Marc Finks
Module 5 – Unit 5 –
Activity 2
Effectiveness of Lesson and Unit Plans in Meeting Outcomes
For my clinical observation, I observed my
mentor, Shaun Terriss. He has the same students on Tuesday and Thursday, but he
teaches different material to them on each day. On Tuesday, he teaches reading
skills to the students, and the theme for the lesson was the migratory habits
of certain seagulls. The objective of the class is to teach reading skills, and
so the topic that they are covering is of secondary importance. For this
Thursday class, Shaun teaches the same students listening skills, where they
learn how to analyze listening passages, take notes, and then answer questions
using their notes. Again, the topic is of secondary importance, but they were
learning about Gardener’s Multiple Intelligence theory, and then they listened
to three passages and a conversation about that topic.
Day one
·
How did the lessons support the topic/theme of the unit and
the learning objective(s)?
Shaun made excellent use of media and while
covering twenty vocabulary words that he thought the students would need to
know in order to understand the topic and to discuss it. He showed several
short videos of seabirds that emphasized the point of certain vocabulary words,
and he made good use of images for the other words. All of these led to the
students having peer to peer discussions, and this “pre-knowledge” made the
reading passage easier for the students, so that they were able to focus more
on skills, and not spend a lot of time wondering what certain words meant.
·
How did the lesson plans compare to the activities that
occurred?
Shaun clearly explained to me what he was going
to do beforehand, and he pretty much followed it to the minute. He has taught
this lesson several times before and has made adjustments each time he has
taught it. This class, while not too different from the first class he had on
this topic, ran much more smoothly and he was able to incorporate everything
that had worked well in the past, according to him.
·
What adjustments to the lesson plans did the teacher make?
Why were those adjustments needed?
The only adjustment that he really made was to
show an extra image and video when the students were struggling to understand
something that he thought they would understand much easier. He spent several
moments searching for something that would help them understand, as opposed to
just clicking on it like he did with his other planned, pre-loaded
videos/images.
·
How effective were the activities at helping students meet
the learning objective?
The vocabulary preview really helped the students
understand the topic. The activities that he did where he guided them through
the skill that they were to use that day seemed pretty effective as the students
were able to give their own examples a few seconds after he did one first.
·
What formative assessments did the teacher use? What did the
teacher learn from those assessments?
He did a vocabulary game/contest at the end of
his vocabulary lesson, and this showed him which of the students were
struggling a bit to understand all of the words. At the end of each reading
passage was a short quiz about it, and he had the students help him write an
outline on the board based on how they annotated the passage. When they finally
had to do their final quiz for the day, Shaun helped the students who seemed to
struggle on the earlier reading passages.
Day Two
·
How did the lessons support the topic/theme of the unit and
the learning objective(s)?
For this class, Shaun did vocabulary in the same
way. It seems to be a routine for the class and it keeps the students engaged.
He also had them do an activity where they had to plan a class for students
with different types of intelligences. This was a very effective way of having
the students show that they understood the idea.
·
How did the lesson plans compare to the activities that
occurred?
Shaun pretty much stayed to the lesson plan this
time. The kids understood the concept quickly and he was able to let them do a
lot of student-centered work, which was his initial goal.
·
What adjustments to the lesson plans did the teacher make?
Why were those adjustments needed?
He ran out of time a bit when the students were
doing group work, and so he combined several groups and had them quickly mesh
their work together so that everyone would have enough time to present. The
students didn’t really mind, and their presentations were good, but I think it was
just a lack of foresight about how much time the students would need to do all
of the work that he asked them to do AND have enough time to make a
presentation and present it.
·
How effective were the activities at helping students meet
the learning objective?
Really effective. Again, by the time they go to
the listening skills passages, the students understood everything. Shaun did
the first example with them and asked them how they should take notes on
certain things, and how they could make the notes more concise. Since the
students understood the vocabulary so well, they were able to focus on
organizing their notes.
·
What formative assessments did the teacher use? What did the
teacher learn from those assessments?
Again, just like the reading, there were several
mini-lectures, one conversation, and a final lecture, all over the same topic.
Shaun walked around and checked the students’ notes and then he had them tell
him what he should write on the board as he made model notes. A couple of
students’ notes were poorly organized, and so Shaun worked with them a bit
during the last listening lecture and helped them organize them better.
Clearly, Shaun planned his lesson with the entire
class time in mind. He knew where he wanted to be at each point in the class,
and each activity led smoothly into the next one. By the end of each class, the
students had clearly learned a lot about the topic, and were able to use that
knowledge to improve their reading and listening skills. He did a good job of
differentiating his questions and asking ones that everyone could answer,
varying them based upon the individual’s skills. I think that it’s important to
make lessons as interactive as possible – like Shaun did – but also keep in
mind what your end objective is and make sure that you have a clear path to get
there by the end of each class.
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