basics of how to work IMovie would have been beneficial to the learning and success of my students. 

Reflecting Materials for Lesson #2

Mechanics: 

     The technologies that were used in my lesson were the smartboard, personal computers and IMovie. The teacher used the smartboard and the students used the personal computers with IMovie. The presentation with the pictures for the anticipatory set was projected up on the smartboard which is where we discussed the things that the student's observed in each picture. However, students were asked to use their personal computers to research various letters from the civil war soldiers and use those to create their IMovies. This lesson was too long because the students had not had a lot of previous experiences with IMovie prior to this activity which made it more difficult to complete the requirements of the activity in time. As a group, we spent a lot of time trying to figure out how IMovie works and then adding our content into it. 

Reflecting on Instructional Designs Lesson #2

Instructional Decisions/Teaching 

     In the implementation of my lesson there was a lot that went well but there are several things that I can improve on for next time. My students were really engaged during the lesson and they seemed to like playing with the IMovie. However, my students told me that they would have liked to have more prior experiences with the IMovie before having the opportunity to use it for their creative artifact. I think that the alignment of the objectives and the standards were maintained well throughout the lesson. This lesson  was a lot more academic than the last one. During this lesson, for the sake of time I decided to scratch the idea of the venn diagram out and instead just allow the students to talk about the things that they observed within the four pictures. I am glad that I decided to cut that out of this one because both students had a problem finishing the creative assessment.

Materials and Resources

MATERIALS AND RESOURCES (4th Post)

In this section include any examples you have created for the students, resources (software, weblinks, books, crafting items, etc.) and other necessary items

Ken Burns' Civil War youtube videos 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FN2huQB-DmE

http://www.civilwararchive.com/LETTERS/elliott.htm

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/25/letters-to-new-york/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0

Assessment

ASSESSMENT (3rd Post)

Procedure:
     Informal Assessments will be done through teacher observations during the lesson. The teacher will walk around the classroom to check for understanding while the students are writing down their observations as well as when they are creating their own IMovie renditions of the Day In The Life Of A Soldier.
     Formal Assessments will be done through the use of the student's IMovies. Students IMovies will be graded on a rubric that has been created by the teacher.
The rubric is as follows: (5 points for each section included)
     Name
     Sequencing (beginning, middle and end of the day)
     Items used that are appropriate for that time frame
     Photos or illustrations
     Descriptions for each moment of the day

Reflect on:

Planning Assessment (InTask Standard # 6):
     The assessments that are being used align with the standards of this lesson because it shows that the students have given thought to the different types of items that were used in the civil war by soldiers. It also proves to the teacher that the students have learned  to sequence events and take information from primary sources to create something of their own. All of the standards help the students to achieve the objective by demonstrating their knowledge. The assessment allows children to demonstrate their understanding of how events are sequenced throughout the day and how to use reading as a way to gain information that can be transferred to another assignment. Students are engaged in higher order thinking skills through the use of synthesizing the information and understanding. Each student's individual needs were met through the various modes of instruction and means of expression. The assessment demonstrates this by allowing the rubric to be adjusted to fit the needs of the child. Using this rubric the teacher can allow for more or less detail of the sequencing and descriptions. The students could be given the opportunity of discussing the photos/illustrations rather than through writing. 

Lesson Plan #2 A Day In The Life Of A Soldier During The Civil War

OVERVIEW 

Grade Level: 5th grade

Subject(s): Social Studies 

Topic of Study: Civil War 

Time Allotment: 60 minutes

Standards:

5.PO 4 Locate information using both primary and secondary sources. 

5.RL.3 Compare and contrast two or more characters, settings, or events in a story or drama, drawing on specific details in the text (e.g., how characters interact). 
5.RL. 9 Compare and contrast stories in the same genre (e.g., mysteries and adventure stories) on their approaches to similar themes and topics. 

Objectives: Students will be able to demonstrate knowledge of the day-to-day life of a soldier in the Civil War. 

