After 1 ½ months of school, I am a firm believer that a good lesson plan is the key to success as a teacher. A good lesson plan will engage the students so that you will have less behavioral problems in your classroom. A good lesson plan can also motivate a student who previously was not motivated. In Class on Saturday, Mr. Dunn started off the class showing us two lesson plans for the same topic but were vastly different. The lesson plan with more detail was more well thought out and easier to follow. Additionally, this lesson plan would also be a great start for a substitute teacher to use to teach a class, assuming the supplies were readily available. Mr. Dunn stressed the importance of schema activators which could also be considered our Do Nows. I did like these more game oriented Do Nows because I think they would engage the students effectively and quickly. As a math teacher, I can see where I can easily come up with these types of games to check for prior knowledge and to start my class but some times these games may not be realistic to progress the class. I did like the idea of getting spinners and having the students spin and then answer one of 10 questions. I can see how I can easily incorporate any math lesson into this type of game. I also liked the cubes where different information is written on each side and the students need to match the correct information together to form a square. I can see me using that with geometry as well as with basic algebra. I am also a big fan of the Scrabble game called Equate. I feel that I can incorporate that type of game easily into a math classroom. Another idea I had after leaving school was setting up math facts that need to be put together. I can easily see how you can use this type of game in Calculus where you would have an integral on one piece of paper and the corresponding answer on the other piece of paper. I would only use the rules for this type of game. Finally, our group also spoke about using board games like Yatzee to practice math facts.
Part II: One of the best parts of Mr. Dunn’s presentation was that he addressed some simple questions that a beginning teacher may need to know such as how to organize yourself if you do not have a classroom, time saving suggestions for attendance and for writing down homework, announcements etc as well as showing us a few need to have items for your classroom such as timers and mobile corkboards for the mobile teacher. He also addressed a few very basic questions on timing, checklists, differentiating, what to do on the first day of class etc. Many of these questions I have been wondering about but have never heard addressed. The answers as well as some questions that I had not come up with yet were very helpful.
On a final note, I have been modifying my teaching style for my 5th religious education class based on the recommendations I find out in class. I have decided to take a few minutes from the next class to discuss my expectations of the class and how I will run my class. I am hoping that I can effectively change some of the behavior in the classroom by taking the time to work this through. Some of my behavior problems in class have been addressed by creating a seating plan but I would like to see if I can further change the class. I have started each class with a Do Now in the form of a puzzle and I have found that this has help the transition to class work. I have also started to write on the board the objective for the day as well as the schedule for the class. I did make a huge mistake during my last class: I told the students that we were doing an Advent activity but I did not go into detail so they automatically assumed that it was going to be boring so I had a bit of a problem getting their attention. Once they figured out that the activity was broken down into parts and each part had a fun game as well as a scripture reading they were excited. Looking back, I should have started off the class writing on the board each activity so the students understood what was expected of them and what was to come. The next time I try this activity, I will change the way I present it to the class and I hope this will work.
Scott Dunn's schema activators dovetailed nicely with the work we have done in Methods with Do Nows. He had actual hands-on schema activators for us to do as a group. I found our group was engaged in just the way we would want our students engaged in the activities. His samples focused us, as future math teachers, on ways we could use these tools or activities in math classes. We had a great discussion and came up with many creative ways to use these tools. We also brought in new ideas beyond his schema activators.
Mr. Dunn also gave us real concrete suggestions for the first 3 days of school. He also showed us how we could do all the same things (post obj, homework, big idea, business, etc.) if we ended up with a cart rather than a room. These were all great ideas to think about. And we could do these even if we have a room and make our work easier and more streamlined.
I valued his idea of putting a reflective question on each test which gives the students a chance to tell why they learned something. It is used as a bonus of up to 5 points based on the depth of the self assessment.
I felt we had a good grasp of objective writing due to our work in Methods. I would like to investigate more on the Understanding by Design model and how it is similar/different from terminology and format we are using.
Core this week was provided by Scott Dunn. The topic was Effective Lesson Planning. The concepts discussed were already very familiar due to the extensive discussions on the same topic that we’ve already been having in methods. Scott introduced a couple of wrinkles however that we had not really spent much time on before however. Scott made some brief references to the Understanding By Design (UBD) methodology that some school districts are beginning to implement/follow. In UBD, besides defining clear/measurable objectives up front, the teacher should also identify “enduring understandings” (wisdom the students should be acquiring from a more global perspective beyond just the scope of the lesson) and “essential questions” (questions the students should be continuing to ask themselves during the unit of study to help gain that wisdom). Scott didn’t really go too far into the UBD methodology or the EUs and EQs. But he did mention about 6 school districts in the state are employing it. I guess that means those few districts are requiring their teachers to use the methodology in their lesson planning. I wonder if there are lots of methodologies and practices the districts dictate of the teachers and do such things tend to come and go? I can imagine it being difficult for some (especially experienced) teachers to need to adopt new practices dictated upon them, especially if they were already being pretty effective with their existing methods.
Scott also discussed the three stages of effective lesson design: identify the desired results, determine acceptable evidence (how will I know the students achieved desired results?) and then plan the learning experiences and instruction. Certainly our methods class had already covered the first and the last, but other than in specific assessment planning for the lesson, we had not emphasized planning up front what the specific evidence will be about the students’ effective learning. That sure seems like a good idea and it would feed to the detailed lesson planning similar to how the more general lesson objectives would (i.e., acting along with the objectives as a compass for all the lesson activities). It would also help identify assessment activities for the lesson.
