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Trenton Mendelson Module 5 Reflection February 18, 2010

This module had a few lesson plan suggestions and ideas that I had not previously considered. However I felt as though some of the material covered in the module is simply regurgitated material that I have come across in other classes. Writing goals and objectives has never been a difficult aspect of lesson plans for me. I feel as though knowing what you want to accomplish as a teacher is the most important part of planning. By creating thorough, well prepared goals and objectives, we as teachers will be able to present better lessons. I did like the module’s discussion of the different factors involved in the planning process. Recap, what factors are you talking about? Which seem important? I agree with the module that lesson plans need to be flexible because each classroom and each student are different. Lessons used in one class may not be used as easily for another classroom. As a teacher I must be able to adapt my lesson plans to fit the students in order to better teach them. What does this mean for a thoughtfully written lesson plan and its reuse?

Amy Wolff Module 5 18 February 2010

I found this module to be very thorough as well as very helpful, covering so many aspects of the planning process; however, I am finding it difficult to know exactly what to write about. Much of what I read seemed fairly common sense or was very familiar from other classes. At first as I was looking through all of the module figures and examples I thought that the amount was quite excessive.

I didn’t understand the need for showing so many examples, but the closer I looked the more helpful I found them to be. I thought having so many examples was almost a waste of space until I started working them through my mind. I found that by seeing so many different planning tools made it that much easier to try to formulate my own formulas and ways to plan for classes. I would agree that this is the power of seeing examples.

Even though these examples help to show how to plan very thoroughly it is still hard to say how it will turn out when I actually use it. For me I like planning and making lists and creating schedules so that shouldn’t be a problem for me. It is how any of these examples will actually work in practice Is there really any one example that always works in practice? that I stress about but I guess that’s why everyone finds themselves saying “practice makes perfect.” I would like to find my ideal strategy while I’m still in school so even though I don’t have much time for them I am still looking forward to working through lesson plan assignments. I don’t want to torture my future students with poorly organized lessons or units so if I can find my perfect fit now it will be better for everyone.

 Abby Suelflow Module 5 Reflection February 18, 2010

Module Five was very resourceful for me because it helped me to start thinking about ways to organize a lesson plan as well as techniques that are most helpful for beginning teachers. As we work on our unit plan for this class, I was struggling with the best way to put together the lessons within the unit; specifically how detailed I needed my plan to be. After reading this chapter, it is evident that the lesson cannot be too detailed. I have heard from many experienced teachers that incoming teachers always anticipate activities or lessons to take up much more time than they actually do. Therefore, one of the most important things for me to remember is that I need to plan enough extra material that will be incorporated into the lesson if there is extra time at the end. Although I have had a little experience planning lessons, they have never been put into practice. In other words, I have a little bit of background with writing lesson plans and organizing them in a way that other people could teach the lesson; however, I have never actually taught those lessons to determine whether or not they would take as much time as I intended for them to. I wish we had time to teach as well. This is where you learn a lot about your plan as well.

One of the main components of any instructional unit is the goals and objectives. I often find it difficult to write goals and objectives that include the proper verbs listed under higher order thinking skills. It is important that my future students are able to apply and evaluate the content they are learning. Therefore, I often have to spend a lot of time thinking about measureable goals and objectives for the lesson I am working on. Another idea that was mentioned in this module was the fact that assessments must be congruent with the instructional objectives. Reflecting on prior classes, I have experienced a number of professors that assess students in ways that don’t align with their course objectives. It is very frustrating when the majority of the objectives are listed as simple recall of information but the assessment requires synthesis, analysis, and evaluation of the course content. As a future teacher, I would be doing a disservice to my students if I didn’t accurately describe what they will be able to do upon completion of the instructional experience. Sometimes though, in a truly constructivist lesson, we can't be clear upfront about what we want them to be able to do at the completion. But, at the end of the lesson, we can recap and see if they have constructed/discovered/reinvented.

Although this module had a lot of information and made me feel a little overwhelmed, I feel that I have a better sense of the necessary components of a lesson plan. In addition, I have realized the importance of planning in order to keep students on task, to help students connect the main ideas from each lesson, and to provide a sense of security for myself to fall back onto. With that being said, I still have an overwhelming sense of anxiety knowing that I will be student teaching in the fall and will be expected to write full lesson plans and actually put them into practice in front of a group of students! With time and experience, I am confident that I will be able to write quality lesson plans without thinking too much about the technicalities, and instead focusing on the instructional strategies and learning activities that will be the most beneficial for the students.