Reflect on:

Assessing Prior Knowledge: 

     Students need to have basic knowledge about war and soldiers in the century that they live in. They need to understand why people are sent off as soldiers and some basic things that they have. They need to know what an IMovie is and the basics about how to use the features associated with it. Prior knowledge will be assessed through the anticipatory set. I will use the discussion at the beginning of the lesson about the pictures that are projected up onto the screen to observe the experience and knowledge that my students have before this lesson. I will probably teach a mini lesson about IMovies and how to make your own using the basic features before beginning this lesson. This way, my students are coming in with the exposure needed to complete the activity. Depending on their prior experiences with the discussion of today's soldiers and the wars going on in our world I might have to extensively go into a lesson about today's life of a soldier before I have them talk about those from the civil war.

Planning Instruction:
     The content of this lesson should be taught at this grade level because students are old enough to grasp tough topics with an understanding that may be unclear at an earlier age. I feel like at this age the students will have had enough experience through their life to have basic knowledge of the concepts that will be talked about. From an academic stand point, the standards for language arts fit with the historical concepts and themes behind this lesson.

This lesson will be taught in the second or third quarter of the school year depending on where the student's are at with their reading ability, and writing. The standards that I am using are geared to be taught towards the beginning of the school year. However, I believe that lessons should be aligned with the student's abilities regardless of when the standard is supposed to be taught. Which is why I thought that a majority if not all of my students will be prepared to complete this lesson's objectives and standards successfully by the second or third quarter. The objective is broad enough to include the standards that I have picked. Through the standards, the students are demonstrating their knowledge of the events that take place during the day to day life of a soldier from the civil war.

Implementation of Lesson #2: What Will This Look Like?

IMPLEMENTATION (2nd Post)

Procedure:

• Students will walk into the classroom and be instructed to sit down at their seats and pull out a sheet of paper with a writing utensil. 
• The teacher will ask the students to take a look at some pictures that are going to be projected onto the screen and write down any thoughts or comments about what they are seeing. 
• Students will be given approximately 10 minutes to view four pictures (two from the civil war period and two from the modern era) and jot down some observations. 
• From there, the teacher will lead the class in a whole-group discussion about what was observed when looking at the pictures. 
• This discussion will help the teacher to start designing a class Venn-diagram about the similarities and differences between the two time periods. 
• Once this discussion has concluded, the class will move onto the next activity.
• The teacher will hand out some letters that were written by soldiers who fought in the civil war. 
• The class will read this letter as a group and make a list about what the time period was like back then, the kinds of outfits that were worn, food they ate, how they stayed dry, things that they took with them etc. (This list will be used as a reference sheet when the children are making their IMovies about what their life would be like if they were a soldier in that time period.) 
• Teacher will direct the students back to their individual computers and explain the next activity. 
• Students will be instructed to open up IMovie and begin to create a movie version of a comic strip based off of what their daily life would be like if they were a soldier in the civil war era. 
• Teacher will walk around providing assistance and giving each child a score guide (rubric) of what they will be graded on within regards to their IMovie. 
• At the end of the period, teacher will collect the IMovies and keep them to use for assessment. If the students finish before the time is over then students will be asked to present their IMovie and lead the class in another discussion about the similarities and differences between their peer's movie versus the time period. 

Technology Integration:
     The technologies that will be used in this lesson are a master computer, projector and a screen for the teacher to use to project the pictures of the two time eras. For the Venn Diagram we will be using the smartboard to construct our interactive class comparison. The other piece of technology will be the IMovie which will be created using individual computers. Students will be using the computers to create their IMovies.
     

Differentiated Instruction: Describe how you will differentiate the instruction for each of the following:

• Cognitive delay- For students with an intellectual disability the instruction of this lesson will be more scaffolded to assist in helping the students with misunderstandings. Students will be given prompts on the observations to make should they require this for the beginning of the lesson. The teacher will make accommodations depending on the student's needs but overall, the students will be provided with a more scaffolded version of this lesson. However, the expectations will not be lowered for the completion of the assessment but they will be modified to fit the student. 
• Gifted- For students who are gifted in intelligence the lesson will be modified to challenge the students. These modifications include having the students evaluate how their life as a soldier during the civil war would be different depending on where they are from, what kind of families they are from and how their lives would be different if they fought for the other side. 
• ELL- For students who are secondary English language learners the lesson will be modified to allow for understanding to happen without a huge language barrier. The teacher will modify the language to avoid bias and help each child to achieve to their best ability. The students can be partnered with strong readers to make the reading portion easier so that the child can focus on the topic. 