Scott really emphasized the short 5-minute nature for the “Do Now” (Scott uses the term “schema activator”) along with his preference that the Do Now be predominantly a small group activity for the students and only occasionally an individual activity. I can understand that the small group activity could often be a help with the engagement issue and the use of “games” (we looked at lots of examples that with some significant up-front planning could indeed translate to math lessons) could be an effective way to activate prior knowledge important for the lesson. I suppose an experienced math teacher could accumulate a set of schema activators to build up a supply such that group-based “do nows” would indeed be the norm in their lessons. But I can’t yet imagine that a new teacher would have the time initially. I’d guess that the first few years for a new math teacher would be dominated by individual do nows.
Scott spent a little time on Bloom’s Taxonomy and application of those concepts in the initiation/schema activator stage of the lesson (knowledge and comprehension), the instructional activities stage (application and analysis) and the assessment and homework stages (synthesis and evaluation). Scott also spent a little time on Gardener’s Multiple Intelligences and the goal of incorporating at least two different multiple intelligences into the lesson. I’d like to understand these concepts a little more. I hope we cover them more either in Core or in Methods.
Scott is one organized person. I'd sure appreciate having him as a handy resource in a first year teaching position.
He had an opinion on most topics, and was clear about each. His presentation was well structured, and he followed it rather closely.
His handouts regarding the development of a lesson were complete, and I expect I'll refer to them in the future. He talked about a 'backward' lesson planning method. Essentially, he advocated defining a goal and considering how you would measure whether or not the goal was met at the end of the class. Armed with these two thoughts, only then did he say we would be ready to develop the plan. This fits quite closely with how I've attempted to run a meeting over the years ("If this meeting goes exactly as you hope, what will the outcome be?")
He was a real advocate of the use of Schemas as lesson initiators. He had a wonderfully complete list of these tools and solid hands-on examples of many that we each had the chance to try. Based on his very strong beliefs that these are very successful tools, I guess I'll try a few. However, at the present they are a bit foreign to my natural tendencies.
His brief review of planning a semester's lesson plans was helpful. I can start to see how picking test days, quizzes, holidays, and estimating the content to be covered each week might be planned. All this seems to argue in the face of getting through the year in the time allotted. And, of course this would have to mesh with the local organization's culture and policies.
Scott Dunn was yet another great speaker that we had the opportunity to listen to, very engaging, informative and very organized. His teaching style and personality was very different from our previous presenters. Scott’s strongest point is to plan for everything, be organized, don’t leave anything to chance, present the kids with very clear expectations, create positive, helpful routines – all of these suggestions are great part of his success. That is exactly what he has modeled for us. He ran his presentation in a very structured format but at the same time he had interesting activities planned that promoted discussion, sharing ideas between peers and problem solving. We have discussed many of the same important components of the lesson planning as in the past core and methods sessions, like initiation, having measurable objectives, knowing how we will assess student learning, making the lesson interesting so the students will remain engaged at all times and of course closure. It is important to hear this over and over again. I feel like all those parts of the lesson are becoming one when I think of a new lesson. Without any difficulty I can recognize “good” and “bad” objectives and I actually find myself stopping at different classrooms at the school where I work and try to read the objectives just out of curiosity. If I had to use one word to describe Saturday’s presentation and overall successful teaching according to Scott it would be “structure”. He was very specific in everything that we talked about. I loved all of the examples of the schema activators and how he used them. I also liked all of his specific, concrete examples of what to do and how to approach certain tasks (for example, how to deal with if you are a first year teacher without a classroom, traveling with a cart, or what questions to ask when we start student teaching in April or how to make sure that we are addressing multiple intelligences in planning our lesson.) The theme that was repeating from our previous presentations as well as from our methods classes was that no matter what we do, kids must come first. In order to be successful we need to know the kids that we are teaching and it is our job to provide them with opportunities to shine. Kids love to learn together and it is our responsibility to make room for dialog, discussion and reflection in designing our lessons.
Scott Dunn was yet another great speaker that we had the opportunity to listen to, very engaging, informative and very organized. His teaching style and personality was very different from our previous presenters. Scott’s strongest point is to plan for everything, be organized, don’t leave anything to chance, present the kids with very clear expectations, create positive, helpful routines – all of these suggestions are great part of his success. That is exactly what he has modeled for us. He ran his presentation in a very structured format but at the same time he had interesting activities planned that promoted discussion, sharing ideas between peers and problem solving. We have discussed many of the same important components of the lesson planning as in the past core and methods sessions, like initiation, having measurable objectives, knowing how we will assess student learning, making the lesson interesting so the students will remain engaged at all times and of course closure. It is important to hear this over and over again. I feel like all those parts of the lesson are becoming one when I think of a new lesson. Without any difficulty I can recognize “good” and “bad” objectives and I actually find myself stopping at different classrooms at the school where I work and try to read the objectives just out of curiosity. If I had to use one word to describe Saturday’s presentation and overall successful teaching according to Scott it would be “structure”. He was very specific in everything that we talked about. I loved all of the examples of the schema activators and how he used them. I also liked all of his specific, concrete examples of what to do and how to approach certain tasks (for example, how to deal with if you are a first year teacher without a classroom, traveling with a cart, or what questions to ask when we start student teaching in April or how to make sure that we are addressing multiple intelligences in planning our lesson.) The theme that was repeating from our previous presentations as well as from our methods classes was that no matter what we do, kids must come first. In order to be successful we need to know the kids that we are teaching and it is our job to provide them with opportunities to shine. Kids love to learn together and it is our responsibility to make room for dialog, discussion and reflection in designing our lessons.