Brandon Krull Module 5 2-17-09 Module 5 was a very useful chapter for me. It basically sets up a “how to” guide regarding lesson plans, units, and other aspects of planning. It was able to help clear up a few misconceptions about planning, what were they? and also seemed to take a load off my back. Going into our internship and our group projects, I seemed unable to wrap my mind around what a good lesson plan should look like and what it should incorporate. I was unsure what I should include to help touch on all the different styles of learning. I like how it even went as far as breaking down different steps and considerations a teacher should take while writing out a lesson or unit. This module also touched on syllabuses, which to me is a great idea. I can’t remember a class that I’ve taken which didn’t have a syllabus which to me proves its importance. It basically sets up goals and outlines what is expected of students. A syllabus has a detailed overview of assignments which will help students and parents know what is expected of them. It is also an outline for parents, students, and even other teachers about what the class is going to be about. Students should be able to refer to the syllabus and get a clear understanding of the class. Substitutes should be able to refer to it and be able to keep the students on task with the lesson or unit. Planning is important in many aspects. Keeping students engaged and on task is a major benefit of planning. Being prepared will allow a teacher to constructively use the entire class, instead of wasting class trying to prepare at the last minute. However, the book states that there will be disruptions, thus having a back-up plan will help make life easier. For me, I like to plan in pairs or teams. It helps one another with ideas for activities or engaging ideas. How will you allow for this to happen if your administration doesn't support it? If you believe it is important, what will you do? Also, students in the same grade will be learning the same material, rather than learning at uneven paces. Overall, module 5 was very helpful. It was able to clear up misconceptions and uneasy feelings about confronting lesson plans and unit plans.

Jamie Wickham Module 5 2-17-09 Module 5 was an incredibly helpful module for me, because unit and lesson planning is one aspect of my teacher education program that I have yet to have a chance to work with. As we begin discussing our internship placements and our projects for this semester, I grew a bit apprehensive because I (along with several classmates I’ve spoken with) I felt as though lesson planning was perhaps something I should already have an idea of how to handle. It wasn’t the idea of planning that had me worried, as I have always thought of myself as a great planner, but integrating all of the various components and ensuring that the plan would actually work in the classroom is the overwhelming part. And to be honest, even after reading the chapter I’m still anxious to see how the plans I put together actually work with a group of students! The module does a good job of outlining the various steps that need to be taken when planning for instruction. One thing that stood out for me was the discussion of the syllabus. I can’t remember any classes that I took during my secondary years in which a teacher presented the class with a syllabus (either written or verbal). When I got to college and began receiving syllabi for each of my classes, I was amazed at how much easier it was to plan out my homework when I knew what to expect. I believe this is something that every teacher at the high school level should be using. I particularly liked the idea of collaborating with students on the development of the syllabus, “thereby empowering the students with a sense of ownership of the syllabus and a commitment to its content” (155). My teaching philosophy is student-centered (which is one reason I like the idea of a PBL classroom), and by allowing students to aid in the development of the syllabus, it is more likely that they will take away good information from my classroom. Another thing that caught my attention was the section on time. The idea of “if time remains” activities and anchor assignments are incredibly useful, as I am a fast talker and fear that when I am in the classroom initially I will fly through a lesson plan and have half the class time left. I remember days that we would just spend the last 10 or 15 minutes of class filling out worksheets or workbooks, and though I can see the value of this to some extent (specifically with Spanish grammar), I would have preferred to be working on something more engaging or perhaps working on a larger project they would later assign. As I said before, there was a lot of great information regarding the components of the instructional plan, am I am interested in learning to put things together and then testing it out in the field !

Rita Buschbacher Module 5 SEED 400 2/15/10 Module five is all about how to prepare lesson plans and it has some good advice and suggestions that I had never heard about to create a diverse and integrated lesson for all students. The text describes different types of instructional units and one I found useful was the contract unit. In this unit students would agree, essentially sign a contract, to complete certain activities and understand what it takes to get an A, B, and so on. Being a Mathematics teacher, I think that this sort of unit plan would be very effective in the classroom. I am a firm believer that the more problems a student does or the more practice students have doing certain problems, the better their understanding will be of the lesson. If they have a better understanding of the problems, it will result in a better understanding of how to directly apply that knowledge to real life situations and problems. I agree with this statement, but I am not so sure that it always comes from doing more problems (previous statement). By having assignments that cover all levels of learning, from basic knowledge to applying the material to higher level problems, the students have the ability to expand their knowledge as far as they want. The only problem I see with the model is that some students would be fine with a B or a C, and therefore only complete that much work. I would have to think about ways to get students more involved and active in the work, but I think there is a way. This is also a way a teacher could incorporate a little bit of PBL learning, having small assignments as well as big projects the students would be working on as well. This plan, very similar to Kathie Nunley's Layered Curriculum, is a way for students to expand their math skills beyond just the book. One statement that the text wrote was that, “Carefully prepared and written lesson plans show everyone --- first and foremost your students, then your colleagues, your administrator, and, if you are a student teacher, your college or university supervisor --- that you are a committed professional.” These words are enough to inspire me to create carefully planned out plans and units for my students ; Awesome, remind me to keep reading them to you over and over again as you work on your unit! LOL! I think they make a teacher more creditable as an educator. The schools and teachers on page 162 are creative to come up with ways that Math and Child Development, or English and History, can work together to create lesson plans that would be considered Interdisciplinary units. Considering I am working with a History major for one of the projects in this class, I will read over this section again and apply it to our Engaging Instructional Unit. Yes, and may I suggest reading the Kathy Lake article in my sessional notes! The section about the “Daily Planning Book” reminds me that I need to create lessons and plan accordingly because I never want to have to rely on a planning book. Not only do you have no information, I would feel stressed knowing I was not prepared to give any sort of meaningful lesson to the students. I would however use the as a outline for my lessons to see what is coming up in the future or if any chances are needed to be made for other lessons.

