Lesson Plan 2, Phase II: Reflections on Implementation

Phase 2, Lesson Two

Reflections with Amber! 

(Thus, the blog title. Get it?)

Good afternoon blog readers! My second lesson in ETC447 has now been completed and taught to my peers in class, and thankfully, just like last time-- everything went very well and pretty much exactly how I intended for it to go! They loved the second part continuation of my three part poetry unit, and participated, were engaged, and listened to my own personal poetry and the rest of the lesson very well (pretending to be my third and fourth graders.)

Now that all is said and done, next I'll look back on exactly what I've done, and see what I can improve on for my final hour long lesson and beyond. What happened, what went well, what didn't? Let's find out!

Instructional Decisions/Teaching (InTask Standard # 9): Discuss the implementation process and describe:

• What went well and what didn't go well during the implementation of your lesson?
• How well was the alignment to objectives and standards maintained?
• Describe any modifications made during the implementation of the lesson

My poetry lesson was very discussion based, with a lot of personal research time and talking as a group about what makes poetry what it is. I started off the lesson addressing the class again and greeting them as their teacher, and telling them that (although we're all over 20 years old)  they were to pretend they were 8 and 9 for the next 30 minutes. This time, one of my students was absent (Pat) and was replaced by another student (Kirsten) so although she did not have the background of the first lesson, I accommodated for her on the fly, filled her in, and made it work! 
We were friendly, and excited toward each other as we engaged in prior knowledge to draw on their background experiences with poetry. What particularly went well was my prior knowledge of the subject and personal experience with poetry that I could draw from and use in my discussion of the breakdown of the rhyming structure and different types of poetry. Having been an avid writer my whole life, I could draw from personal experiences to help me better explain poetry to my students, and to get them engaged with it as well just like last time, and they were very excited to work more in depth with the material.

They were very interested in what I had to say, stayed on topic, and were eager to play with the different types of generators that I'd provided which allowed them very specific access into the structural breakdown of  poems. They sound pretty to the ear, but why? This was what we were doing to discover together! I also really loved that I had the chance to share some of my own personal poetry with my students, which they really appreciated and inspired them to write their own (since it was about teaching, which is what we all are here for!) I felt really special getting to share what i'd worked so hard on in the past and having them become really engaged as I read it will help them in the final lesson. I'd say the only thing that really didn't go well, just like last time was that I had too much planned and wasn't able to get through everything I needed (which could be considered more of a good thing than bad!) I tend to be overly ambitious with what I'll have them do, but I have to remember it's just 30 minutes! I'll just roll over what was left into the last lesson-- it's an hour long next time so I'll be sure to get it all in!

It aligned to my objectives and standards maintained-- and I at least touched on everything that I hoped to in this second lesson even if I was not able to elaborate as much as I'd hoped. But they got a great taste of what's to come in their independent practice for almost a whole hour! Being a chatterbox like myself, it's easy to get excited whens students are engaged with what you're talking about and lose track of your time limit. Thankfully, this time I remembered that I had to save time at the very end of the lesson to accommodate for the time they would need to fill out my teaching survey-- it took them about 3 minutes then was done. During the implementation of the lesson itself, I would say this is the only real modification I had to make, was for time purposes. It went much better than last time, and I'd say i'm getting much better at this!

Mechanics:

• What technologies did I use (for the teacher and the learner)?
• How were the technologies used (by whom and in what manner)?
• My lesson was within the correct time frame
• It was short because…
• It was too long because…
• The lesson was within the correct time frame because…

The technologies that I used as the teacher included keeping a running document on Google docs of my lesson that I could refer to as I implemented each step and moved forward with my activities. By having it in plain sight, broken down with the approximate time I should spend on each area of the lesson, it really kept me on track and proved to be my most beneficial tool. Additionally, the students were able to access a separate google document, which I emailed to them including the necessary links to each poem and activity we were going to do together. This way, as I directed, they could simply click along the links in order to pull up what we were on. Each student had their own mac computer, and followed along exactly as planned, and participated in the activities I had, including their own research. I walked around to assist them and provide commentary on what they were discovering.