Scott Dunn presented a lot of information and great tips in effective lesson planning and, by extension, classroom management. We spent beginning of day going over his expectations for us, in terms of where to get papers/activities for after the later in the day, what the gong meant. I was fascinated because it was so different than what we had experienced with Moore & Fritz. Their approach was to jump right in to the initiation, get everyone hooked and then go back to the details. Both even mentioned starting the first day with a great lesson and then getting back to the administration afterwards. I’ve been thinking about this was of presenting information and wasn’t sure I would be able to work that way, so it was refreshing to see another approach modeled for us with Scott Dunn. Later in day he told us that he spends the first 3 days of class going over expectations for them, (he said the students hate him in the first couple of days), “perhaps you need a reminder about the directions, this is a silent activity”, and a quiz on day 3 about the expectations. I will have to think and decide which is best, maybe even try both over the years. But again the point, like Fritz and Moore, is to be clear on our expectations for the students from the outset. Dunn was also firm about breaks and group time. He always started when he said he would, didn’t let 10 minutes drag into 12 or 13. He rang the gong and started back into the lesson, no matter if people were in their seats or not, because he had clearly defined the expectations that we would be in our seats at the end of the break, and he stuck to it. It was a great example to follow. Dunn presented us with a number of schema activators, which is akin to Randy’s Do Now. I’ve never really comfortable with “Do Now” as a label for that activity as I’ve found “Do Now” to be rather forceful and I am pleased to have another option for the naming convention. Working with the schemas in our small groups was a lot of fun. While it was more difficult to see the application in the morning session when a lot were in Spanish, as we were getting hung up on the misunderstanding, rather than focusing on the activity. After lunch the schemas were all about what we had learned in the morning and were a lot of fun and much easier to understand, and more importantly to see their application to math. We also thought of a lot of games that have math applications, but would take longer than the 5 minutes required for the schema. Also, schemas are group activities 7 times out of 10. Methods has focused on “do now” as individual tasks with group work during the lessons. I liked that he was very thoughtful about the seating chart, as well as having assigned and “open” seating days. As the students work and learn throughout the year, the assigned seating changed every 8 weeks or so based on student performance, and students were grouped to get a greater mix of student ability working together. Is it a forced group, yes, but education should also provide the opportunity to learn how to work with different people, who aren’t like you and with whom you don’t get along. These are very important skills that translate into real life.
Mr. Dunn’s presentation could be called “The expectations”. His discussion was a consolidation of all previous presenters’ ideas on how to establish then meet expectations to produce young people prepared for the next step in their lives. That is, setting expectations of the students, undertaking activities aimed at ensuring our expectations are met, evaluating whether expectations were met, then readjusting expectations as becomes necessary and then revaluating. The first expectation is that at day 1 class management methods for ensuring learner readiness must be in place so that students get into routine. As Mr. Dunn stated and is well known, children need structure and so even 1 day’s departure is chaotic. From day 1 the teacher must have all the personal information and contact information necessary for accountability and record keeping. As an act of conditioning, students are to be directed, not only verbally but physically, to the expected procedures to follow otherwise like David Johnson finds out in “Every minute Counts- Making your math class work” - (p18), when he asked why a student was perpetually late, the student replied, “Why should I be on time? Nothing ever happens in the first five minutes anyway.” This establishment of a routine means that I as teacher would have to do my part to ensure that there’s never a day when that preestablished routine can’t occur because of a lack of preparation or miscalculation. Consequently, the establishment of the routine organizes the teacher and is the first step towards achieving efficiency. As in methods class where we are lead by example, there’s the need to build expectations by ensuring students know what the “measurable” objectives and purpose of the days’ lesson will be. Only then are the students in the frame of mind to carry out the business of learning and so at this point the teacher is able to transition into meeting other expectations. The next expectation of learner readiness may be achieved by providing a “purposeful learning” do now, or schema activator initiator which engages the student to access prior knowledge or experiences which they’ll infuse in new learning. Mr. Dunn’s presentation showed us how the schema could be effective even in mathematics if appropriately used. (I do believe however that we have to be careful how we use some of the ideas. My least favorite was the scramble word) It is expected that the teacher will be able to assess whether the initiation has met its objective. Having met that expectation of setting the groundwork the teacher then has to meet the next expectation of carrying out a well prepared, organized lesson plan which utilizes activities that covers at least 2 learning styles of Gardner’s multiple intelligences to accomplish student mastery and confidence in the lesson. He urged us to ensure that we don’t adhere to only our personal learning type so that we can provide a more rounded learning experience for all students. It is expected that the lesson will be orchestrated in such a way that it is engaging, encourages lower level and higher level thinking of Bloom’s Taxonomy by unifying old ideas with new lessons. It must have students taking ownership of their learning. If done correctly students are capable of pushing and expanding their capabilities.
Mr. Scott Dunn’s workshop presentation was focused on effective lesson planning. I found it interesting in an unexpected manner. I was most intrigued by the activities during the breakout sessions. At first I thought his schema initiations were interesting but not very useful for mathematics. The second breakout did indeed focus on these same types of “games” and I could see the means and value to using these for math. I realize that a “Do Now” need not always be problem solving by students working alone.
Parallel to what we are doing in the Methods, Mr. Dunn stressed all the key components of an effective lesson plan; the introduction, presentation, assessment and closure. Concurrent to what we have been instructed he stressed posting the day’s business and objectives for all the students to see. Posting the information allows everyone to know what is important and to work together. He also stressed that wording of your objectives is important. When stating measureable objectives we must include the correct verb or action word.