Reflect on:
Designing Instruction (InTask Standards 7 and 8):

I am using the instructional methods that I have described because they are what is best for every child. My lesson allows the children to reflect and analyze things that are seen through observation. It allows for the students to work together as a class to communicate their thoughts and ideas. The most important thing about why I am using these methods is because it allows for each student to be engaged and creatively respond to the learning through various means of expression. From my methods classes I have learned that students need to be engaged in their learning and they need to be given guidelines of what the teacher is expecting from them. The teacher will get better results if they allow the children to know what it is they are looking for. I am engaging my students in creative and higher order thinking skills throughout the lesson in multiple ways. First of all, the students are being asked to take the pictures that they are viewing and analyze what the time period was like. Through the creation of their IMovie they will have to synthesize the information that was discussed during the lesson to come up with their version of a day in the life of. The integration of technology in this lesson will help to provide a way for the content to reach every child in a way that makes sense to them. It allows children the opportunity to interact with the content through different means of expression. 

Reflections on Lessons Implementation Lesson #1

Instructional Decisions/Teaching

     There are a couple of things that went well in my lesson. These things consisted of student engagement, the use of the technology and the relationship between the students and I. The lesson was very hands-on towards the end even though the activities that we did were not originally planned out within my lesson. When the technology was working effectively the students were engaged and used the technology to further their learning. The last thing that went really well was the relationship between the students and I. Granted we have known each other for the last three semesters which helped make our relationship strong prior to the lesson. However, I am glad that the relationship I have with Caleigh and Lauren was strong enough to help me throughout my lesson when my lesson ended shorter than expected. The following things went wrong with my lesson: the technology did not work appropriately during certain parts of my lesson and that my lesson was rushed through because I could not time how long we took to get the technology to work. At the beginning of the lesson, the smart board needed to be restarted multiple times in order to get it to work correctly which took time out of my teaching. Once we got it to work the lesson went really well until we got to creating the artifact. It started to become obvious that the students could not write their calculations on their artifact. I decided to overcome this obstacle by having the students write down their calculations on a piece of lined paper which I would then scan into the computer at a later time. This lesson aligned almost perfectly to the objectives and standards that I had put in place. As previously mentioned, there were some modifications that were made to this lesson. Since I had problems with getting the smartboard to work at the beginning of the lesson, I cut myself short with the teaching portion of the lesson because I thought I had less time. This created a problem when my students were done with their artifacts which concluded the original lesson 15 minutes early. I had to come up with something else for the students to do. The students were given the task of measuring the area of real life objects (such as, the desks, the floor, the bulletin board outside) in which I assessed their ability to transfer the content from one context to another. The last modification made to this lesson was that instead of writing the calculations on to Pixie alongside their artifacts the students had to write it on a separate sheet of paper because Pixie won't let you write onto a math graph paper slide. Once I got to see the student's work, I realized that they could not complete the section of the assessment that asked them to write a multiplication fact so they were given the option to choose their own equation for how to calculate the total area. The last modification to the original lesson was that we decided to use Pixie instead of Kidspiration for the artifact because it was a software that we had used during the whole group lesson and the kids were more comfortable with it. 

Mechanics
     The technologies that I used during this lesson are the smartboard, Pixie, and personal computers. All of these technologies were used by both the teacher and the students in an engaging manner. The students and I took turns interacting with the smartboard and Pixie. The students were then asked to use their personal computers to create their artifact on Pixie to complete their independent projects. My lesson was too short because I rushed through the teaching in order to allow for enough time to complete the student's independent projects. Another reason that my lesson was short was because I underestimated the amount of time that we had left to get through the lesson after having problems with the smartboard.        

Assessment of Learning
     The following are examples of my students work for the final artifact. 