Kelsey Sammons 2. 16.10

This module is about preparing effective instructional plans and lessons. The book gave many options and ideas of lessons for our classrooms. The first thing that I really appreciated was the description of a syllabus. I know what a syllabus is, but it was nice to see an example of how to create one. I personally believe that the syllabus is the most incredible tool for planning. I believe that if you hand a student a syllabus on the first day, they have no excuse for not doing a required work, because it is all laid out clearly. I do not understand why a teacher would choose to not use one; it would only benefit his or her classroom. One detail that the book includes in their syllabus structure is the “IMPORTANCE OF THE COURSE.” I don’t believe that I have ever seen this on a syllabus that I have been given. There are always goals and objectives, but rarely a description of why the class is important. I really like that addition. Professors typically have a "Rationale" section which gets at the importance of the course a little bit. But I do have to admit, I think it should get its own section, especially for a HS syllabus.

This module discusses many types of instructional units, and my favorite is the self-instructional unit. I believe that this unit fits in well with my English discipline, because many times, students are asked to read “x” amount of chapters or work on projects related to what they have been reading. These things don’t often need group work, and won’t require working for long periods of time. When it comes to reading and writing, students need to work at their own speed, without feeling the pressure of their peers. By using this instructional unit, they will feel less of this pressure. What might be some kinks that one might have to work out? Reflect.

The Chapter also discusses different aspects of the planning process. The section of the book that I had to pay the closest attention to was “ Well Planned, but Open to Last-Minute Changes ,” because this is an area where I feel I need the most work. The very first suggestion in that paragraph was to keep the lesson plans flexible. I think that this is very important, because there are so many factors in the classroom that could cause changes in my plans. What factors? Elaborate.

Scott Morrison 2/16/2010 Module 5

As I first made my decision to become a teacher, one of my biggest fears was learning to write unit and lesson plans. I had heard a number of horror stories about how lengthy they were and how they did not serve a purpose other than busy work. I would have to say that this fear was probably my biggest misconception as well. While it is true that a majority of these plans tend to long in nature, I have learned that preparing them is essential for a beginning teacher. One of the more interesting things I learned about planning extends beyond the ordinary unit and lesson. Everything seems to start with a course’s syllabus. While the idea of having a syllabus in a classroom is not all too unfamiliar to me, I never fathomed that students could and would be involved in formulating one. I think that allowing students to partake in the syllabus process is a brilliant idea. Why not have students help formulating the syllabus? This allows students to have a say in what they want as far as course requirements. Though it might be a bizarre twist, it seems to me as if students would hold themselves more accountable for something they had a hand in creating. Moving from the syllabus to the unit plan, the book does a solid job in paralleling its content to some of the ideas we have already discussed in class. It recommends that students include a majority of the same elements as were present in our unit proposals. The idea included in the unit section that most intrigued me was the one discussing integrated curriculum. The way the book outlined the five possible models of integrated curriculum allowed me an insight to how teachers might go about spreading contents over a variety of subjects. I can remember participating in integrated curriculum when I was a high school student. I usually enjoyed the material to a greater degree during these times, but I will admit getting a little bored with it after a while. It was as if I could not escape some materials no matter what class I went into. With this in mind, I am interested to see how my students will react if my fellow teachers and I decided to implement such a integrated system. Once I started to read the book’s information on lesson plan writing, I felt relief from my earlier panic about the subject. Among the biggest advantages that I perceived about lesson plan writing is preparation. How is a teacher supposed to keep a class moving in a productive direction if he/she has not prepared well enough? Lesson plans allow a teacher to establish organization into a setting that might otherwise be chaotic. Not only does a lesson plan help prepare a teacher it helps to make that teacher a reflective decision maker. Given that this reflection idea is stressed so highly in the world of education, a teacher must find some way to employ it in their work. A lesson plan is the perfect place for reflection. If a teacher has taken the time to prepare an adequate lesson plan, then he/she will have written down all of the activities present in a lesson. If, after a lesson is over, the teacher is not satisfied with the way it went, he/she can examine the plan, pinpoint the problem, and make a decision for improvement. I can see myself doing this a lot in my first few years as a teacher. I want to get those lesson plans as efficient as possible so I can provide the best opportunities for my students to learn. Your task isn't completed then remember... you can still be constantly making improvements for new groups of students and incorporating new ideas from professional reading. I think overall this module is extremely helpful for a beginning teacher. Not only does it outline a template for units and lessons, it provides actual examples of unit and lesson plans from real teachers. It allows us a glimpse at what has already been done. Throughout this class, and hopefully into the future, I plan to use these lesson plans as reference points to assess my own lesson plans. If I can look at an example from the book and see that most of what I have included is similar to what they have included, I will know I am on the right track. I am looking forward to future attempts at creating lesson plans. Good to hear, I'm looking forward to commenting on them.