In addition to lesson planning Mr. Dunn also stressed how important it is to establish classroom routines and procedures. At first this seems obvious and logical, but when you think about it is also very vital. The first procedure, the schema activator is part of the lesson plan. The plan and the schema are not side by side but actually intertwined. This approach will also influence class room management. Students know what is expected from them and they get to work, which will in-turn influence and allow the other students to focus on the day’s lesson and activity.
I came away with a deeper appreciation that an effective lesson plan has several intertwining parts and does take thought, effort and time to be created.
++++++++++++++++
During the past few weeks I have been working as an on-call substitute teacher at the high school level. As expected, students do their best to aggravate me and try to drive me crazy. I anticipated that behavior and did my best not to allow total chaos in the classroom. But, for the last two occasions I have implemented some of the things we have been taught at ARC. Namely, posting expectations on the board and doing exercises that compliment the teacher’s subject matter. It has actually worked. It is not a cure all, but students’ behavior was definitely better than earlier experiences and the students actually get some work done, not just busy work.
As all of you mentioned in your blogs Mr. Dunn’s presentation was very organized and detailed as a lesson should be. He has been doing it for several years and still everything is probably as organized and neat as it was for his first time. So here is my question to you all: as everyone mentioned before, our first year will be a disaster. But if we are going to be as organized and prepared as Mr. Dunn, with all the information, tips and tools that we are getting from Randy, Jaf and the rest of the presenters why shouldn’t we Ace the first year and the ones following it? All we need to do is to be organized, use the tools and try to model whatever successful characteristics they have that fit us and go with it to be a better teacher.
Now back to Mr. Dunn. He was exceptional with his neatness and organization, as he mentioned in the beginning he is coming from a family of thirteen teachers, his mother was a great teacher his father was a great teacher. I believe it is in his blood. He was born to be a teacher and I truly believe that all his life he was acting like a teacher. When some of us were playing games with our friends, Mr. Dunn was playing teacher. Yes he is a great teacher and a presenter, with lots of tips and all kinds of different schema activators, but his teaching experience probably started when he was five years old. There are only few teachers like Mr. Dunn. It will be tough to be him.
I learned a lot from this presentation, especially about activities on how to initiate and engage the kids. Unlike the presentations before, Mr. Dunn gave us tons of tips and guidelines on how to be as great a teacher as he is. There was only one downfall to his presentation. I believe he choose the wrong video example of a class. Mr. Dunn showed us one of the Spanish classes. He lost me after 2 minutes of listening to this Spanish video.
I mentioned in my method reflection that I believe our teaching experience starts with all the knowledge, tips and the real life examples of our instructors and presenters. So Mr. Dunn presentation gave me lots of experience to refer to while preparing for my teaching career.
Some of the tips I took from Mr. Dunn’s presentation are: • Have an activity for your initiation and closure. • Having the kids knowing what’s next can keep them engaged. • Think about the objectives from the kids or the substitute teacher perspective. • The kids will put their name cards in a basket instead of reading attendance. • A & B days for seating. • Random grouping, by picking your group from a bucket. • First three days should be for establishing an environment with clear structure; it will save time on future discipline issues.
As Jim has suggested in his experience as a substitute teacher, it gives creedance to what all the core presenters have stated; they have not had many behavioral problems. I was a a bit skeptical regarding the expectations and challenges in the classroom, but based on Jim's experience what all the of our teachers may be correct and that the expectations may really work? I hope so.
To me, the presentation topics and styles was all about "spiraling back". Initiations was covered again, but in a different way than before. Group work was emphasized, but instead of talking about it, as most of the previous presentations, the emphasis was placed on living through it. The handouts were very familiar in that they resembled handouts given in methods. All topics that have been covered from before, but seen again, slightly differently and more in-depth, more kinesthetically. A great remminder to incorporate this idea into my own lesson plans in the future. The lesson plan comparison exercise was very illuminating since they started out very similarly, and had similar constructs. But whereas one focused on specifics, one leaned to the general. The exercise had the lesson plans side by side, and it was clear to see the points of difference. Again, this touched upon the idea of comparison of differences which was talked about in both Moore's and Fritz's presenations. It was such a great exercise that represented topics mentioned earlier. The use of differences should be something that I incorporate as much as possible. Seeing the effectiveness of this exercise internalizes why this method is so powerful.
Today we heard Scott Dunn speak on Planning. I felt, for the most part, the class was mostly on initiation. Mr. Dunn, I sense, intentionally focused on initiation because he feels that a good initiation is key to motivating the students to engage in the rest of the lesson. After hearing many of his ideas for initiation, I could not agree more. His suggestions for initiations were invaluable, and I will the pulling from his “bag of tricks” for many years to come. I also appreciated the time we spent comparing a “fair” lesson plan to an “outstanding” lesson plan. By pulling the two plans apart, we really learned what we need to put into a plan to make it great.
Much of his entire presentation simply reiterated what we’ve been introduced to in our methods class, but had a different spin to it that really drove some concepts home for me personally. For example, I really got a better understanding of Multiple Intelligence theory, which helped me understand how to apply differentiated instruction in a classroom. I also liked critiquing, as a class, a list of objectives that Mr. Dunn saw in his own district’s classroom in recent weeks. I felt like this exercise really helped me understand what goes into writing a clear objective. In addition,
It was good the hear Mr. Dunn’s emphasis on student ownership of content, which is a major theme in our methods class. What was new to me was Mr. Dunn’s instruction on getting student to demonstrate that they can think critically and not just regurgitate what was written on the board. That will be essential for me to implement when developing my assessment strategies.
