Module 6 Reflection

• How can I help my students become self-directed learners?
As a teacher, I need to be ready to guide and support the students, helping them build the skills necessary to take an active role in their learning. By providing self-directing activities or projects, the students will learn to meet challenges and solve problems along the way. The students will pre-assess their own knowledge, giving insight to the key concepts of the unit, and be provided with directions, checklists, rubrics, and scoring guides to help direct their learning and assessments. Through collaboration on projects, the students help/assess each other and assess their own progress necessary to reach the learning goal. Allowing students to assess the work of their peers will help them become aware of the quality needed in their own creations. I will need to be there to make suggestions and try to give positive feedback whenever possible.
• How can I support the diverse needs of learners?
Varying the types of lessons will help accommodate all learning styles. Pre-assessments will help identify individual student capabilities. Collaboration and cooperative learning projects will provide opportunities for all students to take an active part effectively. They will also allow individuals to use their strengths in a “team” effort of creating a final project. Students that learn quickly are able to “teach” other students, providing leadership roles. Other students are able to take advantage of asking peers questions and are more comfortable in the learning process. Accommodations are made for students with special needs, allowing them to take part in the learning process. Self-directed projects help students at all levels find success, increasing their over-all learning.

How can I help my students become self-directed learners?Through the use of a checklist to keep them working toward their goal, by cooperative grouping for projects, and using a storyboard format to help them keep information organized
· How can I support the diverse needs of learners?effective grouping, outside support personnel when needed, checking journal entries to see how they are progressing, blogs for support and questions, and, in general, letting the students know that I am always their for support.

Module 5 Reflection

How do I assess student learning?
I am using several assessment measures throughout the project. I will have students assess themselves using checklists and informal assessments such as questioning. I have a rubric for the final project and guidelines/steps to complete the process.
How do I involve students in the assessment process?
Students will use the checklists as a self-assessment. They will also be involved in a discussion of the rubric and other assessment measures to ensure understanding of what is expected.

In the future, I would like to involve the students more in planning the assessments. Creating a student example also helped when thinking about how I want to assess students and what to look when assessing them.

Module 5 Reflection

Module 5 Reflect on how the focus of this module has helped you plan and create your unit.
How do I assess student learning?
We will assess student learning with rubrics and student checklists.
How do I involve students in the assessment process?
The students will have a checklist from the start of the unit. They will also have the rubrics for the graphs ahead of time so that they know what they are being graded on.
Consider how the knowledge you gained from this module will impact your teaching and your students’ learning. Record your insights, key learnings, and questions or concerns in your reflection.
By completing the student sample first you can do a better job of creating rubrics that will be accurate.

Module 6 Reflection

Module 6
Reflect on how the focus of this module has helped you plan and create your unit.

· How can I help my students become self-directed learners?
· How can I support the diverse needs of learners?

Consider how the knowledge you gained from this module will impact your teaching and your students’ learning. Record your insights, key learnings, and questions or concerns in your reflection. Respond to one other participant's post.

Module 5 Reflection

Reflect on how the focus of this module has helped you plan and create your unit.

How do I assess student learning? I am assessing student learning through the use of a variety of assessment tools. K-W-L and student journals (and possibly a jeopardy game --- I am still working on this one!) will help assess prior knowledge and understanding along the way. Throughout the unit, the students and teachers will use checklists and scoring guides. Teacher-Student conferencing will be used as needed. Peer editing will give the students a chance to evaluate activity results of others. Reflection questions, charts/graphs activities, interactive computer activities, and a final project will identify for me the student/class strengths and weaknesses.
How do I involve students in the assessment process? The students will assess their prior knowledge using K-W-L and their journals. Throughout the unit, the students will use checklists and scoring guides for self-assessment and to measure their progress. The students will have a chance to identify necessary items to be included on graphing scoring guides ahead of time. The students will pace themselves through several activities with only a deadline to meet. They will have chances to peer edit/evaluate activity results of other students, strengthening their assessment awareness.
Consider how the knowledge you gained from this module will impact your teaching and your students’ learning. Record your insights, key learnings, and questions or concerns in your reflection. By completing a student sample first, I was able to view activity products from the “students’ eye view.” It allowed me to focus on what was necessary to complete my objectives. Some activities we had thought about including became just that –activities for “fillers” or “fun,” not really necessary for the completion of our unit goals. By completing this module, the students will concentrate on necessary components, and I know what end result is expected. Steve and I know what skills are necessary to prepare the students for completion of our activities and also be useful in the future.

Module 5 assessment

I will have my students participate in several phases of assessment. We will do a KWL to preassess what they already know. Aslo there will be a rubric to go along with the advertisement they will be making. This has specific expectations and a variety of levels of completion that students will be able to check as they complete the assignment. Likewise, students can assess what they are learning by sharing their ideas in their blog entries. I plan on allowing them to fill out a reading incentive chart or "ladder" as they read various books so they can see how they are doing in becoming better readers.

This will help the students gain a better understanidng of what they already know and what they have yet to learn about various genres and fiction and non-fiction. It will help them reach our learning objective and putting the publication together will play a positive role in the curriculum outcome I have established for this project. They will grow in their technology skills and have gained a feeling of control over their learning by seeing themselves capable of completing these tasks.

