This lesson involves a lot of practice in responding to reading comprehension questions for the upcoming PSSA assessment. I was thrilled to be able to find a reading comprehension application for the Ipad that allows the students to use technology and interact with the Ipads themselves. I feel that with a lot of practice and review of how to answer these types of questions, the students will be able to excel on the PSSAs. I also believe that my lesson is beneficial for a small group of students because it allows more teacher-to-student help and interaction as there is a smaller student-to-teacher ratio, and it also may help the students to hear the concepts explained from different sources. I think that the students will enjoy the lesson and that it will benefit them greatly in their practice for the PSSAs.
Reflection on Instruction:
For teaching my first lesson in my practicum classroom, I believe that overall it went pretty well. I really enjoyed teaching it and being able to work with the two students that I worked with. Things that I feel went well in this lesson were that the students were definitely engaged in the lesson. They seemed to really enjoy working on the Ipads, and whenever I asked them a questions they provided answers and were able to have a discussion with me. I also felt that I helped them understand the concept better because they got many of their answers correct in the multiple choice section of the passage they had to read. I believe that I interacted well with the students, and that I acted professionally. I also knew exactly what I wanted to do with the lesson and how I wanted to structure it, and I was able to make changes and modifications as the lesson went on. I feel that the objectives were met and that learning definitely occurred. I believe this because the students were able to offer many ideas when I asked them questions, and as I observed them reading and working, I saw them use a lot of the strategies we went over during the lesson. They also answered many of the questions correctly with the multiple choice questions. The assessment that I used for this lesson with the students was adequate and informative. It gave me a stronger insight about what the students know and learned, and what areas they each may still need more practice and help with. Some things I would change for this lesson are to find a shorter passage to read as an anticipatory set, and condense my activities to fit a shorter timeframe. I believe that these revisions would improve this lesson as well. Another area of improvement that this lesson could have is that I provide the students with more teacher modeling of the concept I am teaching and showing them how I would do something and how I would expect them to do it. I strongly believe that teacher modeling is key, and I believe that more teacher modeling can definitely be incorporated into this lesson. After the lessons, the students told me how much fun they had and that they really enjoyed the lesson. That was definitely reassuring, and the feedback from Dr. Selvaggi was also very helpful for my future lesson planning. Overall, I believe that my first lesson in this classroom went well and I am happy with how it turned out. I know that in every lesson there is room for improvement, so I hope that I can improve on the goals I have set for my next lesson.
Lesson Plan #2- Whole Group I. Reflection on Planning
This lesson involves a lot of review of concepts that these students have probably learned in the earlier grades. It is being revisited as they are beginning to look at and read more challenging novels, such as Because of Winn Dixie. Many of these students have probably learned about these story elements for short stories and picture books before, so this lesson is designed to see if these skills carry over with more challenging texts. I really enjoyed planning this lesson because it involves a lot of student-teacher discussion as well as student-student discussion. It is a fun way for children to delve deeper into the concepts of various story elements, and I think that it is a beneficial lesson for this skill.
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