1. Instructional Design and Lesson Planning. Applying concepts from human development and learning theories, the effective educator consistently:
a. Aligns instruction with state-adopted standards at the appropriate level of rigor;
State-adopted standards
Aligning instruction with state-standards is the first essential step to help your students grow. I conducted a lesson based on LAFS.2.RL.1.3 Describe how characters in a story respond to major events and challenges. I taught students the standard continuously for two weeks with different weekly objectives. On the first week, I facilitated my Collaborating Teacher observation.
b. Sequences lessons and concepts to ensure coherence and required prior knowledge;
Phonics
In phonics instruction, I have facilitated weekly lessons of different phonic categories for my students. On the first day of the week, typically Monday, students are introduced to a new set of word cards that align with their lesson focus. For example, digraphs ch and th, long vowels o and u, and short vowels o, u, and e. Once students are introduced to their word card and phonic category focus, I begin instructing everyday for 30 minutes. The students are given repetitive instruction with their card sort. For my Supervisor Observation, students participate din a lesson where I sort the cards based on their appropriate category and students explain my reasoning. However, the lesson was modified to allow students to participate in the word sort due to the lack of engagement.
c. Designs instruction for students to achieve mastery;
Revisiting objectives
Reintroducing an objective allows students to become familiar with the new prepared lesson. Students access prior knowledge and reflect back onto the previous day to get an idea of what we will be learning. For my Collaborating Teachers' observation, I reintroduced the objective from the previous day to remind students what to expect for the new lesson. For the standard LAFS.2.RL.1.3 Describe how characters in a story respond to major events and challenges, the objective of the lesson was to predict the main character’s response to challenges in the text. Students were beginning to become familiar with how characters are feeling from the previous day, but we began to make predictions of how the main character will respond to the challenges of the other characters.
d. Selects appropriate formative assessments to monitor learning;
Self-Assessment
After my lessons throughout my Level II and Level III classroom placement, I have used self-assessment to determine student learning. To do this, I set one bin with a circle and one bin with a triangle. The circle bin indicates that the student understands what they learned or completed and will be able to teach a friend while the triangle bin indicates the work or lesson was hard for them to complete. Considering I have been placed in a kindergarten class, I have found this method to work for the students as opposed to assessing students in a summative format. I have found this to be a effective due to the students learning numbers, letters, and phonics at this stage in kindergarten.
e. Uses diagnostic student data to plan lessons
Pre-assessment
After administering a pretest to understand what knowledge my students' already had when counting to 100, I was able to create groups based on their needs. For example, I had students who were only able to count to between 50 and 80. For my small groups, I reintroduced the hundreds chart and we counted all together by ones and tens. Once we counted, I assigned students to complete a puzzle where students had to put numbers in order with picture support. To determine whether students used only picture support or not, I had students count the numbers they completed in the puzzle. When students did it incorrectly, they were able to catch their error and fix it.
f. Develops learning experiences that require students to demonstrate a variety of applicable skills and competencies.
Extending thinking
During a phonics lesson, students were required to sort words based on their appropriate category. For example, the word long belongs in the ng final blend category and the word next belongs in the xt final blend category. I decided to ask students of other words that belong in the given categories as an opportunity for students to apply their knowledge and skills. Students were not required to give an example but time was given for students to think before sharing. I facilitated this lesson during a Supervisor Observation.
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