Alisha Limoges Module 5 16 February 2010 This module was centered on how to create a lesson plan, use different instructional methods, and how to create and use a syllabus. I really appreciate that this chapter went in depth into lesson plans, instructional methods, and what exactly a syllabus is. The latter is most relevant to me since I use one in every class that I have on campus. Whenever I get a new syllabus I am very curious as to how to make one and what standards are required for it to meet. Looking back to high school courses, I can see that even then I was following and adhering to a syllabus, I just did not know it. A syllabus can be either a print-out that you give your students or it is a set of material that you are going to cover in class that you verbally make your students aware of. This is completely relevant to us since we will be teaching secondary students and it is important to give them some kind of a brief outline of what the course will be covering. So what should a HS syllabus include? As stated earlier, this module also goes into lesson plans more in depth. What I liked about this module more than the others was that it gave me multiple examples of what an instructional plan might look like. Instead of giving me some broad definitions and little description on what it should actually look like. Also what I liked about the module was that it explained assignments more than just giving students a worksheet and having them complete it outside of class. It also stated that if you do plan on giving an assignment to your students, you need to state that in the lesson plan. Doing that will allow you to place due dates on certain items and allows you to plan your unit accordingly. It also goes describes the differences in certain assignments and when it is appropriate to give a certain one. Considering I was a little lost on the differences between assignment and procedure, this module explained the assignment is the what, and the procedure is the how. This makes me believe that more students in this class might need some clarification on the aspects that I talked about in a thorough thoughtful lesson plan. I also liked that the module acknowledged that sometimes in teaching last minute changes just need to be made. Having a lesson plan or an instructional plan will allow you to face those last minute panics and make whatever changes need to be made. Living and teaching in South Dakota in the winter will definitely show you that you need to make last minute changes. Many schools will experience a situation where they need to start two hours late because of nasty road conditions or they will need to cancel school altogether because of a blizzard. These delays will put a big monkey wrench into your plans, you will need to think quickly in order to make the appropriate changes. If you have made a good instructional plan you will be able to look back at that and either make some time saving changes or cut out unnecessary information.

Emily Schaefer Module 5 February 17, 2010 Lesson plans and unit plans give instructors the chance to be reflective decision makers. I personally liked how the text stated that unit plans and lessons plans are never “set in concrete.” It will be necessary for me to assess the students’ learning, evaluate if my lesson plan effectively presented material and engaged students, reflect on what changes need to be made, and rewrite plans for the next time around. When meeting with my field-based supervisor, a Spanish teacher at Beresford high school, she told me about how she had to change around her plans for a whole year of teaching. Her PDC teacher from the past year had many problems with the students (my field-based supervisor said they made it really hard on the stand-in teacher), and that the students did not learn the material they needed to know to progress. When she stepped back into her old classroom at the beginning of the next year, she knew she would have to change all of her plans. Similarly, as a teacher, I will need to consider what students learned from past years, units, and lessons to modify my plans to meet students’ needs. When talking about creating instructional units, I thought the section about contract units was particularly interesting. A contract unit is a unit in which the student contracts, or agrees, to complete certain activities to earn a certain grade. For example, if a student wanted to receive an A in a class, they know they would need to complete a certain number of assignments, plus satisfactorily complete a certain number of additional activities, and receive a certain grade on the posttest. I had a few questions about this type of unit. For example, what does “satisfactorily complete” mean? What if the student rushed through all the assignments and activities and still expected an A? Additionally, some unmotivated students might settle for a C when they are capable of getting an A, and would only do the bare minimum to get a C. I had a friend in high school that was always put in the “slow” groups, so he thought of himself as stupid. He was particularly unmotivated to do well because of the way he had always been grouped. Needless to say, he would probably choose a C or D grade from the beginning and just do those assignments. These completed parts still need to be evaluated for quality. One needs to do more than just complete them! I liked the section on planning and developing a unit because I have had little experience actually creating unit plans. The part that I came away with that I will try to use in unit plans are the introductory, developmental, and culminating activities as instructional procedures. Introductory activities are activities that capture student interest, tell the students what the unit will be about, and help the teacher learn about her students. I liked this concept because it correlates with what we learn about in cognitive psychology. In using introductory activities, we are using advanced organization (telling the students about what they will be studying). Developmental activities are basically the meat of the instruction—centered on a project that keeps student interest and promotes the learning set out in the objectives. I also liked the part about culminating activities, which are activities to sum up the learning that just occurred. The activity ties up loose ends, applies the material to life situations, and provides a transition to the next unit. This also correlates with cognitive psychology as it gives the students something to take with them when they go, relates the learned material to new situations, and lets that material flow into the next unit. I also liked the discussion about curriculum integration. I have often thought of how learning Spanish has made my understanding of the English language so much clearer. If only we could integrate the two and show how the different parts of the sentence, for example, apply across languages. Another way to look at integrated curriculum is about how I related material in this subject to my cognitive psychology class. Declarative (knowledge about factual information) and procedural (knowing how to do something) knowledge, also talked about in this module under curriculum integration, are terms we have used in my cognitive psychology class. As a student, it helps me to understand the concepts more deeply to know how they relate to other subjects. As I didn’t go to a high school with integrated curriculum, but can see the effects in college, I know integrated curriculum would help students to make information more meaningful and connected, and would allow them to know the content on a deeper level. Yes, I completely agree with your statement and PBL enhances the natural integration.