After 1 ½ months of school, I am a firm believer that a good lesson plan is the key to success as a teacher. A good lesson plan will engage the students so that you will have less behavioral problems in your classroom. A good lesson plan can also motivate a student who previously was not motivated. In Class on Saturday, Mr. Dunn started off the class showing us two lesson plans for the same topic but were vastly different. The lesson plan with more detail was more well thought out and easier to follow. Additionally, this lesson plan would also be a great start for a substitute teacher to use to teach a class, assuming the supplies were readily available.
ReplyDeleteMr. Dunn stressed the importance of schema activators which could also be considered our Do Nows. I did like these more game oriented Do Nows because I think they would engage the students effectively and quickly. As a math teacher, I can see where I can easily come up with these types of games to check for prior knowledge and to start my class but some times these games may not be realistic to progress the class. I did like the idea of getting spinners and having the students spin and then answer one of 10 questions. I can see how I can easily incorporate any math lesson into this type of game. I also liked the cubes where different information is written on each side and the students need to match the correct information together to form a square. I can see me using that with geometry as well as with basic algebra. I am also a big fan of the Scrabble game called Equate. I feel that I can incorporate that type of game easily into a math classroom. Another idea I had after leaving school was setting up math facts that need to be put together. I can easily see how you can use this type of game in Calculus where you would have an integral on one piece of paper and the corresponding answer on the other piece of paper. I would only use the rules for this type of game. Finally, our group also spoke about using board games like Yatzee to practice math facts.
Part II:
ReplyDeleteOne of the best parts of Mr. Dunn’s presentation was that he addressed some simple questions that a beginning teacher may need to know such as how to organize yourself if you do not have a classroom, time saving suggestions for attendance and for writing down homework, announcements etc as well as showing us a few need to have items for your classroom such as timers and mobile corkboards for the mobile teacher. He also addressed a few very basic questions on timing, checklists, differentiating, what to do on the first day of class etc. Many of these questions I have been wondering about but have never heard addressed. The answers as well as some questions that I had not come up with yet were very helpful.
On a final note, I have been modifying my teaching style for my 5th religious education class based on the recommendations I find out in class. I have decided to take a few minutes from the next class to discuss my expectations of the class and how I will run my class. I am hoping that I can effectively change some of the behavior in the classroom by taking the time to work this through. Some of my behavior problems in class have been addressed by creating a seating plan but I would like to see if I can further change the class. I have started each class with a Do Now in the form of a puzzle and I have found that this has help the transition to class work. I have also started to write on the board the objective for the day as well as the schedule for the class. I did make a huge mistake during my last class: I told the students that we were doing an Advent activity but I did not go into detail so they automatically assumed that it was going to be boring so I had a bit of a problem getting their attention. Once they figured out that the activity was broken down into parts and each part had a fun game as well as a scripture reading they were excited. Looking back, I should have started off the class writing on the board each activity so the students understood what was expected of them and what was to come. The next time I try this activity, I will change the way I present it to the class and I hope this will work.
Scott Dunn's schema activators dovetailed nicely with the work we have done in Methods with Do Nows. He had actual hands-on schema activators for us to do as a group. I found our group was engaged in just the way we would want our students engaged in the activities. His samples focused us, as future math teachers, on ways we could use these tools or activities in math classes. We had a great discussion and came up with many creative ways to use these tools. We also brought in new ideas beyond his schema activators.
ReplyDeleteMr. Dunn also gave us real concrete suggestions for the first 3 days of school. He also showed us how we could do all the same things (post obj, homework, big idea, business, etc.) if we ended up with a cart rather than a room. These were all great ideas to think about. And we could do these even if we have a room and make our work easier and more streamlined.
I valued his idea of putting a reflective question on each test which gives the students a chance to tell why they learned something. It is used as a bonus of up to 5 points based on the depth of the self assessment.
I felt we had a good grasp of objective writing due to our work in Methods. I would like to investigate more on the Understanding by Design model and how it is similar/different from terminology and format we are using.
Core this week was provided by Scott Dunn. The topic was Effective Lesson Planning. The concepts discussed were already very familiar due to the extensive discussions on the same topic that we’ve already been having in methods. Scott introduced a couple of wrinkles however that we had not really spent much time on before however. Scott made some brief references to the Understanding By Design (UBD) methodology that some school districts are beginning to implement/follow. In UBD, besides defining clear/measurable objectives up front, the teacher should also identify “enduring understandings” (wisdom the students should be acquiring from a more global perspective beyond just the scope of the lesson) and “essential questions” (questions the students should be continuing to ask themselves during the unit of study to help gain that wisdom). Scott didn’t really go too far into the UBD methodology or the EUs and EQs. But he did mention about 6 school districts in the state are employing it. I guess that means those few districts are requiring their teachers to use the methodology in their lesson planning. I wonder if there are lots of methodologies and practices the districts dictate of the teachers and do such things tend to come and go? I can imagine it being difficult for some (especially experienced) teachers to need to adopt new practices dictated upon them, especially if they were already being pretty effective with their existing methods.
ReplyDeleteScott also discussed the three stages of effective lesson design: identify the desired results, determine acceptable evidence (how will I know the students achieved desired results?) and then plan the learning experiences and instruction. Certainly our methods class had already covered the first and the last, but other than in specific assessment planning for the lesson, we had not emphasized planning up front what the specific evidence will be about the students’ effective learning. That sure seems like a good idea and it would feed to the detailed lesson planning similar to how the more general lesson objectives would (i.e., acting along with the objectives as a compass for all the lesson activities). It would also help identify assessment activities for the lesson.
