Class tonight really helped solidify this idea of front loading. I know that it has been mentioned many times in multiple of my classes and I had always told myself that when I write my lessons I need to consider how important it is foundation of instruction. Between using the rate your knowledge organizer and the tea party activity, taking part in multiple ways that helped to build my knowledge as a student on the topic of Harriet Tubman. From a teaching perspective, I saw how effective this could be in a classroom with students who bring to the table a variety of knowledge on different issues.
One huge take away that I saw from tonight through the video, and then modeled at the end of class was the revisiting of the Hook/attention grabber that was used at the beginning of class. I know from the small amount of lessons that I have written that I often do not think of reusing something that I started a lesson with simply because I had not thought of it. As I begin to write a lesson for this class and in the future this is certainly something that I want to consider using. Personally, it was a great way for me to measure how much I was able to learn form the lesson. As a teacher, it is a great way to encourage students that they really are learning even when they feel that they aren’t!
Caroline,
I’m so glad the activities you engaged in helped you recognize the value of frontloading instruction. Both the Rate your Knowledge and Tea Party strategies are useful tools for setting purpose so that students can feel confident as they approach a reading that may be entirely new or challenging in content.
I like that you are thinking about connecting the opening word sort in Ms. Wickett’s lesson to a revised sort at the end. I agree that revisiting these words in this way was a powerful lesson for students and a great assessment for the teacher.
Caroline, I like to hear that the idea of frontloading has been something you have heard about in the past and are making connections to from last Tuesday’s lesson. It seems that your experience with frontloading during class made an impression on you. It is important to Dr. Stohr and I for our students to experience and feel what these strategies are capable of accomplishing. I hope some of these ideas will make their way into your lesson plans! Thank you for your submission.