Josh Freier Module 5 2/17/10 Module 5 concentrates on preparing an instructional plan, and I was very thankful for it. The nuts-and-bolts of day to day lesson planning is something I’m very concerned about learning, and though other teacher ed. classes have covered them, it’s never been done to the extent to where I’m comfortable with them. And the book even mentions many times throughout the module how important it is for beginning teachers to have well-formulated and detailed lesson plans. I feel a little more relieved at the thought of conducting a lesson when, theoretically, it’s all written down already. Not only that, but in subjects with a large amount of information, there’s no way to remember all of it and be able to call it up off the top of your head. An outline or lesson plan would help me keep track of the information and keep me on track relaying it to the students. I’ve had relatively little experience planning units and lesson plans, and thankfully this module goes into a lot of detail about units and lessons. We will work on them here! The module starts at the broadest range, discussing syllabuses, and then moving to smaller units, and even smaller lesson plans. The thing I appreciated the most about this module was all the examples. It’s not always easy to picture in your head what the text is talking about, and I’m particularly concerned about making unit and lesson plans. Seeing actual examples definitely helps me understand what the text is getting at a lot better. Yes, I always hold off on showing previous projects in this course for just a little bit... but there is a reason. One thing it spoke about a lot was integrated curriculum. Thinking about it, it seems obvious that teachers would want to connect different subject matters together. If all the different subjects are interconnected in the real world, and school is supposed to prepare kids for the real, then it only seems natural that different subjects would be linked. When I was in school, there was never really any links between classes. American history was taught the same year as American lit, and it would seem natural that those two would have been taught together, but there was no attempt to interlink those two. I would think that linking these two subjects together would help show the importance of both subjects: it would give historical context that better explain the relevance of those books written by “a bunch of dead guys;” vice versa, those “dead guys,” as I remember many of my classmates naming them, could give personal accounts that help better the explain the historical events. I obviously don’t know what kind of a school I will be put in—and what subject I will be teaching—but considering that I am going to be knowledgeable in two areas that are highly interlinked, I think it would be important to find ways to connect different subject areas. As for the lesson plans, there are many things I’m worried about, but one that always troubled me was the problem of time. Even over the span of a unit, how am I supposed to know how long something will take? What if I’m wrong? I liked the suggestion about the “if time remains” activities. It seems obvious, but I guess I never thought that you would just over-plan and keep a few additional activities on deck just in case you ran out of time early. They also point out that “not all three domains…are necessarily represented in every less plan.” With all the objectives and goals that go into making a unit, it would seem impossible to find a way to get them all into every lesson. Of course, as the module shows, individual lessons are more parts of a unit than wholes unto themselves. Thinking of lessons in this way helps bring their purpose into a better perspective. Again, great reflection!

Kellen Moser Module 5 Reflection 02/17/10

The very first section was one that jumped out at me. With everything that we are learning, it is hard to be able to understand exactly how to go about all of this. The three-level and seven-step process seems to be a way of organizing instruction. The steps are placed in very logical order. It gives a little guidance to all of the craziness. This is definetly something that I will be taking a look at when going to plan my lessons in my Internship. Within this section, I liked the preassessment phase located in the last step, assessment. It is something that is talked about in classrooms, but very few teachers implement it. I think that as a teacher I should be able to put some type of preassessment out there at the beginning of nearly everything that I do. This way, I know if my kids are really learning anything. The instructional unit section was also interesting. I had only really been exposed to the conventional unit. This is all I that I have really known as a student. I think that this is why I have such troubles understand the PBL stuff we are talking about in class. It is completely new to me, and I know nothing else. An integrated unit is something that I have heard of but I have never seen done. It would be nice to see how something like that works. You take one central theme and then use multiple disciplines to teach the theme. It would help to do it that way, so that kids who are more interested in a certain discipline can use that discipline to understand the theme. I think it would be cool to have self-instructional units in my classroom. Kids could feel free to work at their own pace (for the most part), but some kids may work too slowly. The contract unit is what interested me most. I would love to implement this into my classroom. Kids are able to see exactly what needs to be done to get the grade they want. If kids just want to get by, they see exactly what needs to be done to do that. I think by doing it this way, you will get some of the kids that just want to get by to put forth more effort. Also, they may see that if they just do a little extra work, they can get a grade higher, and it will intrinsically motivate them, which is what we want as teachers. Integrated curriculum is something that seems tough to do. Even though I did some reading on it, it still seems like it would be tough to pull off. It would take a lot of time and effort with other colleagues. I think it would be especially tough for teachers who also teach things before and after school. It seems as if extra-curricular activities would get in the way of planning for this. How would a coach who has basketball every day after school, as well as games over the weekend, have time to do this? I think that a lot of first time teachers have problem managing their time. It can be tough, especially when planning the first few lessons, to fill time properly. It was nice that the book suggested some time-fillers in the text, so that I can use them in the field. Lastly, it was nice that the book showed so many different lesson plan examples and unit plans. It was nice to see something down on paper. I will continually review these to help me in the classroom this semester, through our class as well as in my Internship.