     Both of the students did very well on their artifacts. Caleigh was able to earn all of the points and master the objective and standards within her first try. The only thing that she failed to do is put the addition sign on her problem before adding the numbers down. Lauren had problems with adding her numbers together which threw off her answer by 10. She also forgot to put the addition sign on the problem and omitted to rechecking her work after she had completed the assignment. Both of my students were successful in achieving the expectations set by the objective and standards. I think that overall I was successful in teaching this lesson. The feedback that I received was excellent. The only thing that they suggested that I work on is time management. My peers would have liked to have seen me teach more on area before letting them work on their individual projects. Outside of these comments, I feel like I did really well on supporting their individual needs within this lesson. I hope to do better on my next lesson. 

Materials For Area Lesson

• Smartboard
• Kidspiration
• My example

• Individual Computers with Kidspiration on them 
• BBLearn Assessment Folder 

Assessing Knowledge Of Area

Procedure:

Informal Assessment:
During the whole group mini-lesson I will be assessing the students understanding of area through observations. I will call each student up to the smartboard to work on a problem which will help to determine how much help that particular individual will need in completing the final activity. When the students go back to their seats to start their independent work I will be walking around to observe their progress and assist where needed.

Formal Assessment:
The artifact from the "Name Activity" at the end of the lesson will be collected and assessed to determine the students who are ready to move on to another topic and those that need more support on the current one. The artifact that will be graded will be completed using the software Kidspiration. Students will create a word (preferably their name) using unit squares on the digital graph paper. Once the word has been created, the students will count each unit square to determine how much area the word in total takes up. Students can do this by adding all of the areas together or they can complete this through counting continuously until the end of the word. The students will then write out the area in terms of a simple multiplication equation and then write the answer following the equal sign. The following checklist is how each student's artifact will be graded and assessed for understanding.

Instruments: 

Checklist (25 points; 5 points for each)

• Name 
• Student designed a word on Kidspiration
• Student wrote down the two numbers that they used in an equation
• Student solved the equation
• The answer of the equation adds up to the number of square units within the design

Reflect on:
The formal assessment is designed to determine how well the students understand area and how to calculate it by adding up unit squares which directly aligns with both the objective and standard for this grade level. The assessment demonstrates that the students have been successful in learning the content because it asks students to transfer the knowledge from the lesson on how to calculate the area of a familiar shape to using it on a creative shape. As mentioned before the students are engaged in higher order thinking skills because of the ability to transfer these new skills as well as their ability to think about how to solve the area of a shape that they have creatively produced. This assessment demonstrates that individual needs were met because each student is allowed to either their name or a word (for an ELL student or a student with a cognitive ability). The final assessment is individualized which will help make sure that every student is getting the support, without compromising high expectations, that they need to succeed. 

Implementation Of My Lesson

Procedure: 

1. Students will come in and sit down around the smart board where the teacher will be standing to direct the students to the correct place for the lesson.
2. The teacher will begin the lesson by reviewing the students' understanding of the previous lesson on perimeter to make sure that the class is ready for the next step. 
3. Reviewing starts by asking the students to discuss in pairs what perimeter means. Then the class will come back together to review how to solve for perimeter up on the board. This is how the teacher will assess the students understanding. 
4. If the class is ready to move ahead to the lesson on area then the teacher will begin to instruct lesson. If the class is not ready to move ahead to the lesson then another math period will be dedicated to helping students master the concept of perimeter enough to understand why area is important for them to learn. 
5. The teacher will have Kidspiration open on the smartboard prior to the lesson. While the students are finishing up their discussions about what they had previously learned about perimeter, the teacher will walk around doing informal assessments through observation.
6. The teacher will bring all of the children back to focusing on the smartboard and then begin to explain what an area of a shape means, why it is important to know and how the students can calculate it using simple counting of unit squares. 
7. The teacher will go through slide one of the Kidspiration lesson plan with the class. On this slide are three examples of rectangles and squares that have had the area counted out for us. The area was written in a multiplication equation but the teacher will guide the students into counting out each block to show how to numbers in the equation were found. 
8. The teacher will move to the next slide and give the students a chance to come up to the smartboard to practice solving for area based off of the word problems provided at the top of the slide. Since there are approximately three slides six students could have a turn unless the teacher creates more slides to practice on. 
9. The teacher will assess student knowledge through the observations made during the guided practice to judge which students are ready to move onto the final artifact. 
10. If the students are ready to move on to calculating the area by counting unit squares in unusual shapes then the teacher will move on to providing an example of the next step.
11. The teacher will show the students how to locate a blank page of graph paper that they will use for the activity. 
12. Once the students have located the graph paper the teacher will show an example of their name already drawn onto the graph paper located on Kidspiration on the smartboard.
13. The class as a whole will figure out how to calculate the area and come to a total area of the entire name. 
14. Then the class will break apart individually to design their own name on Kidspiration. (The length of some student's names might cause a problem due to lack of space, so if this becomes a problem for students have them design a nickname instead). Students will create their names in unit squares before calculating the total area of the name which they will write on the side.
15. Once the time of the lesson is completed the students will be instructed to save their work as a pdf file and email it to the teacher as their final artifact that will be used in assessing the students' understanding of area. (In our class, the students will submit their pdf files to the class discussion board on BBLearn for review by the teacher at a later time). 

