Toth_Reflection
Reflecting on Implementation Paper
The lesson: Creative Writing-Scary Story
The lesson plan I created was for 7th grade Language Arts students and it consisted of five, fifty-minute lessons with time allowed outside of class to work if needed. My main objectives were to teach/review the writing process and for students to write a scary story (continuing the theme of scary stories from the previous unit). Before writing the story, I used a writing process diagram to explain the writing process and supplied a worksheet for students to begin and organize their stories. After writing the story, the next step was to use Glogster, a web site that enables students (and teachers) to create interactive posters to make a visual representation of their stories. The changes I made to the original lesson were adding more time to go over the entire writing process and more time working on the revision stage.
My student for the lesson was my daughter Holly. She is home schooled and in the 7th grade. We began the lesson talking about her previous lesson, which was reading and analyzing a scary story while also learning about plot structure. For this lesson, I used a writing process diagram and story organizer worksheet to help teach Holly about the writing process. Holly and I then spent the next three classes writing and revising her story. Then I introduced the technology part of the lesson and Holly created her Glogster account and started working on making a visual representation of her story. The writing and revising part took a little longer than I expected, but creating the visual representation part went quite well and Holly and I both had a lot of fun.
The lesson: Creative Writing-Scary Story
The lesson plan I created was for 7th grade Language Arts students and it consisted of five, fifty-minute lessons with time allowed outside of class to work if needed. My main objectives were to teach/review the writing process and for students to write a scary story (continuing the theme of scary stories from the previous unit). Before writing the story, I used a writing process diagram to explain the writing process and supplied a worksheet for students to begin and organize their stories. After writing the story, the next step was to use Glogster, a web site that enables students (and teachers) to create interactive posters to make a visual representation of their stories. The changes I made to the original lesson were adding more time to go over the entire writing process and more time working on the revision stage.
My student for the lesson was my daughter Holly. She is home schooled and in the 7th grade. We began the lesson talking about her previous lesson, which was reading and analyzing a scary story while also learning about plot structure. For this lesson, I used a writing process diagram and story organizer worksheet to help teach Holly about the writing process. Holly and I then spent the next three classes writing and revising her story. Then I introduced the technology part of the lesson and Holly created her Glogster account and started working on making a visual representation of her story. The writing and revising part took a little longer than I expected, but creating the visual representation part went quite well and Holly and I both had a lot of fun.
During the lesson, my student learned about the writing process and how to use a new technology tool to present a visual representation of her story. The learning goals were for the students to demonstrate knowledge of the writing process and to present her final product. My “big ideas” were for my student to be actively involved in the process (she was) and to become more motivated to write, which she is. She is looking forward to writing another story and using Glogster.
Information was presented to my student through the creation of an active learning environment. My student was involved in the decision-making throughout the entire lesson (through lectures, modeling, scaffolding, and finally learning a new technology). By allowing my student the freedom to make her own choices, she was actively involved in the decision-making, which I think created an intrinsic desire to learn Holly appeared to be very excited about the lesson and thought the technology was “cool.” During the lesson, I observed elements of constructivism through her ability to problem solve and use critical thinking skills. When Holly got stuck using the technology, she was able to quickly figure it out on her own. Elements of behaviorism were observed through Holly receiving clear objectives and being told the relevance of the lesson (for motivation factors). Also, she demonstrated she had mastered the material. Holly loved making the glog! Other theories presented in the lesson were, the Social Cognitive Theory (modeling) and the Zone of Proximal Development (scaffolding).
My lesson was intended to enhance students’ writing skills and review the writing process and to teach a new technology tool. Although, I only had one student, the important differences to consider among learners are that many have acquired different writing skills and may be at different stages. For this lesson, my student had already learned about the writing process, so this was a review for her.
In order for the lesson to be a success, teachers obviously need to know the writing process and be able to teach it to students. A demand placed on the teacher (and other users) is learning the technology. It is assumed that the technology will be easy to master (for teacher and middle school students), which it is.
I assessed Holly using the Michigan Common Core Standards and the ISTE standards. My objectives were for her to meet most of the standards and she did. She successfully wrote a scary story and learned a new technology to present it. The technology played a big role in the motivation part of my lesson. By using the technology it was my hope to excite and motivate Holly to want to write. I think the technology helped to facilitate learning because it enabled Holly to think and learn about the topic in several different formats. She used audio, images, a photo, and animated graphics to create her final story.
Finally, Holly got very excited when I showed her the technology we were using. First, I show her some other student glogs and then she looked at some on her own. Her first question was, “how hard will it be to make one?” and she wanted to know if she could make some others when we were done with the lesson. I told her that the technology was easy and fun, which it is. After showing Holly how to create a glog, she very quickly caught on and made her own.
In the end, Holly did very well making sense of the content with the technology. She was able to write her story on paper then wrote her story into the glog. I like that she was able to do a bit more revising while using the technology. Overall, I believe the lesson was very successful (the end product proves it) and as a teacher and home schooling mom I am happy with the results.
Information was presented to my student through the creation of an active learning environment. My student was involved in the decision-making throughout the entire lesson (through lectures, modeling, scaffolding, and finally learning a new technology). By allowing my student the freedom to make her own choices, she was actively involved in the decision-making, which I think created an intrinsic desire to learn Holly appeared to be very excited about the lesson and thought the technology was “cool.” During the lesson, I observed elements of constructivism through her ability to problem solve and use critical thinking skills. When Holly got stuck using the technology, she was able to quickly figure it out on her own. Elements of behaviorism were observed through Holly receiving clear objectives and being told the relevance of the lesson (for motivation factors). Also, she demonstrated she had mastered the material. Holly loved making the glog! Other theories presented in the lesson were, the Social Cognitive Theory (modeling) and the Zone of Proximal Development (scaffolding).
My lesson was intended to enhance students’ writing skills and review the writing process and to teach a new technology tool. Although, I only had one student, the important differences to consider among learners are that many have acquired different writing skills and may be at different stages. For this lesson, my student had already learned about the writing process, so this was a review for her.
In order for the lesson to be a success, teachers obviously need to know the writing process and be able to teach it to students. A demand placed on the teacher (and other users) is learning the technology. It is assumed that the technology will be easy to master (for teacher and middle school students), which it is.
I assessed Holly using the Michigan Common Core Standards and the ISTE standards. My objectives were for her to meet most of the standards and she did. She successfully wrote a scary story and learned a new technology to present it. The technology played a big role in the motivation part of my lesson. By using the technology it was my hope to excite and motivate Holly to want to write. I think the technology helped to facilitate learning because it enabled Holly to think and learn about the topic in several different formats. She used audio, images, a photo, and animated graphics to create her final story.
Finally, Holly got very excited when I showed her the technology we were using. First, I show her some other student glogs and then she looked at some on her own. Her first question was, “how hard will it be to make one?” and she wanted to know if she could make some others when we were done with the lesson. I told her that the technology was easy and fun, which it is. After showing Holly how to create a glog, she very quickly caught on and made her own.
In the end, Holly did very well making sense of the content with the technology. She was able to write her story on paper then wrote her story into the glog. I like that she was able to do a bit more revising while using the technology. Overall, I believe the lesson was very successful (the end product proves it) and as a teacher and home schooling mom I am happy with the results.