Blog Post 7 - Engagement Strategies

Keeping students engaged in a lesson can be challenging at times, but there are several strategies that can be implemented into our lesson plans that will help us keep our students engaged. One of the most interesting methods discussed in our text is including some sort of physical activity as this stimulates the flow of oxygen to the brain, keeping students awake and engaged (Marzano, R., 2007). Other strategies include implementing games in the lesson; including a little competition will help students remain engaged as well. Another method is to make the lessons relatable for students; if they find common ground in the material that is a great tool for them to become interested in what they are learning. 

One way that I can think of to add physical activity to my lessons would be to have work stations that require students to move around the room after a certain amount of time. I also thought of implementing kinesthetics into some of the lessons, which will require students to use body movement in order to show what they are learning. In one of the classes I observed the teacher had students use kinesthetics to show their understanding of the different elements in a story. This activity can actually be turned into a game of charades, the rest of the class can try to guess which part of the story students are trying to interpret with their body movement. For example, to portray falling action, a student could be running in place and quickly fall to the ground. 

It would also be important to stay current with events pertaining to our students so that we can find ways to relate to them. This will help them make connections with the material and find it interesting. While teaching about click bait in my computer class, I used Fortnite as an example for students to understand how advertisers will use things to grab their attention. This got majority of students excited and participating in the lesson. 

All in all, keeping students engaged is all about taking the material we want them to learn and putting a twist to it that will make it exciting. 


Marzano, R. J. The Art and Science of Teaching: A Comprehensive Framework for Effective Instruction. [Columbia College]. Retrieved from https://ccis.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781416614975/

Blog Post 6 - Assessments

My unit is based around reading comprehension and learning to interpret texts. There are various opportunities throughout the different lessons to assess the students' understanding of the material. Below are some of the formative assessments I was planning to implement in my unit plan: 

1. Analyzing Student Work - Reviewing students' work after an assignment is a great way to see if students understand the lesson and this can be performed throughout the whole unit. It also allows us to help with the areas that students need additional support in.  

2. Strategic Questioning - this can be done during class discussions, teacher poses a higher-order question and students answer. I was planning of doing this using a tool called Flipgrid, this tool allows students to respond to the questions from their computers and displays the top answers on the Smartboard. This is a great way to allow more students to participate and see which students need further instruction without them feeling embarrassed for answering incorrectly. 

3. 3-Way Summaries - this works really well with the lesson as students will need to be able to summarize parts of a story in order to identify the main points. 

4. Creative Extension Projects - For one of the lessons, I was planning to have students work on their own graphic organizers to show if they understand the order of elements throughout a story. Another idea, was to have students use kinesthetic movements to show how the different aspects of the story work. As a final project I was thinking of having students create a book trailer based on their favorite book, the trailer will need to include all the main elements that make up a story. It would summarize the book enough that the person looking at the trailer would know what happens in the story without reading it. For this project, students would use WeVideo as it allows them to use pictures, music, slides, and more to create their every own video. 

I'm still working on my unit plan and some of these may change, but so far I thought these would be great methods to use for formative assessment. Even though I am planning on teaching ELA, I really want to incorporate the use of technology in my classroom, as I feel that is an important skill for our students to possess. 

Blog Post 5 - Bloom's Taxonomy

When doing research about Bloom's Taxonomy, the model below resonated well with me. I found the model on a blog post created by Lynn Lease, PhD. Along with the model she included some interesting details on Bloom's Taxonomy and ways to implement this model when writing learning objectives. This was also another resource that covers "beginning with the end in mind". Like anything we encounter when we visualize the end result we want to accomplish, we can draw up the necessary steps to get to the finish line. And that is an important element to remember when writing learning objectives - what do we want our students to be able to accomplish at the end of the lesson? What are they going to learn? How are we going to teach them? What materials and resources are we going to provide them with? By applying the Bloom's Taxonomy method when writing our learning objectives we are assigning one word that will meet the level of expertise we want our students to reach after the lesson. From there we know the degree of resources and materials we want to provide to teach the lesson. Maybe at the beginning of a Unit Plan we are aiming for students simply to understand certain concepts but by the end of the Unit Plan they should be at a level were they are able to create a project or assignment based on what they have learned throughout the entire lesson. 

My favorite part of the model below is that it provides us with those keywords that we want to include when writing learning objectives, based on the level of mastery we want our students to be at by the end of the lesson. 



Reference

Lease, L. (2016, June 20). Bloom's Taxonomy – Teaching, Learning ... - Lynn Lease, PhD. Retrieved February 13, 2019, from https://lynnleasephd.com/2016/06/20/blooms-taxonomy/

Blog Post 4 - Madeline Hunter Lesson Plan Design

The Madeline Hunter lesson plan design puts together all the pieces needed to create an engaging and successful lesson for students. Each piece of the plan design revolves around the lesson objective, all fitting perfectly together like puzzle pieces to make up the lesson. 

1. Anticipatory Set: This serves as the "hook" that will be used to draw students in. 
2. Objective & Purpose: What will be provided for students so that may learn a specific lesson and be able to perform it at a specific level. 
3. Input: How the lesson will be presented to students. This can be done by various methods. 
4. Model: We demonstrate how we perform a specific task, so that students may see how they will do it. 
5. Check for Understanding: Asking students questions about the material learned. To see whether we need to provide further insight or move on. 
6. Guided Practice: We have students perform a specific task while we monitor to ensure they are doing it correctly. 
7. Independent Practice: Students work independently. 
8. Closure: This serves as a final check for understanding, where we see if students meet the objective successfully. 

I think all parts of the plan design are important as they all work together towards providing a complete and in depth lesson to help in teaching students what they need to learn. It is a very thorough way to ensure that we, as teachers, are hitting all the areas necessary to engage students in the material and ensure they are understanding what is being taught.

As far as what might be difficult for me, goes back to the same task discussed when talking about unit planning - which is the input part of the lesson plan. Determining what the best source to present the material to students would be the most difficult for me. As I would like to ensure that it is something that students will find interesting and engaging. Although the material itself is important for them to learn, it is also important that they develop the skills to learn. And this can only be done with inspiration; if students are inspired then they are more likely to retain the material.