My lesson was for the most part within the correct time frame, the only thing was that I had too much planned, as I stated before. However, this is not a real problem because it will roll over into the second part of my lesson! Looking forward to seeing where it goes and utilizing the other helpful online tools which will help my students learn even more about poetry and even make their own!

Here I am! We're reviewing what their poem generators pulled up!

Assessment of Learning (InTask Standard # 6): Refer to Assessing Student Learning

• Include at least 2 digital artifacts that demonstrate what you or your students (peers) have created as a result of your lesson
• Describe your students' level of success in achieving the standards and objectives for your lesson based on your assessment
• Describe the level of success you had in teaching the lesson
• How do your individual reflections support this?
• How do the comments from your classmates support this?

Below I have attached screenshots of the results of my lesson found by my students. These "digital artifacts" serve as the proof of what my students worked on throughout the course of the lesson, and they absolutely achieved what I inteded for them to in this second, more explorative poetry lesson! We discussed extensively and I informally assessed whether or not through this they were grasping the material-- which they were! This section used more formalized assessments with utilizing my rubric, and here are key parts of what they discovered using the poem generators and their creation of their own, favorite works.

Artifact - Student 1 Renee 

"The generator chose the "Where is the 5 1?" for the first line and the "The 1 4s like a 5 1" for the second line.

I liked this little poem, because it was about the sea and a seashell.

This generator is really fun, I want to spend more time playing with it." -Renee

This response from Renee was very helpful for me as her teacher to see what she learned from this lesson and serve in tandem to her artifact. She noted that although the poems were different, the structures and rhyming pattern essentially were the same-- solidifying that she grasped the content. She enjoyed the breakdown of each word from the generator which helped me as an instructor realize that it's a good tool since all three were so engaged with it!

Artifact - Student 2 Kiersten 

"I really liked the poem generator it was extremely helpful on what a poem should include.  I like that it showed different structures and aspects of a poem and the pattern as well.  The pattern was: The 1 4s like a 5 1." 

Kiersten connected that poems have different structures, but no matter what the rhyming pattern, still constitute the same types of words to grammatically make sense-- showing she connected my anticipatory set of the lesson into her discussion and was engaged in the material.

Artifact - Student 3 Kirsten

"Faith, life, and life.

Where is the old flower?

The dusty light quickly desires the door.

Never fight a worker.

All sidewalks buy cold, old flowers.

I liked that the poem started with Faith, life, and life. But it was weird that it said life twice." -Kirsten

Kirsten really picked up on the rhyming pattern of what she created, and is showing more advanced knowledge of poetry structure which will be touched on and taught in the final lesson. She expressed what she knew clearly through this and acknowledged that because this is a random generator , providing me with proof that he understood the content I taught, and he chose a different medium than the others and took initiative!

Additionally, with the second collection of artifacts, the students used another poem generator and explored different types of poetry and plugged in words to create their own collaboratively as a group for Limericks, Haikus, and Cinquain poems. Each student was in charge of clicking through the buttons and making the decisions and working with the other two to create their own, personalized/stylized poem. This was their results which really solidified that they were understanding the material by making silly yet cohesive pieces.

Kirsten's Limerick

Kiersten's Haiku

Renee's Cinquain

In conclusion, I believe that I had a very high level of success in this second lesson! According to the feedback forms that my students filled out on google forms at the conclusion of the lesson, I was presented with glowing reviews, reflecting on how my enthusiasm was contagious and they could tell I really loved what I was teaching-- and I agree with them! I'm thankful that the feedback reflected what I did in the first as well as second lesson and that the responses were good. I can only go up from here with the third lesson! Looking forward to seeing how it goes, because it'll be double the amount of time! Eek! :)

Thanks for reading and stay tuned for my future lessons and
Reflections with Amber! 

(shameless name plug. again.)