Scott really emphasized the short 5-minute nature for the “Do Now” (Scott uses the term “schema activator”) along with his preference that the Do Now be predominantly a small group activity for the students and only occasionally an individual activity. I can understand that the small group activity could often be a help with the engagement issue and the use of “games” (we looked at lots of examples that with some significant up-front planning could indeed translate to math lessons) could be an effective way to activate prior knowledge important for the lesson. I suppose an experienced math teacher could accumulate a set of schema activators to build up a supply such that group-based “do nows” would indeed be the norm in their lessons. But I can’t yet imagine that a new teacher would have the time initially. I’d guess that the first few years for a new math teacher would be dominated by individual do nows.
Scott spent a little time on Bloom’s Taxonomy and application of those concepts in the initiation/schema activator stage of the lesson (knowledge and comprehension), the instructional activities stage (application and analysis) and the assessment and homework stages (synthesis and evaluation). Scott also spent a little time on Gardener’s Multiple Intelligences and the goal of incorporating at least two different multiple intelligences into the lesson. I’d like to understand these concepts a little more. I hope we cover them more either in Core or in Methods.
Scott is one organized person. I'd sure appreciate having him as a handy resource in a first year teaching position.
ReplyDeleteHe had an opinion on most topics, and was clear about each. His presentation was well structured, and he followed it rather closely.
His handouts regarding the development of a lesson were complete, and I expect I'll refer to them in the future. He talked about a 'backward' lesson planning method. Essentially, he advocated defining a goal and considering how you would measure whether or not the goal was met at the end of the class. Armed with these two thoughts, only then did he say we would be ready to develop the plan. This fits quite closely with how I've attempted to run a meeting over the years ("If this meeting goes exactly as you hope, what will the outcome be?")
He was a real advocate of the use of Schemas as lesson initiators. He had a wonderfully complete list of these tools and solid hands-on examples of many that we each had the chance to try. Based on his very strong beliefs that these are very successful tools, I guess I'll try a few. However, at the present they are a bit foreign to my natural tendencies.
His brief review of planning a semester's lesson plans was helpful. I can start to see how picking test days, quizzes, holidays, and estimating the content to be covered each week might be planned. All this seems to argue in the face of getting through the year in the time allotted. And, of course this would have to mesh with the local organization's culture and policies.
Scott Dunn was yet another great speaker that we had the opportunity to listen to, very engaging, informative and very organized. His teaching style and personality was very different from our previous presenters. Scott’s strongest point is to plan for everything, be organized, don’t leave anything to chance, present the kids with very clear expectations, create positive, helpful routines – all of these suggestions are great part of his success. That is exactly what he has modeled for us. He ran his presentation in a very structured format but at the same time he had interesting activities planned that promoted discussion, sharing ideas between peers and problem solving. We have discussed many of the same important components of the lesson planning as in the past core and methods sessions, like initiation, having measurable objectives, knowing how we will assess student learning, making the lesson interesting so the students will remain engaged at all times and of course closure. It is important to hear this over and over again. I feel like all those parts of the lesson are becoming one when I think of a new lesson. Without any difficulty I can recognize “good” and “bad” objectives and I actually find myself stopping at different classrooms at the school where I work and try to read the objectives just out of curiosity. If I had to use one word to describe Saturday’s presentation and overall successful teaching according to Scott it would be “structure”. He was very specific in everything that we talked about. I loved all of the examples of the schema activators and how he used them. I also liked all of his specific, concrete examples of what to do and how to approach certain tasks (for example, how to deal with if you are a first year teacher without a classroom, traveling with a cart, or what questions to ask when we start student teaching in April or how to make sure that we are addressing multiple intelligences in planning our lesson.) The theme that was repeating from our previous presentations as well as from our methods classes was that no matter what we do, kids must come first. In order to be successful we need to know the kids that we are teaching and it is our job to provide them with opportunities to shine. Kids love to learn together and it is our responsibility to make room for dialog, discussion and reflection in designing our lessons.
ReplyDeleteScott Dunn was yet another great speaker that we had the opportunity to listen to, very engaging, informative and very organized. His teaching style and personality was very different from our previous presenters. Scott’s strongest point is to plan for everything, be organized, don’t leave anything to chance, present the kids with very clear expectations, create positive, helpful routines – all of these suggestions are great part of his success. That is exactly what he has modeled for us. He ran his presentation in a very structured format but at the same time he had interesting activities planned that promoted discussion, sharing ideas between peers and problem solving. We have discussed many of the same important components of the lesson planning as in the past core and methods sessions, like initiation, having measurable objectives, knowing how we will assess student learning, making the lesson interesting so the students will remain engaged at all times and of course closure. It is important to hear this over and over again. I feel like all those parts of the lesson are becoming one when I think of a new lesson. Without any difficulty I can recognize “good” and “bad” objectives and I actually find myself stopping at different classrooms at the school where I work and try to read the objectives just out of curiosity. If I had to use one word to describe Saturday’s presentation and overall successful teaching according to Scott it would be “structure”. He was very specific in everything that we talked about. I loved all of the examples of the schema activators and how he used them. I also liked all of his specific, concrete examples of what to do and how to approach certain tasks (for example, how to deal with if you are a first year teacher without a classroom, traveling with a cart, or what questions to ask when we start student teaching in April or how to make sure that we are addressing multiple intelligences in planning our lesson.) The theme that was repeating from our previous presentations as well as from our methods classes was that no matter what we do, kids must come first. In order to be successful we need to know the kids that we are teaching and it is our job to provide them with opportunities to shine. Kids love to learn together and it is our responsibility to make room for dialog, discussion and reflection in designing our lessons.
