Part 1: Reflecting on our Module

There are so many different teaching methods out there to maximize learning for different subject areas, classroom styles, and learner types. In my future teaching career, I hope to incorporate both teacher-centered and learner-centered methods into my classroom. In my subject area of math I think this design would work best because some things in math just need to be flat out shown and explained which is easiest using teacher-centered, but the practice and rehearsal of techniques could easily be incorporated into student-centered to help break up the lessons.

“It’s easier to scan a bubble test, or run it through a script like Flubaroo. But these assessments do not tell us nearly as much about critical thinking—or students’ progress toward the Common Core State Standards. Creating and completing meaningful assessments is hard (but worthwhile) work for both teacher and students.” (Powell) So although giving tests in a math class seems like the easiest and most sensible way to grade students, another idea for a more student-centered approach could be assigning groups of students different parts of a unit and having them prepare a lesson to teach to the class. Not only does it allow for student participation and group work, but it also helps them to really learn the material well enough to be able to reteach it to the class. In my opinion, there are no “right” or “wrong” teaching methods, and in my own experience as a student I find that using a combination of them actually helps me to stay focused and engaged. We explored some of these different methods in our Module 5, more specifically, one called Backward Design.

Backward Design I believe is a very effective teaching method. It just seems logical to start with the goal or what you want the lesson to accomplish and then working backward from there, to ensure everything you need to teach gets included. One way to use backward design in a class is to first figure out what standards need to be met for that specific grade level and curriculum and then figure out your desired results. Come up with goals, understandings, and essential questions. Next step includes: creating performance tasks and key criteria. Lastly, create a summary of the learning activities you wish to carry out. Another important element is to “consider possible misunderstandings” (Wiggins) in order to address them before students get confused and ask questions about them. I intend to use this technique in my teaching career both for the whole unit levels and the day-to-day lesson plans. I think it is a good way to organize every aspect of the unit and ensure every goal is being met. I think its especially important in helping to look at the unit as a whole and what kind of assignments are being used and whether or not there is some diversity to them.

Part 2: Sharing Your Lesson

Shown above is my lesson plan designed through the Backward Design Framework. First thing I did was decide on which grade level and topic I wanted to use. I decided on high school Algebra, because I feel like it is a pretty basic unit and would be a good choice to use for writing my very first lesson plan. Starting with Stage 1 (and referring to the core standards) I established two main goals for the unit itself, so what I would want my students to have accomplished by the end of the unit. I also wrote a statement of what I want my students to understand, what I want my students to know, what I want my students to be able to do, and also some essential questions I want them to be able to answer. Referring to Bloom’s Taxonomy, the skills I want my students to learn come mostly from “Remember (Recognizing and Recalling), Understand (Interpreting, Exemplifying, Classifying, Summarizing, Inferring, Comparing, and Explaining) and Apply (Executing and Implementing)” (McDaniel), because they need to remember the rules such as order of operations or what you can and can’t do to manipulate and equation, understand how expressions, equations, and variables work, and apply these skills to new problems and situations

Moving onto Stage 2, I created performance tasks, other evidence, and key criteria. I incorporated varying assignments by having assessments as the summative grades, but also having quizzes, group projects, and test corrections for formative grades. Lastly in Stage 3, I created a summary of learning activities. I took into consideration different learning styles and needs by creating a diverse range of assignments, instead of just all tests. A few ideas I had were: designing a group project where students get to teach a lesson, creating games or having the kids create games to help learn math concepts, and also something I found really helpful in high school, test corrections, where students who may struggle with test-taking can do test corrections on their own time to receive partial credit back, this also helps them to learn from their mistakes and reflect on the test. I think the Backward Design Framework helped me in designing my lesson mostly because I have never created my own lesson plan before and had no idea where to start. All the elements of the framework helped me to consider all areas of a unit and go more in depth on what I would need to think about and cover in class. There are so many other lesson design plans out there, one I found is called UDL (universal design for learning) and it specializes in lesson planning for a diverse classroom of learning types including special needs.

Sources Cited:

BrookesPublishing. (2016, February 11). Use UDL in your lesson planning to enhance your teaching. Retrieved April 23, 2017, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5JWvCaXk-8

McDaniel, R. (1970, June 10). Bloom’s taxonomy. Retrieved April 23, 2017, from https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/blooms-taxonomy/

Powell, M. (2016, April 29). 5 ways to make your classroom student-centered. Retrieved April 23, 2017, from http://www.edweek.org/tm/articles/2013/12/24/ctq_powell_strengths.html

Wiggins, G. (2005, September 3). Overview of UBD and the design template. Retrieved April 23, 2017, from http://www.grantwiggins.org/documents/UbDQuikvue1005.pdf