Phase III

Assessing Prior Knowledge:

(a)After giving the lesson, I realized that the story and the graphic organizer didn't fit as well with the website as I orginally thought it would. I also changed the way we talked about the vocabulary. I added a handout with pictures that each student will recieve after we have gone over the vocabulary as a class. This will help to assist the students with language barriers when they in the process of writing their stories. I was able to find another graphic organizer and change the story to better suit the lesson objective.

(b)This helps me to realize that for my future teaching experiences I need to be more careful at making sure that the material all flows together.

Planning Instruction:

(a)After teaching the lesson I realized that the website and the graphic organizer didn't match up. Also, the objective wasn't being met by the way I was presenting the information. I changed the lesson by finding a better graphic organizer that goes better with the website.

(b)In the future when planning lessons, I will more aware to check the websites that will be used. I will also go on the website, practicing and playing on it to make sure that I understand how it works, and making sure it will work with my lesson in every aspect. I will also think about the way that it goes along with the objective of the lesson, making sure that it fits.

Designing Instruction:

(a)After reviewing the lesson, it seems like it would have worked better to have the students do their story on the website first, using their rubrics. Then the teacher will have each group verbally identify the parts of the story. The students will be required to fill in a checklist as they go through their story, making sure they have all the parts. To finish the lesson, the students will be required to fill in their own graphic organizers with the information that they used in their story.

(b)This modification helps me to realize that for the future, things don't always have to be in "order". By having the students do their organizers last, helps the lesson make more sense. By doing the lesson backward the objective still gets met, so it doesn't always matter if things are done "out of the box."

Planning Assessment:

(a)The planning for the assessment changed from having the students simply have 5 pages and 3 sentences to their story. I realized that this didn't help meet the objective at all. I then added to the assessment or rubric that the students will be required to identify the plot of the story along with the main characters and the setting. Although the sentence and page requirements were kept, by adding to the rubric I was able to meet the objective.

(b)This experience helped me to realize that I need to make sure that my lesson assessment meets with the objective. I can see how easy it is to stray from the objective, and this taught me an important lesson about staying with the objective.

Instructional Decisions/Teaching:

(a)After the lesson was taught I realized that by changing the way the vocabulary was presented would be more helpful to the students. In this case I added the vocabulary handout with a picture next to each word, in order to help the students with language barriers. I also changed the checklist to have more requirements, such as identifying the plot and characters. This helps to meet the objective. I also added the students rubric/checklist. They will use these while they are making their stories, in order to tell if they are including all the required materials.

(b)The helps me to realize that in the future I need to be certain that the needs of the students and the objective are being met. It also helped me to realize that a rubric is always good to have, for the students and for the teacher.

Assessment of Learning:

(a)The rubric/checklist was changed to add the amount of points that each student gets for adding the different parts to the story, and being able to identify them. This will help students to know what points are lost if they miss any part of the assignment.

(b)This taught me that the clarity of the rubric and the simple fact of having a rubric are important parts of the lesson and making sure that they fit to the objective and to the student needs.