Module 5 reflection

How do I assess student learning?I will be assessing my students learning in a couple of different ways. To begin the unit I will use a KWL chart and questioning for prior knowledge. Then I will use checklist so my students know exactly what they need to do for the collage and brochure. I will be using an observation checklist so I can monitor my students very close. At the end of the unit I will give a power point test that will see what they have learned from the project and then I will use a project scoring guide to give them an overall grade.

How do I involve students in the assessment process? The students will definitely be involved in the checklist since it is their way of knowing where they are at. I will also use the observation checklist during short conferences with the students.

Consider how the knowledge you gained from this module will impact your teaching and your students’ learning. Record your insights, key learnings, and questions or concerns in your reflection. Preparing the assessments in advance will be a great help to me during my Kansas Day unit. I hate to say it, but usually I work on my assessments as I need them. Having all of the assessments will give me more time to focus on my students during the unit. I need to keep an open mind though because I may need to adjust my assessments as I see fit throughout the unit.

Module 5 Reflection

Module 5
Reflect on how the focus of this module has helped you plan and create your unit.
How do I assess student learning?
How do I involve students in the assessment process?
Consider how the knowledge you gained from this module will impact your teaching and your students’ learning. Record your insights, key learnings, and questions or concerns in your reflection.

Module 4

How can the creation of a student sample help me clarify unit expectations and improve my instructional design?
By creating a student sample, I can understand the steps needed in order to complete the project. It can also help prepare me to answer some of the questions students might have and determine some of the questions I want to ask the students in the blog.

How can I ensure students will achieve the learning objectives when creating their student projects? I think by having the students check their own work and check on them while they are completing the project will help. Also be referring to the rubric, allowing for reflection, and discussion will help ensure students achieve the learning objectives.

Module #5 Blogging My Journey

How do I assess student learning? I will assess my parents/students learning using several types of assessments. I will use a K-W-L Chart throughout the unit to assess prior knowledge & to show understanding of new concepts. During my unit I will use a graphic organizer on a blog site. To complete the unit, I will use peer feedback, discussions, reflection questions & a group collaboration rubric.

How do I involve students in the assessment process? They will evaluate themselves using a group collaboration rubric.

Consider how the knowledge you gained from this module will impact your teaching & your students’ learning. I learned to look at assessment from not just a teacher’s point of view which is what I normally would look at assessment from, but from a student’s/parent’s point of view. As teachers, we are required to evaluate students daily but by giving students the opportunity to evaluate themselves, they can develop more ownership in their learning and in projects & end products.

Module 5 Reflection

Module 5

Reflect on how the focus of this module has helped you plan and create your unit.
I had never done a unit "backwards" where you think about assessing first. It really helps me focus my teaching.
How do I assess student learning?
In the unit I am planning, I am assessing students through checklists, journals, role playing, PowerPoints, student-teacher conferences, rubrics, and an essay.
How do I involve students in the assessment process?
Students will be in charge of the checklist. They will evaluate themselves using the rubrics. They will edit their journals and peer edit their final essays.
Consider how the knowledge you gained from this module will impact your teaching and your students’ learning. Record your insights, key learnings, and questions or concerns in your reflection. As I mentioned earlier, I have learned to see assessment from a student's viewpoint. I understand now how important it is to let students have ownership in their learning. Teaching them to evaluate in a non-critical and useful way will benefit them in the future. As adults we are required to evaluate situations and make decisions. Practicing those skills in a safe environment will only give students confidence and direction in their own future choices.

How do I assess student learning? Students will be constructing an electrical circuit, completing a checklist, answering questions on a blog site

How do I involve students in the assessment process?They will be assessing themselves as they complete projects through the checklist, when they complete a home energy survey, and as they use higher level skills to write a persuasive paper.

Mod 4 Reflection

How can the creation of a student sample help me clarify unit expectations and improve my instructional design? By creating the students sample, I was able to see what was working and what wasn't working in my unit plan. I was also able to see what I had neglected to address in my unit. I looked at my curriculum-framing questions and made sure that I was addressing each one, especially the content questions.

How can I ensure students will achieve the learning objectives when creating their student projects? The learning objectives I created address my curriculum-framing questions. Each slide that the student creates answers a different content question from my unit.

How can the creation of a student sample help me clarify unit expectations and improve my instructional design?It helped me find web sites, work around problems students might encounter, and also learn to use the internet myself so I could be more supportive of students.

How can I ensure students will achieve the learning objectives when creating their student projects? By using a checklist and also through the use of a blog site to keep track of what they know

Module 4 - reflection

By doing the student sample and module four I have a better understanding of what my students will need to be able to do to meet the learning objectives. I can see how the use of the Internet and making a publication can enrich learning and have a positive role in meeting the curriculum of my library. I also grew in that I am learning more technology skills and will be able to pass these on to my students not only in this project but in many other lessons I will be doing in the coming year. I think the students will take to this project because it involves the use of the computers and I am glad the module had us do a sample project to work some of the "bugs" out of what I was planning ahead of time.