ReplyDeleteScott Dunn presented a lot of information and great tips in effective lesson planning and, by extension, classroom management. We spent beginning of day going over his expectations for us, in terms of where to get papers/activities for after the later in the day, what the gong meant. I was fascinated because it was so different than what we had experienced with Moore & Fritz. Their approach was to jump right in to the initiation, get everyone hooked and then go back to the details. Both even mentioned starting the first day with a great lesson and then getting back to the administration afterwards. I’ve been thinking about this was of presenting information and wasn’t sure I would be able to work that way, so it was refreshing to see another approach modeled for us with Scott Dunn.
ReplyDeleteLater in day he told us that he spends the first 3 days of class going over expectations for them, (he said the students hate him in the first couple of days), “perhaps you need a reminder about the directions, this is a silent activity”, and a quiz on day 3 about the expectations. I will have to think and decide which is best, maybe even try both over the years. But again the point, like Fritz and Moore, is to be clear on our expectations for the students from the outset. Dunn was also firm about breaks and group time. He always started when he said he would, didn’t let 10 minutes drag into 12 or 13. He rang the gong and started back into the lesson, no matter if people were in their seats or not, because he had clearly defined the expectations that we would be in our seats at the end of the break, and he stuck to it. It was a great example to follow.
Dunn presented us with a number of schema activators, which is akin to Randy’s Do Now. I’ve never really comfortable with “Do Now” as a label for that activity as I’ve found “Do Now” to be rather forceful and I am pleased to have another option for the naming convention. Working with the schemas in our small groups was a lot of fun. While it was more difficult to see the application in the morning session when a lot were in Spanish, as we were getting hung up on the misunderstanding, rather than focusing on the activity. After lunch the schemas were all about what we had learned in the morning and were a lot of fun and much easier to understand, and more importantly to see their application to math. We also thought of a lot of games that have math applications, but would take longer than the 5 minutes required for the schema. Also, schemas are group activities 7 times out of 10. Methods has focused on “do now” as individual tasks with group work during the lessons.
I liked that he was very thoughtful about the seating chart, as well as having assigned and “open” seating days. As the students work and learn throughout the year, the assigned seating changed every 8 weeks or so based on student performance, and students were grouped to get a greater mix of student ability working together. Is it a forced group, yes, but education should also provide the opportunity to learn how to work with different people, who aren’t like you and with whom you don’t get along. These are very important skills that translate into real life.
Mr. Dunn’s presentation could be called “The expectations”. His discussion was a consolidation of all previous presenters’ ideas on how to establish then meet expectations to produce young people prepared for the next step in their lives. That is, setting expectations of the students, undertaking activities aimed at ensuring our expectations are met, evaluating whether expectations were met, then readjusting expectations as becomes necessary and then revaluating. The first expectation is that at day 1 class management methods for ensuring learner readiness must be in place so that students get into routine. As Mr. Dunn stated and is well known, children need structure and so even 1 day’s departure is chaotic. From day 1 the teacher must have all the personal information and contact information necessary for accountability and record keeping. As an act of conditioning, students are to be directed, not only verbally but physically, to the expected procedures to follow otherwise like David Johnson finds out in “Every minute Counts- Making your math class work” - (p18), when he asked why a student was perpetually late, the student replied, “Why should I be on time? Nothing ever happens in the first five minutes anyway.” This establishment of a routine means that I as teacher would have to do my part to ensure that there’s never a day when that preestablished routine can’t occur because of a lack of preparation or miscalculation. Consequently, the establishment of the routine organizes the teacher and is the first step towards achieving efficiency. As in methods class where we are lead by example, there’s the need to build expectations by ensuring students know what the “measurable” objectives and purpose of the days’ lesson will be. Only then are the students in the frame of mind to carry out the business of learning and so at this point the teacher is able to transition into meeting other expectations. The next expectation of learner readiness may be achieved by providing a “purposeful learning” do now, or schema activator initiator which engages the student to access prior knowledge or experiences which they’ll infuse in new learning. Mr. Dunn’s presentation showed us how the schema could be effective even in mathematics if appropriately used. (I do believe however that we have to be careful how we use some of the ideas. My least favorite was the scramble word) It is expected that the teacher will be able to assess whether the initiation has met its objective. Having met that expectation of setting the groundwork the teacher then has to meet the next expectation of carrying out a well prepared, organized lesson plan which utilizes activities that covers at least 2 learning styles of Gardner’s multiple intelligences to accomplish student mastery and confidence in the lesson. He urged us to ensure that we don’t adhere to only our personal learning type so that we can provide a more rounded learning experience for all students. It is expected that the lesson will be orchestrated in such a way that it is engaging, encourages lower level and higher level thinking of Bloom’s Taxonomy by unifying old ideas with new lessons. It must have students taking ownership of their learning. If done correctly students are capable of pushing and expanding their capabilities.
ReplyDeleteMr. Scott Dunn’s workshop presentation was focused on effective lesson planning. I found it interesting in an unexpected manner. I was most intrigued by the activities during the breakout sessions. At first I thought his schema initiations were interesting but not very useful for mathematics. The second breakout did indeed focus on these same types of “games” and I could see the means and value to using these for math. I realize that a “Do Now” need not always be problem solving by students working alone.
ReplyDeleteParallel to what we are doing in the Methods, Mr. Dunn stressed all the key components of an effective lesson plan; the introduction, presentation, assessment and closure. Concurrent to what we have been instructed he stressed posting the day’s business and objectives for all the students to see. Posting the information allows everyone to know what is important and to work together. He also stressed that wording of your objectives is important. When stating measureable objectives we must include the correct verb or action word.