Kevin McKinstry Module 5 February 17th 2010

This module was very interesting to me, because I still am unsure of how to properly write a lesson plan. What I kind of see from this module is that every teacher appears to write their lesson plans differently. It all depends on the subject that is being taught, the person writing the lesson and the amount of time a person has been a teacher. This is extremely interesting to me because it seems that new teachers are taught to teach like new teachers not like teachers who have been in the field longer. This not only puts the individual in a situation where they are unprepared it also shows that the way we teach teachers has to change. We need to focus on how to help future teachers be prepared. The best way to do this according to module 5 is to write lots and lots of lesson plans. I argue that it is not just the lesson plans that are needed I think that future teachers need to use those lesson plans in the classroom. This is because a person can write the best lesson ever and then have something unexpected happen to make it not work. Or a person could not have a clue to write a lesson plan but end up having a great lesson. The best teachers are the ones that are prepared for anything to happen, because anything can and will happen in real life. Teachers should not just focus on their lessons though they should leave a little wiggle room in case the students ask questions, take longer on a lesson, take less time on a lesson, or just do not understand and need more time to analyze the information. It is my opinion that teachers don’t need to have their lesson plan planned out exactly, it will not only take an amazingly long time it will also never work. Not only will you forget something but there will also be teachable moments in class that should be taken advantage of. If we do not take advantage of teachable moments we are not teaching students how to learn. Instead what we are teaching them is how to listen and how to follow. I think that we should be teaching students how to lead and learn on their own. We do not need to hold their hands all of the time. The students need a little bit of freedom every once and awhile.

Jeff Sebern Module 5 Reflection 2-17-10

This module shows the importance of planning out a course with units and daily lessons that follow a logical flow. The three levels of planning consist of the semester/academic year followed by the units being taught and the individual lessons within those units. Planning follows a seven step procedure which serves as an outline for the teacher to follow when teaching a particular course. A syllabus is then used to provide the students with a similar outline for the semester which gives them documentation of expectations, rules, materials needed, and the purpose of the course being taught. There are several unit types which cater to various types of courses. For example, self-instructional units allow a student to work at his/her own pace and are effective for distance learning programs. Integrated units are a multidisciplinary approach to teaching which incorporates multiple content areas within one overall topic. The unit then follows some combination of instructional methods that facilitate multiple learning styles and modalities. Within this basic structure, the teacher can provide balance and organization to the classroom. Lesson plans should help students meet the goals and objectives set in place for the lesson and reflection after the lesson is over can help both the teacher and the student find out what aspect of the lesson was lacking. Good metacognitive skills can go a long way to student success. Module 5 is particularly relevant to us now that we are going into our internship experience. Having models to look at as well as seeing the structure of lesson plans, unit plans, and course plans can give all future teachers the tools to be successful in practice. The examples shown in the text show us the power of sharing information among professionals so that we are not confined to our own ideas. We can really benefit from sharing ideas and lesson plans with one another and the module proves that. Application of this module will occur everyday of a person’s teaching career. Planning and reflection are continuous processes which help us discover what should be taught, how we should teach it, and most importantly whether or not the goals were met by the lesson. Making lesson plans which help meet goals and objectives is important, but enabling students to use higher order thinking skills in order to master the new material is even more important. Providing real-life application to science material can help students become more actively engaged and this is what can get students excited about science courses. Overall, as a science teacher, this module left me with a deeper understanding of how proper planning leads to successful teaching.

Amber Hegge Module 5 Reflection Feb. 17, 2010

This unit discussed various behind the scenes aspects of teaching such as lesson planning, creating a syllabus, creating an instructional unit, and creating assignments. I found this chapter to be very informative as all of these things are going to be extremely useful when out in the teaching world, and even when completing my internship this semester. The greatest part about the chapter was the multiple examples distributed throughout. Often times textbooks speak about different types of lesson plans etc, but rarely do they provide specific examples as this course has. The importance of a lesson plan for new teachers was thoroughly stressed. To me this makes a lot of sense, however it seems that in order to be a great teacher, lesson planning needs to be consistent throughout ones career. The area of lesson planning that stuck out most to me while reading was flexibility. A lot of unknowns exist in the first years of teaching. I’m sure it will be difficult to gauge for certain how long a lesson will take, or how much material the students will be able to grasp in one class period. Allowing for last minute changes, and having extra time-granted activities was suggested in the book. In order to be extremely successful it seems like these characteristics would be necessary for lesson planning. Also, The assignment section was interesting to me. Nothing is more frustrating than not fully understanding what a teacher expects you to do for an assignment. To be clear the book suggests writing assignments on a board daily, or somewhere that the students have access too, and making sure the students all clearly understand that assignment. Also the benefits of coaching practice for an assignment seems necessarily especially in the math field. In high school, being able to work through problems and ask questions as they arise was very helpful when learning new concepts. That in class problem-working time lacks in college courses, which makes them much more difficult in my opinion. In future math classes, I will definitely allow for time for my students to work over problems, and make sure that the assignments are clear to them. This chapter overall eased many of my anxieties in regards to this semesters internship and some of the assignments due for this class. Much of the material covered will be directly utilized in the classroom.