Technology Integration:

The students and the teacher will be interacting with technology in multiple ways throughout the length of the lesson. The teacher will start off the lesson by using the smartboard to give a brief introduction and explanation of the topic (in this case, area). Then the teacher will allow for the students to come up to the smartboard to practice what was taught. All of this will take place before the students are instructed back to their seats to use the computer that is in front of them to design their own artifact based off of their understanding of area.

Differentiated Instruction: Describe how you will differentiate the instruction for each of the following:

• Cognitive delay- If a student with a cognitive delay was present at this lesson I would accommodate accordingly. I would present the lesson in a way that uses that student's strengths. The lesson would be at a pace that allows for the interest of all students but leaves enough space open for longer processing to happen. I would warn the student prior to asking them to answer a question about the lesson and I would allow for more wait time when working with them through examples as well as their final artifact. 
• Gifted- If a student in my class is gifted then they will be given more challenging problems to do during the whole group instruction. I would also ask them if they would be willing to attempt writing their first and last name before calculating the area. I would make sure that they stay interested in the lesson by providing them with a challenge that has something to do with the topic that the class is learning.
• ELL- If I have an ELL student in my class then I will make accommodations to the lesson. I will make sure to provide the lesson content in terms that the student is familiar with and supply them with multiple ways of representing the material being presented. When it comes to the name artifact that I will be assessing I may ask the student to do a word or a song that they love in their native language rather than in English. This will allow the student to complete the same work but in a language that they understand. 

Reflect on:

I am using the instructional methods that I have described above because they will meet the needs of all of my students. The technology will allow the students to produce the final artifact in a way that is most appropriate for the child individually. Technology also helps to create a universally designed lesson that accommodates for a multitude of disabilities and levels. Best practice is about teaching children where they are at and supporting them until they achieve success. With this lesson I can differentiate it based off of the various academic levels that my students are at by making the final artifact easier or more challenging. I am engaging students in creative and higher order thinking by using unusual shapes (like their individual names) to gain practice with the concept of calculating area. The students in my lesson do not stop calculating area with the shapes that are most common. I push my students to thinking creatively about what other shapes could be used to calculate area. Kidspiration is a software that allows for exploration of learning in an age appropriate environment. By using Kidspiration, I am allowing my students to take learning into their own hands through exploration. I will also be using a smartboard. By allowing the students to interact with this technology the children are getting practice through a more hands-on learning approach because they are being forced in to being engaged in the lesson rather than sitting there absorbing the content. 

Lesson Plan Overview: What Is The Total Area Of My Name?

Grade Level: Third

Subject(s): Math and language

Topic of Study: Area

Time Allotment: 30 minutes

Standards: 3.MD.6. Measure areas by counting unit squares (square cm, square m, square in, square ft., and improvised units).

Objectives: Students will be able to use basic counting of unit squares to calculate the area of various objects. 

