Back at It!

Our Fall break is over and it was very much needed after having midterms drain my brain last week. We didn't have class on Monday and on Wednesday we had a walking classroom on our next group projects. I'm not going to lie these group projects have been very exhausting but I know that are professors are doing it so we can get used to working together and communicating effectively. In the walking classroom our professors pointed out to us what needs to be on our Assessment project. Assessment is a huge part of teaching and learning as well. Being able to understand what assessment is used for will help me out with the NCTCS. Comprehending what assessment will allow me to do and how to use the data given by the assessments will help me better prepare my future students'. For my outside research I found an article that talks about the usefulness of assessments and how they can be used to improve learning.
http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/feb03/vol60/num05/How-Classroom-Assessments-Improve-Learning.aspx

Week 7

Lesson Plan

This week in class we have worked on lesson planning and a group project that deals with content knowledge and integration. When it comes to lesson plans I've gotten a better understanding of every part that makes up the six point lesson plan. When I was in high school I never gave much thought on on how a lesson plan works. I thought you just wrote down what you were teaching and that's it. I have a greater appreciation for the teachers who took the time to do everything that is required to write a lesson. 

Group Projects

We have had to do a lot of group projects in Educ 250. I am not a huge fan of group projects but I understand why they are making us do it. They are trying to get us to communicate with each other and learn how to work as a team considering that being a teacher will include some team work and talking to others. This weeks group project is on content knowledge and integration. The whole project was explained by a flipped walking classroom where we, the students had to explain each part to our classmates. It was a little weird but it worked out. It was weird when they asked us what our definition of integration was because I had never thought about what that could mean in education. Being able to integrate different skills in my classroom will help me with the NCTCS. For this project I have to unpack standards again which is something we did in the beginning of the course. For this project I will need to pull back everything I learned about KUD. For this I turned to the internet to try and get a better comprehension on how to unpack standards and I ran into this little nice presentation that will help me with my standards: 

http://66.90.176.10/wacohigh/minisites/DI-conf/2011/docs/Session03/ClearFocusedGoals-KUDworkshop.pdf

Future Classroom & Reflections

I know that learning how to actually plan a lesson will benefit my future students because if I stay organized then we stay on track and can continue to learn. Knowing how to unpack a standard will help me be able to comprehend what is asking me to do as well as break it down for students to understand. Looking forward to next week and Fall break!!

High Observation!

This week in class we went to observe a high school. I was a little intimidating to be in that kind of setting again. I got the opportunity to observe a 9th grade math class. The math class was different than any of the classes I took in high school because it was Common Core Math 1. They were learning about linear equations and graphing slope. The teacher had the students make foldables and she had a projector up showing the students what to write down on each section. She had them explain how to do each step to solving the equation. One thing that I observed that I would love to incorporate into my future classroom was the interactive notebook. It's a nice way to keep all the notes organized in one place. After the foldable she gave them a worksheet for independent practice and gave them each feedback on what they need to work on. She did a good job on working through the 6 point lesson plan. She gave the students their target and made them write it down. We also talked about diversity in the classroom and what it meant to be diverse. Dr. Parker told us a story about one of his students who had a disability and what he did to make sure this student could participate in the same activities the other students could. I didn't realize what the whole scope of diversity was until we actually started to discuss it. I will make sure that every student in my class is treated with respect and equality. I will become knowledgeable on the students disability and ensure I have the resources needed to teach them the material that needs to be taught. This will help me with the NCTCS. Although this week was the last observation for this course I am looking forward to what the rest of the semester holds.