In addition to lesson planning Mr. Dunn also stressed how important it is to establish classroom routines and procedures. At first this seems obvious and logical, but when you think about it is also very vital. The first procedure, the schema activator is part of the lesson plan. The plan and the schema are not side by side but actually intertwined. This approach will also influence class room management. Students know what is expected from them and they get to work, which will in-turn influence and allow the other students to focus on the day’s lesson and activity.
I came away with a deeper appreciation that an effective lesson plan has several intertwining parts and does take thought, effort and time to be created.
++++++++++++++++
During the past few weeks I have been working as an on-call substitute teacher at the high school level. As expected, students do their best to aggravate me and try to drive me crazy. I anticipated that behavior and did my best not to allow total chaos in the classroom. But, for the last two occasions I have implemented some of the things we have been taught at ARC. Namely, posting expectations on the board and doing exercises that compliment the teacher’s subject matter. It has actually worked. It is not a cure all, but students’ behavior was definitely better than earlier experiences and the students actually get some work done, not just busy work.
As all of you mentioned in your blogs Mr. Dunn’s presentation was very organized and detailed as a lesson should be. He has been doing it for several years and still everything is probably as organized and neat as it was for his first time.
ReplyDeleteSo here is my question to you all: as everyone mentioned before, our first year will be a disaster. But if we are going to be as organized and prepared as Mr. Dunn, with all the information, tips and tools that we are getting from Randy, Jaf and the rest of the presenters why shouldn’t we Ace the first year and the ones following it? All we need to do is to be organized, use the tools and try to model whatever successful characteristics they have that fit us and go with it to be a better teacher.
Now back to Mr. Dunn. He was exceptional with his neatness and organization, as he mentioned in the beginning he is coming from a family of thirteen teachers, his mother was a great teacher his father was a great teacher. I believe it is in his blood. He was born to be a teacher and I truly believe that all his life he was acting like a teacher. When some of us were playing games with our friends, Mr. Dunn was playing teacher. Yes he is a great teacher and a presenter, with lots of tips and all kinds of different schema activators, but his teaching experience probably started when he was five years old. There are only few teachers like Mr. Dunn. It will be tough to be him.
I learned a lot from this presentation, especially about activities on how to initiate and engage the kids. Unlike the presentations before, Mr. Dunn gave us tons of tips and guidelines on how to be as great a teacher as he is. There was only one downfall to his presentation. I believe he choose the wrong video example of a class. Mr. Dunn showed us one of the Spanish classes. He lost me after 2 minutes of listening to this Spanish video.
I mentioned in my method reflection that I believe our teaching experience starts with all the knowledge, tips and the real life examples of our instructors and presenters. So Mr. Dunn presentation gave me lots of experience to refer to while preparing for my teaching career.
Some of the tips I took from Mr. Dunn’s presentation are:
• Have an activity for your initiation and closure.
• Having the kids knowing what’s next can keep them engaged.
• Think about the objectives from the kids or the substitute teacher perspective.
• The kids will put their name cards in a basket instead of reading attendance.
• A & B days for seating.
• Random grouping, by picking your group from a bucket.
• First three days should be for establishing an environment with clear structure; it will save time on future discipline issues.
As Jim has suggested in his experience as a substitute teacher, it gives creedance to what all the core presenters have stated; they have not had many behavioral problems. I was a a bit skeptical regarding the expectations and challenges in the classroom, but based on Jim's experience what all the of our teachers may be correct and that the expectations may really work? I hope so.
ReplyDeleteTo me, the presentation topics and styles was all about "spiraling back". Initiations was covered again, but in a different way than before. Group work was emphasized, but instead of talking about it, as most of the previous presentations, the emphasis was placed on living through it. The handouts were very familiar in that they resembled handouts given in methods. All topics that have been covered from before, but seen again, slightly differently and more in-depth, more kinesthetically. A great remminder to incorporate this idea into my own lesson plans in the future.
ReplyDeleteThe lesson plan comparison exercise was very illuminating since they started out very similarly, and had similar constructs. But whereas one focused on specifics, one leaned to the general. The exercise had the lesson plans side by side, and it was clear to see the points of difference. Again, this touched upon the idea of comparison of differences which was talked about in both Moore's and Fritz's presenations. It was such a great exercise that represented topics mentioned earlier. The use of differences should be something that I incorporate as much as possible. Seeing the effectiveness of this exercise internalizes why this method is so powerful.
Today we heard Scott Dunn speak on Planning. I felt, for the most part, the class was mostly on initiation. Mr. Dunn, I sense, intentionally focused on initiation because he feels that a good initiation is key to motivating the students to engage in the rest of the lesson. After hearing many of his ideas for initiation, I could not agree more. His suggestions for initiations were invaluable, and I will the pulling from his “bag of tricks” for many years to come. I also appreciated the time we spent comparing a “fair” lesson plan to an “outstanding” lesson plan. By pulling the two plans apart, we really learned what we need to put into a plan to make it great.
ReplyDeleteMuch of his entire presentation simply reiterated what we’ve been introduced to in our methods class, but had a different spin to it that really drove some concepts home for me personally. For example, I really got a better understanding of Multiple Intelligence theory, which helped me understand how to apply differentiated instruction in a classroom. I also liked critiquing, as a class, a list of objectives that Mr. Dunn saw in his own district’s classroom in recent weeks. I felt like this exercise really helped me understand what goes into writing a clear objective. In addition,
It was good the hear Mr. Dunn’s emphasis on student ownership of content, which is a major theme in our methods class. What was new to me was Mr. Dunn’s instruction on getting student to demonstrate that they can think critically and not just regurgitate what was written on the board. That will be essential for me to implement when developing my assessment strategies.