Reflection: 
Assessing Prior Knowledge 

• What do the students need to know prior to the lesson?
  Students will need to know what perimeter is and how to calculate perimeter prior to this lesson about area. Students will have to have a basic understanding of why perimeter is important as well as the knowledge about shapes. They will need to have an understanding of what shapes are, what they look like and how they are represented in the real world. The students will need to know how to do spell their names for the final artifact. 
• How will prior knowledge and experience be assessed?
  The student's prior knowledge will be assessed through review and observations. The lesson will start off with a brief review and discussion about what perimeter is and what we can use to calculate the perimeter of familiar shapes. 
• How will you use this information in the planning process?

  This information will let me know how well the students understand the concept of perimeter. Based on the information that is gathered at this part in the lesson, I will decide whether the students have mastered perimeter enough to move on to a lesson about area. If the students show enough understanding then the lesson can move on as planned. However, if the students do not show enough mastery and understanding then the lesson on area will have to be pushed back until I feel like the students can answer questions about perimeter with accuracy. 

Planning Instruction: 

• Why should the content of this lesson be taught at this grade level?
  The content of area and perimeter should be taught at this grade level, because students at this age are beginning to build on knowledge that they have mastered. Prior to this lesson, students will have mastered math in forms of addition, subtraction, multiplication and simple division facts. Area and perimeter are focused on the mathematical operations like addition and multiplication (repeated addition). 
• How do the objectives that you have for the lesson align with the standards?
  The objective that I have for the students is a broad generalization of what the standard asks the students to be able to do by the end of third grade. By end of this lesson students should have an understanding of how to use unit squares (which can be found on graph paper) to calculate the area of usual and unusual shapes.
• When will the lesson be taught in the course of the school year? Why?

          This lesson will be taught towards the beginning of the second half of the school year following the end           of winter break. The reason that I have chosen to teach this lesson at this time in the school year is                 because the first two quarters of the new school year the third graders will be revisiting old concepts             to make sure that such concepts like addition, subtraction and multiplication have been covered to a               level of student mastery. 

Meeting diverse needs of learners through learner-centered strategies and equitable access

Before we start this discussion I encourage you to take time to review this YouTube video that talks about how to use technology to meet the diverse needs of all the learners in your class. 

I think that this video explains this topic really well. Technology has allowed for an increase in meeting the diverse needs of every child that happens to be inside a classroom. Prior to this, our classrooms were teacher-centered which meant that the students were learning what and how the teachers wanted the students to know. Now, education is moving towards becoming student-centered which allows the students to get the education they need at the level that they are at. In this classroom for example, the teacher starts off the math lesson with a whole-group lesson to make sure that the students are understanding the concept enough to practice it on their own when they break into individualized practice on the computers. Once the students have practiced and worked with the math concept that has been taught that day they can move on to working on math at the pace that helps to support their current academic level. This allows each student to get the support that they need while having fun and it allows the teacher to pull small groups or individuals for more specific instruction. In this video, the teacher also talked about how he got the technology for all the students in his class which is almost as important as having a student-centered learning environment. Without the technology this teacher would not be able to have this amount of accessibility to a more student-centered approach. It is important to integrate technology into the classroom especially when it allows the teacher to specialize instruction so that the students are getting the support they need to succeed on their own time frame.

Global awareness and digital-age communication

Every human has four endowments - self awareness, conscience, independent will and creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom... The power to choose, to respond, to change.
Stephen Covey 
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/awareness.html#fgmzfdO0sPkx8CEP.99

The quote above stood out to me one day as I was trying to refresh my memory of what it meant to be globally aware. As a teacher it is important to think of technology as a new way to make connections with different people and cultures. Technology and digital-age communication makes it easier than ever before to connect with people who may not live near us. With social media and communication sites like Oovoo or Skype people can explore other cultures and customs of people whose paths may never have been able to cross before now. Students are no longer restricted to having to learn about other cultures through books or to having friends that live close to them so that they can keep communication with one another. Now we can keep in contact with friends who live in distant places in real time without having to sit and wait for the mail to arrive hoping that a letter would be addressed with your name on it. That is if the other person didn't forget to write you back. Technology acts as a bridge between two friends and allows for instant communication. Teachers should keep this in mind and not only use this for personal use but it should be incorporated within the learning environment at school.

