Reflection Blog Phase II

Discuss the implementation process and describe:

• What you did and learned from the teaching/facilitating process?
• I started the process by finding the common core standard I wanted my students to learn.  Then, I broke it down the standard down to specifics.  From there, I was able to build my objective.
• I learned that my objectives need to be measurable throughout my lesson plan.  I also learned that this lesson could be broken up into a couple different lessons, I could have used more of a simple poem, and the students need to have a better understanding of metaphors.

• How alignment to goals and objectives was maintained:
• I believe my goals and objectives were aligned pretty well, however, I needed more student interactions (they do).

• Modifications made for individual needs:
• These individuals will be included in the three groups with the rest of the class.  However, the teacher will sit with these groups to guide them.  The teacher will help the exceptional learners analyze the poem.  The students will draw pictures and write out their analysis as necessary.  The teacher will help the students’ to use the correct wording for the analysis.

Describe the evidence you have that indicates:

• Your students' level of success in achieving the lessons goals:
• My students' level of success in achieving the lessons goals were not achieved.  I think the metaphors used in the poem, "The Road Not Taken", were too difficult for these fifth graders.  If I would have spent time modeling how to analyze and breaking down the metaphors, my students could have potentially met the lessons goals.

• The level of success you had in teaching the lesson:
• I would say teaching this lesson was successful because I learned a lot.  This has been an experience   I have been able to reflect to see what needs to be changed in the lesson and the way I teach it.

• How do your individual reflections support this?
• I could have integrated more technology in this lesson, for example, I could have had the students do an online journal entry using their computers.

• How do the comments from your classmates support this?
• My classmates understand that we are all still learning!  They liked the poem being read aloud from the online website.  However, the multimedia video could have been skipped or not used; it was boring.

At least 2 digital artifacts that:

• Demonstrate what you or your students (peers) have created as a result of your lesson:
• The students worked in small groups; they had questions to answer about the poem.  Afterwards, the students wrote a journal reflection answering the following questions: How did you analyze this poem?  How did you determine the metaphors?  How were you able to relate the poem to real-life experiences?

• Are referred to as you answer #2 (Assessment of Learning):
• The journal writing.

Before Teaching Reflection

1. Assessing Prior Knowledge: If you were teaching this with the targeted grade level students:

• How would prior experience have been assessed?
• Prior experience would have been assessed by having students' write a journal entry answering the following questions:  What is a metaphor? How can you distinguish a metaphor in text?  List everything you know thus far about analyzing text.

• What would you expect to learn from assessing your students' prior knowledge?
• Once I assessed my students' prior knowledge, I would expect to learn the level of their understanding, especially whether I would need to backtrack and reteach or to move forward and continue with the lesson.  

• How would this information be useful in the planning process?
• This information would be useful in the planning process because I would be able to differentiate instruction for the student's as needed.

2. Plans Instruction: Discuss how your goals, objectives, and outcomes are: clearly stated, appropriate for students, and aligned to state standards.
   
   
   My goals, objectives, and outcomes are clearly stated because the standard is stated according to the Common Core Standards.  I matched my objectives and outcomes to the according standard.   These are appropriate for students by creating the lesson and activities for their level of understanding.

3. Designing Instruction: Include a link to your lesson plan and discuss how your instructional design is: contextually and logically organized, uses varied instructional methods that meet individual student needs and target higher order thinking skills, and aligns with research based understanding of technology integration.

• My instructional design is contextually and logically organized because I am very specific on the "I do", "We do", and "You do".  My instructional design pertaining to the use of a variety of instructional methods meeting individual student needs consists of group work, writing, reading, listening, speaking, drawing pictures, journaling, asking higher order thinking questions, and incorporating the use of technology.  This instructional design aligns with research based understanding of technology integration by using a computer and internet.  The students' will listen to Robert Frost read his own poem from the computer, along with watching a multimedia video of the same exact poem. 

4. Planning Assessment: Embed or link to your assessment tools and describe how you will demonstrate the performance of linked goals and/or objectives, student engagement in higher order thinking, and meeting individual student needs

• Objective: The students will determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text by identifying the metaphors.
• Assessment: The student’s will write a journal reflection of the poem. The journal entry should include: how did they analyze the poem, how did they determine the meaning of the words and phrases in the poem, what metaphors did they determine in the poem and how did the poem relate to their life experiences.
• Student engagement in higher order thinking will take part in the content part of the lesson plan; in the student actions section when the students work in small groups.  They will answer the questions about "The Road Not Taken" in the packet provided.
• Meeting individual student needs consists of group work, writing, reading, listening, speaking, drawing pictures, journaling, and asking higher order thinking questions.