Month: February 2019

I think that the McTighe reading tied in very well with the Shoob and Stout reading as well as the material covered in class. The McTighe reading described four key goals of education that I think should be covered in varied assessments. The first, knowledge, implies that the student should know what is factual and concrete like vocabulary and basic concepts. I think that this knowledge is foundational and necessary to achieve the other goals of education and should be tested in a concrete manner that has less variability in response. The second goal of education is for the learner to acquire basic skills. I believe that this should be assessed much like the reading puts it, with on a continuum through observation and examination once their is a final product. I believe that this goal allows for variability in assessment like creative projects and can be summative. The third goal is understanding of the “big idea”. This can be assessed through justification using evidence that I think can take place in argumentative or persuasive papers or a short answer test. The final goal of education is long-term transfer of knowledge. This means that the information you learned can be applied to a new situation. I think this can be assessed with hands-on creative projects as well where the student is given the liberty to apply the content to something they are interested in.

In the Shoob and Stout reading, I really liked the idea of using models of student work as examples for the different grading levels on the rubric. I think this gives students a better idea than just the rubric of what exactly their work should look like. I also think that incorporating self-assessment is key to the classroom environment because it creates accountability and ownership for student’s work. Additionally, I was intrigued by all of the intricacies of rubric making that we discussed in class. I see now that it is much more complex than writing simple categories and attaching them to numbers. Feedback is crucial for aiding students and nourishing their potential.

I have never truly been clear about the kind of learner I am. I think that I am most likely a mix between an auditory and visual learner. I appreciate seeing examples in front of me but also listening to accounts and writing notes on what I hear to revise later for further comprehension. This worked for me in my elementary years because the school I went to was very traditional in its approach to teaching and clung to a lecture heavy approach with little to no room for variation. However, in my classroom, I will do my best to incorporate varied teaching methods to keep kids up and active as well as engaged with the material at hand. I think that something like acting out scenes from history would be perfect for this. Also, going out to museums or field trips of some kind could offer varied experiences.

I think that when providing background knowledge for English language learners, picture books could be the perfect aid. Not only are they associating the simplified words you are saying with the text, they will most likely be making connections and predictions across the visuals in front of them. This allows for the creation of a narrative that could be crucial for them to understand the material at hand or at least create a foundation of understanding that could be built upon. I think that finding various picture books with simplified language could be extremely helpful.

For other students I could use picture books as well. I also liked the idea of using the Picture Walk. It creates a really good idea of what is to come as well as providing opportunity for students to speak out about what they see that is perhaps familiar to them. The final strategy I found helpful in the Shoob and Stout reading was the implementation of Word Webs. I think this a really helpful introduction because it addresses background knowledge as a class and also could correct any misconceptions students may have about a topic.

I think that the most important and valuable lesson that I took away from this past class was that everyone has a story and it is because of those stories that we have history to look back on. I think this is valuable because it creates not only points of interest but also of personal connection for students studying history. I loved the idea of bringing in artifacts that tell a story of someone in your family’s life and then having students sequentially figure out what was happening from deriving information and interpreting different kinds of primary sources. I noticed that I was far more engaged with this activity than I was when looking at documents of the past I felt no real connection to.

I also really enjoyed the comparison of paintings that we did. At my table we had a discussion about what grades we would use this activity in. Someone at the table said they believed first graders could do it. Though I don’t doubt they could point out differences in the pictures, I think that the key part of this lesson was the analysis of these pictures. The differences meant something historically which I think would benefit students of higher levels of elementary.