The following are some examples of communication technologies:

Digital etiquette and responsible social interactions

The internet is a great place to communicate with other people from all over the world or in different countries. Places like email, instant messaging and various social media sites allow people to share life moments, pictures of their day, funny videos that made them smile or just to catch up with an old friend that they haven't seen in awhile. Unfortunately, not everyone uses this technology for social interaction in a positive manner. Some people use these opportunities to bully other people through mean messages, fake pages, rude posts, and many other forms of harassment. Cyber bullying doesn't happen to any specific age group; in fact, it happens to people of all ages and it could happen at any time. However, you can prevent bullying through the internet by following a few simple tips.

1. Never post something mean about someone else even if you are joking around because other people may not see it as a joke. 
2. Do not put things online that you do not want others to see because once you have uploaded something to the internet it is there permanently. 
3. When you see someone getting bullied online stand up for them by defending them and tell someone. Most social media websites have a "report abuse" button that you can use to combat bullying. 
4. Never post something out of anger because it is often the time when you say the things that you don't mean the most.
5. Remember that the other person is more than just a screen and that your actions can hurt just as bad as if you were to say those things to someone in person.

Students need to know that these 5 things are important to keep in mind. They need to be taught the rules of how to communicate with others from behind a screen. Children need to understand that communicating with the use of technology is no different than communicating face to face with someone. Teachers should be teaching self-acceptance along with these guidelines because students need to know that they are worth something. Most of the time bullying occurs because one is insecure about themselves or their life situation and they feel the need to bring others down with them. If all children are taught how to accept themselves and those around them we might be able to lower the amount of children who would rather take their life than hate themselves.

Here is a website with information for everyone on how the topic of digital etiquette and responsible social interactions. Cyberbullying

Safe, legal, and ethical use of digital information and technology

   Over the years, society has seen technology become more integrated within the classroom. Schools are using technology to enhance student learning and to provide more meaning to the topics being discussed. Although, technology is a useful tool there are things to keep in mind when using it in an educational setting. The internet is used to search topics that are of interest to many people. Because of this, there is content that may not be suitable for children of a specific grade level. Students need to be aware of the ways in which to use technology appropriately in their classroom. This could mean that the school chooses to put blocks on certain websites or content during school hours, sends home a form to be filled out by the child and the parent or discusses with the students what the appropriate use of technology means. Teachers also need to make sure that students know how to use the information that is located on the internet legally. When children are researching for a project it is easy to find themselves using information that they have found within their final project. However, most children, depending on their age, may not be aware that the research they are using has been written by someone else. Plagiarism is easy for people to do without knowing because they feel that the information found is what they need to use. Teachers must remember to educate the students and parents on the legality of plagiarism. When children become aware of plagiarism and of how to use the internet appropriately the technology becomes a tool to enhance the things that children can learn. If used without these safety precautions, children can end up abusing the uses of technology and could end up in trouble with the school. It is important to educate today's children with the knowledge on how to use this as a resource to expand their knowledge of the world.

   In my classroom I will make sure that every student and parent is aware of these things. I want technology to be a resource that can be freely used in my classroom to expand on the topics being discussed or the things that students are interested in. Students should be able to use these resources in order to explore the world in ways that were not possible several hundred years ago. As a teacher I will place restrictions on things that are not appropriate for the children that I am teaching. I have to be aware before integrating technology into my lessons, how readily available the technology is to my students. The lessons have to account for how many technology resources are available for use, how long it will take the students and how many of them have those resources at home if they needed to use them. These are all things that I will have to consider before integrating technology into certain lesson plans. As a class, we will talk about the dangers of plagiarism and what it feels like for someone else to take credit for another person's work. Since technology is so relevant in the lives of children today, I want to make sure that I can tie it in to my lessons in order to help engage the curiosity of the students. However, I need to make sure that they understand how to use technology as a resource and not abuse it otherwise it is a waste of a valuable resource.