Rob Cunningham February 17, 2010 Modulo 5 Modulo 5 was a very interesting area of study for myself. The modulo covered the topics pertaining to the planning not only of a single lesson but also the planning of units and of a course as well. I personally believe that this is quite a daunting task. I know it is expected that a teacher can plan to what the students should be able to cover in the course of a class. One other thing that I have trouble wrapping my mind around is the fact that new ideas are always circulating in a teacher’s mind throughout the course of a semester. I realize that a semester and unit plans have to be flexible for changes in the school year, difficulties in material, and other factors, but how can a person take all this into consideration when designing a course. Another item in the modulo that I found very interesting was the integrated curriculum where teachers from two different disciplines come together to create a cooperative lesson plans that teach a generable topic and attack some larger project from different disciplines. I think that this would be an amazing experience not only for myself, but also for the students as well. I found myself in a unit similar to this in middle school when all of my core curriculum teachers surrounded their instruction about the history behind the sinking of the Titanic. As students we used math to calculate the weight, volume, and other facts about the ship. We read short stories in English about what the life must have been like on the boat, along with other activities from history and science. I thought that it was just an amazing experience because as students we could integrate material and make connections between teachers and disciplines, and I felt much more involved in the classes than I did when the classes were separate. As a teacher, however, I feel that this may be quite an undertaking that must have grand teamwork skills between departments. Also, I feel that it would be especially hard in mathematics to have integrated units because math is such a cumulative subject that you need previous knowledge to continue with your education. If I as a math teacher have not covered the material necessary to contribute to a unit I think that it would be difficult to “cram” the information the students will need into a short amount of time so that they are learning the material necessary in the unit. One other aspect of the modulo that I found very interesting is the self-instructional unit. This type of unit is a unit where the students can learn at their own pace and can work on different modules that they want to accomplish at a time. This is identical to the correspondence courses that are offered here at the university. I have personally taken a few of these classes and have mixed feelings about them. It is very nice to work at your own pace, to work when you want to work and learn what you want to learn. However, there is much intrinsic motivation needed in order to accomplish these kinds of classes because the amount of time dedicated to material is up to the student. I personally do not believe that this would be a suited for my discipline where everything is cumulative, but I can see the practicality for these type of units for students.

Carrie Brooks SEED 400 Module 5 Response 18 February 2010 The famous proverb, “failing to plan is planning to fail” applies to almost every realm of a person’s life. Whether a person is planning a wedding, a vacation, or a marathon training regime, planning ahead is key. The phrase also aptly applies to the necessity of preparing ahead of time, when teaching a lesson. Module 5 discusses the importance of planning ahead and the different techniques, and components of instruction that best help a teacher to plan ahead. Module 5 begins by describing the 3-levels of creating an instructional plan. The three levels involve the semester/year, the unit, and the daily plans. A teacher will be overwhelmed, thinking about creating a plan for an entire year, so breaking the year down into units helps to relieve anxiety and focus on certain themes or topics at certain points in the semester/year. The book discuses four types of instructional units, including a conventional unit, and integrated unit, a self-instructional units, and a contract unit. I asked myself whether or not I had experienced all of those units during my education. Yes, I have, and I think that the integrated units were the most exciting and memorable. Students enjoy working together on the projects and having a main focus throughout a variety of classes. How the book outlines the implementation of an integrated unit is helpful. Integration involves extensive planning and cooperation among the teachers, but it is definitely a realistic goal for teachers. It also creates a team mentality, which is beneficial for both the students and the teachers. As integrated units require extensive planning, so do conventional units, and even daily lesson plans. By having lesson plans done ahead of time, fellow teachers and administrators see that one is committed, organized, and professional. In my future student teaching experience, I now know to include the name of the course, the instructional strategies that I will utilize, the name of the unit, and the topic covered in the unit, in order to best communicate with my FBS and University supervisor. Along with those items, I will also include goals and objectives, a rationale for covering the material, and the procedure. In the procedure, I had never before considered the importance of a strong introduction and conclusion. The introduction is important for engaging the students, and the conclusion will summarize the lesson and tie up any loose ends. I will keep that in mind in the future and currently, as I teach Spanish 101. In Module five, I also appreciate the examples of lesson plans and unit. After studying the lesson plans, I like the one on page 177 and page 192 the best because they seem the most straight-forward and easy to follow. These will help me and my group in designing lesson plans for our unit project. Module five will be helpful throughout my student teaching experience and during my future teaching career. Planning ahead will help me to be more comfortable with the new classroom experiences. This module helps me plan how to plan ahead. J I will also utilize this information, when creating lesson plans for our unit proposal, and in other college course. Module five provides exceptionally beneficial information.

