Assessment in my Classroom

After learning about the different types of assessment, I feel that using either portfolio assessment or performance will work best in my classroom. Since I want to teach special education, it may be difficult to give students selected and constructed response tests. While I will be teaching various subjects to my students, I will also have to focus a lot on life skills. The main goal of special education is to teach the students skills that will enable them to be independent and hopefully live on their own someday. It is difficult to assess students on how to tie their shoes or hygiene by using true/false questions. It can be done, but it is better to have students practice what they are learning and assess them on how well they can complete the task.  The most important part of assessing students based on performance is their ability to show how they can apply the material.I feel that would be much more beneficial than typical assessments that all of us are used to. These types of tests can be done, but if I used them, I'd use them as more of a check point to make sure while I'm teaching a week long lesson that students are following along and I will be able to see if I need to go back and go over another topic again. Portfolio assessment can be used throughout the course and used at parent conferences or at the end of the year to see how well they are did overall.

There are a few types of issues I could see myself running into with these types of assessments. They may not be very reliable, depending on what I'm testing. I'd have to be able to recognize when they are and aren't appropriate. They can also be too situational. It also puts a lot of pressure on students as they may feel they only have one chance to prove what they know. Whereas selected/constructed response gives them a little more flexibility. It also takes a lot of time to assess every student's performance. So I'd have to spend more time assessing and less time teaching other topics which I think can be put into lesson plans before hand.

Motivation in the Classroom

Something that I've personally found to be very beneficial is the idea of a shared respect between teachers and students. It is expected that students respect and listen to their teacher, however, do teachers always respect their students? I think that students will become more comfortable and even motivated in the classroom. Students can be shown respect by giving them more privileges such as the ability to self-assess, or as I talked about in my last post, enabling them to feel that the room is theirs as well. This is giving them a sense of self responsibility too.

I also want to make sure that I am knowledgeable about whatever it is I'm teaching at the time. Since I want to teach special education, I'm going to be covering things from daily hygiene to math and science so I have to make sure that I know what I'm talking about. In higher level special ed classes, I will have to worry about keeping my students engaged. And in order for them to walk into class each day wanting to learn, they will have to know that I sincerely know what I'm talking about. It's always frustrating to have to sit and listen to a teacher who doesn't know how to articulate what it is they're thinking.

Another important aspect is to make sure that my students know that they aren't wrong. After seeing how it works in our class, I'm convinced it works even better at younger ages because younger kids care more about what their peers think. Sometimes they'll need to be told that they are on the right track but aren't quite there and will need a little bit more direction. But for me personally, I never wanted to participate if I was unsure or had given a wrong answer previously in fear of looking bad in front of my peers.

I think that moods are contagious. If someone is mad or in a bad mood, they're more likely to bring you down. As a teacher, I want to consistently be able to separate my outside life from teaching and not bring outside problems in. I think by having a positive attitude and being excited to be at school everyday, it will make students also see that school can be fun and that teachers enjoy their jobs and are excited to see their students everyday. I guess this could go along with SLT and modeling, as I would be modeling how I want my students to approach learning in hopes that they pick up on it too.

Classroom Management

There are a lot of things to consider when looking at how you, as a new teacher, want to control your classroom. The first thing that I think is important is to have the rules laid out so that students and you are well aware of them. Students know that in the classroom, there are going to be rules and they are encouraged to follow them or there will be a consequence. This goes along with CLT and their schemas as well as BLT with reward and punishment. I personally would like to include my students in making classroom guidelines because later on they don't have an excuse as to why they didn't follow them. I think this goes along with respecting my students and in turn having them gain respect for me. However, I don't want the class to be weighted down with rules, I want it to be a fun environment too. Which ultimately would be BLT because they know if they follow the rules, it can be a fun and enjoyable year and if not there will have to be punishments.

I want to avoid putting my students in rows, but rather give them the opportunity to work with and interact with their peers, this plays into SLT. Not only is there social interaction, but this allows for a more knowledgeable peer to emerge from the group. I don't want my students to only rely on me for help, but learn to use their resources and others around them too. A lot of times, I've seen students present ideas to their peers and when it comes time for a large group discussion that student is more likely to share their idea that's already been approved by their peers. By having students sit together from the beginning, I think they will realize there is a level of personal responsibility that I'm giving them as I will expect that they stay on task while surrounded by their peers. I think placing students in groups rather than individually can be beneficial behaviorally too. If there is a problem student, they may be influenced by their peers modeling ideal behaviors in the classroom. Not only that, but other students may be more likely to correct the student and ask them to stop whatever they're doing that may be a distraction. This is also SLT.

Something that will also aid in keeping kids on task is not teaching over their heads and using language that is familiar to them (SLT). Also by starting lessons with concrete representations (DLT), it will keep them actively mentally engaged and help with avoiding behavior issues. To also assist with active mental engagement (CLT) I want to ask questions that make them think about their answer rather than just guessing with a yes or no answer. In order to ask students engaging questions language must also be considered.

Another thing that I've seen in various classrooms that has worked well is moving around the room while teaching. This incorporates CLT and BLT because student's previous experiences in school (CLT) tell them that they need to pay attention and if not there is a consequence. Also, the physical presence of a teacher by a student if they're off task during class plays a large role in terminating any unwanted behaviors. As far as BLT goes, by walking around students will begin to understand that if they are off task I will be standing near them to stop any unwanted behaviors while if they are on task I will continue to walk around the room. By doing this from the beginning and being consistent with it, they will learn to always be on task, at least while I'm walking around the room.

