Micro Lesson One: Reflection

Micro Lesson One: Reflection

Instructional Decisions/Teaching:

Overall, I think that my lesson went well. I was unable to get an actual copy of the book that I was reading out loud so I used a recorded version from YouTube and put the sound on silent so I could still read it. I thought this might pose a problem during my lesson however, it went fairly smooth. One thing that didn’t go very well was the discussion after the story. I was hoping for more of a “class” discussion about why sequencing is important however, I just couldn’t seem to get a good discussion going amongst the group. I feel like my objectives and standards were well aligned with my lesson throughout the whole lesson. One modification that I made during the implementation of my lesson was at the end. I decided that we still had some time left so I had each student present their story to the other peers. This was a fun change because it allowed the students to show off their own creativity and have some fun.

Mechanics:

The technology that I used for this lesson was all based on the computer. First, I started my lesson by reading the story Thump, Quack, Moo out loud to my students but since I didn’t have the actual book to read I used a version from YouTube and was able to mute the sound and read the book out loud myself. At the end of the lesson I had the students use the resource StoryBird to produce a final assessment project. The students had to use their student account and create their own stories that included a main character and at least 5 important events. My lesson was within the correct time frame because I added a modification at the end of my lesson.

Assessment of Learning:

The students worked together to put these sequence strips in order based on the story that I read out loud to them.

The students created their own stories using StoryBird and submitted them as an assignment. Each story had to have one main character who influenced the events as well as 5 key events. The story also had to be creative and an original idea.

My students did a great job on their stories and they all showed a mastery level of learning based on the objectives and goals that I had for them. I think my assessment was very helpful in gaining feedback from my students based on their level of understanding. I feel like I had a lot of success when teaching this lesson and based on my peer surveys my peers also agreed with me. They felt that I was well prepared and that my lesson was engaging. One suggestion that I got from my surveys was that I should have created a chart explaining what sequencing is and that I should have passed out a hard copy of the directions and rubric for the assignment.

What did you learn from designing and teaching this lesson and how will you use this in the creation of future lessons/learning activities.

From this lesson, I learned that you can never be to prepared for a lesson and that it is better to over plan rather than to not have enough for the students to do. I also learned that technology really helps to engage the students in their learning. Overall, I am really gaining insight into how I can creatively incorporate technology into my lesson plans. In my next lesson I am looking forward to learning new ways to incorporate more technology sources into my teaching.