Tyler Maxwell February 18, 2010 Module 5 Module 5 is mainly about organizing and putting together unit and lesson plans. It discusses the importance of having a well developed lesson plan in order to teach your students the best you can. I think this will be useful in the class because it will help us in our field-based experience. The module discusses many ways of setting up good unit/lesson plans and also gives several good examples for us to use for guidance. I liked how the module used examples which demonstrated the importance of a well developed lesson plan. This is probably my favorite part of the module and the part which I found to be the most useful to us in the future as teachers, as well as now in our field-based experience. Without a well thought up and developed lesson plan it could be easy to fall of course or you may lose track of what you are trying to get across to your students. It is important for lesson plans to be fluent and easy to follow the information being taught. Another thing that should be emphasized is planning for more than the required amount of time. As a teacher, you will never be completely confident with how quickly your students will pick up the information. If they pick it up relatively quickly, it is easier to have that planned for than to improvise at the end of the lesson. This could ruin the fluidity of the lesson plan and could leave students confused as they leave your classroom for the day. This module I found particularly interesting and helpful for this class and the future. All the examples are nice because they actually give us a visual of what they are talking about rather than just putting it into words. The part I found to be most helpful was the ways of setting up good unit/lesson plans. Module 5 will really help us get ready for our field-based experience this semester as well as our future as teachers.

Cody Miller Module five reflection February 18, 2010 Module five discusses one of the most important duties of a teacher: developing effective units and lessons. The book lists seven steps of instructional planning: course, grade level, and school goals, expectations, academic year, course schedule, plan for each class meeting, instructional objectives, and assessment. A successful teacher will travel through each of these steps, but before this a syllabus must be crafted. The syllabus is an outline of the goals, objectives, assignments, evaluations, and any misconceptions about the class. The module progresses to planning units and individual lesson plans. It seems that a teacher can never plan enough for a lesson. The book suggest selecting a suitable theme, topic, issue or problem, selecting the goals of the unit and preparing the overview, selecting suitable instructional objectives, detailing the instruction procedures, plan culminating activities, make lesson plan modifications to meet the needs of all of your students, plan for pre-assessment and assessment of student learning, and provide for the materials and tools of instructions. This is a lot to do especially if you are teaching 3 or 4 different classes like most teachers are. I believe this is the reason that the attrition rate of new teachers is so high. I do not believe that teacher education programs are preparing future teachers for the fast pace high demand world of teaching. I do not like how in our class we are taking the whole semester to prepare one instructional unit. I would prefer to be treated like an actual teacher and be required to put together multiple lessons throughout the week, even if it is more work. My biggest fear is that I will not be able to handle the demands of teaching when I graduate. The module discusses time problems when planning and delivering lessons. A lesson plan should provide enough material and activities to consume the entire class period or time allotted. This means teachers should over plan. When I prepared and delivered lessons for my paraprofessional class I often finished before the class period was over. This is a major problem that I have to account for in the future. Wasting class time is because I did not plan enough material is unacceptable. I especially liked the examples in this section. I learn better by seeing examples. The examples also helped me a great deal with our instructional unit.

Andy Cahalan Module 5 reflection

In the section about Assumptions About Lesson Planning, it was apparent to me that lesson planning was not necessarily a long written process. Skilled, experienced teachers are able to sketch out, or make an outline of the lesson. Although I know that this is not going to be possible right away, it is nice to know that eventually, hopefully, there will be time where teaching will come so naturally that I will not need a lesson plan written out with a lot of detail. More on lesson plans, I really like that suggestion of writing your lesson plans on the computer and then printing them off. Not only does this allow your lesson plan to be written neater, it also allows you to save them and use them again, with modifications if need be. The section on assignments was also something that stuck out because I have been in situations where I get ample time in class to work, an other times when I haven’t gotten anytime to work on my assignments in class. After junior high, we switched to block scheduling. This meant that classes were 90 minutes long. These blocks allowed teachers plenty of time to go over lessons and also gave students time to work on their assignments. Being able to word on assignments before you take them home helps because you can ask questions concerning the homework and clear up any confusion before you get home, where there will not be a teacher available for you.

Adam Ericsson Module 5 Reflection

The main focus and title of Module 5 is preparing an instructional plan. The information and ideas in this module and the support lectures about unit planning have been causing my classmates and I a bit of concern over how we are actually going to all these ideas into a proper instructional plan. I’m trying to think how to phrase it academically, but the only thing that keeps popping into my head is, “Just do it!” like the Nike ads used to say. That is obviously simplifying things but that is the feeling I get after reading module 5, listening to the support lectures and feeling like I’m starting to figure out what this unit planning is all about. I’m going to just have to jump in and try and try and try. I feel that’s the best and only way at improving skills, by failing (hopefully not horribly) and learning what not to do.

Like I stated earlier, I feel that these once kind of abstract ideas like “Unit Planning” and “Instructional Strategies” (It’s scary to me that before this class I thought I had at least some grasp of these things but I DID NOT understand them as much as an newly-admitted Ed School student should) are starting to seem more achievable and realistic. It’s a great feeling to go from utter confusion to a bit of a grasp of these ideas. I expect and hope my knowledge of this material will grow, not only throughout my last two years of school, but along the whole arc of my career as an educator.