No tags yet.
Much like last week's readings, this weeks had much to do with teacher planning and assessments. One of the most crucial parts of my job will be ensuring that my students gain a meaningful understanding of the material being taught. In order to do this, I'll need to make sure that I have explicit lesson plans prepared - however, plans that are also changeable. In the Lesson Plans: The Basis for Instruction article, that's what Gini Cunningham communicates. She was also the author of one of the articles from last week that also made an appearance in what we were to read for this week. I loved the plan phases that she included in the lesson plan portion of the article. When I came up with a lesson plan for my PSY 3010 internship, I had no clue what to do for it - I was thrown to the wolves and on my own. Though I was able to get my point for my lesson across, if I had an explicit plan to follow, I feel like I would have been able to reach my end goal much faster and easier. I also like her point on exit questions; we discussed these in another class that I'm enrolled in. I find these questions to be a great way to make sure that the students are retaining and understanding the material discussed in class that day, while also assessing my students without actually giving them a typical test.
In the From Formative Assessment to Assessment FOR Learning article, the author brings up a point about triggers that assessments cause. When a student doesn't do well on an assessment, then they become pessimistic and ultimately give up - according the author, Rick Stiggins. With the exit passes that Cunningham brings up, I feel like this is the best of both worlds. I would be able to see what the students are retaining and gauge what all would need to be recovered the next day, while also keeping my students from becoming discouraged by a test.