Reflection on Lesson

I thought our lesson was okay but it definitely didn't go as planned. Our initial idea was to try to get more of the student's background information on homophones. We ended up only asking a single question that addressed their schemas. There should've been something to go more in depth about their previous experience with homophones. Another thing I would've liked to do was after we handed out the riddles, we could've had them come up with their own riddles. I thought we tried to ask questions, it was just difficult because the students are older and had a lot more knowledge about homophones than our target audience would've had. But it was an overall good experience, and I now know what to change for next time!

Lesson Plan Presentations

Group 1 - Your group encouraged social interaction between tables right away by asking us to collectively come up with words that are commonly misspelled. The next activity was a little more difficult. Not only was it hard to get students to participate in the spelling at the board, but a lot of students were apprehensive and didn't willingly volunteer because of their difficulties with spelling. This made the lesson harder because of long pauses between volunteer groups. Something that I thought could've been done was a run-down of the spelling rules and how they applied to the words that were given. Because having us address them after the words were spelled on the board didn't work as well. Another idea would be to give us the spelling rules and provide us with more commonly misspelled words.

Group 2 - I really enjoyed the visual aids and having all of the videos to show us each social norm. It was also good to have small and large group discussions about the videos and what could/should have been done differently. Another thing that could've been done was assigning each group a social norm and having us act them out. Or showing one video and having us choose a norm to act out similarly to the model (your original video) we were given.

Group 3 - It was good to be able to see 2 examples of a good and bad speech. I felt like the first exercise with the 2 phrases on the board weren't as beneficial as the rest of the lesson. It was confusing as to what we were supposed to do with those sentences. Something that may have helped would've been making the topic clear at the beginning, as many were confused about what we were actually being taught about. The questions that followed the examples and allowing us to provide our knowledge of public speaking were both really beneficial.

Group 4 - Addressing the age the lesson was targeted for was really important and it was good to see that done right at the beginning. I liked how interactive the lesson was. And some of the steps were modeled for us in the beginning through the Iowa example. If there had been more time/if it was a real classroom it would've been good to have the students look up all the information so they are finding it themselves. But I thought it was well planned for 2nd graders to be getting up in front of the class and speaking to prepare them for future classes where presenting is necessary.

Group 5  - Since you were teaching a foreign language lesson, it was good to see you asking us about our background and experience with Spanish. It was a really good basic lesson to teach students about one of the most important parts of foreign language. There wasn't a lot that I though could be changed other than adding more social interaction within the class. I liked how you broke down the lesson to something that was understandable and the rocket ship was something that we could connect to. There was also modeling when you said the pronunciations of the endings and had us repeat them.

Internal/Affective Factors

I'm going to just focus on a few of the key internal motivational factors that I see used in our classroom. First of all the role of effort is emphasized often in this class. We are told that we will get out of it what we put into it. This is shown through our blogs, as well as the idea that we do not have points in the class. If we do the blogs, we can ultimately fight for our grade based on the effort we put into the blogs to show our understanding of the content. Similar to effort, we are given a choice. We are allowed to chose whether or not we would like to do the assignments on time, or even do them at all. Ultimately, we are the ones hurting ourselves by not doing them. Relevance is another topic that constantly comes up. We are never doing something that doesn't have a purpose, everything is relevant to the course and is something we can eventually use in our teaching careers. Based on the blog posts that were due last class, it seems everyone is interested in the material we are being taught. Mostly because it is SO different from what we are used to. In the end, it is our beliefs about learning that are being challenged and altered. This new idea of teaching/learning forces us to challenge what we already know and the ideas we've already formed to create a new way of thinking.

Obviously these are just a few. But looking at the list of motivational factors, these were the ones that really jumped out at me that are used in our classroom.

Not Sure Why...

Something that I do that is kind of weird and I'm not sure why I do it would be when I take notes, if I'm writing in pen and I mess up even just a letter I stop and start over on a new piece of paper. It drives me crazy to have to start completely over, especially if I've been taking notes during the whole class period. But I've been like this for as long as I can remember. Call it being a perfectionist but I'm not convinced that's what it is. I think I acquired this habit from my mom. She has always taken a lot of notes when she's on the phone or in the office and she does the same thing. I think her modeling has taught me that that is what I should do if I make a mistake taking notes. Another thing it could be is that my schema of taking "perfect" notes has been built from my mom/previous experiences and that results in my behavior today. A lot of my note taking/organization skills have come from me observing my mom at home and while she is at work so it wouldn't surprise me if this was a result of watching her too.

DLT, SLT, CLT

I thought it was really interesting to see how we were learning about CLT by actually using it ourselves. This made it MUCH easier for me to understand and look back and give a name to each step we actually took. In teaching, since everything we do should ideally have a purpose, it's interesting to think that every part of teaching should connect to one of the learning theories. So in order to keep myself in check and make sure my teaching is informed by the theories, I would have to evaluate myself and ask questions about what I'm doing. I'd have to ask myself, is there is social interaction between students or between students and myself? This would be one of the best ways to identify SLT because it is all based on social interaction. Social interaction includes from student to student as well as between the teacher and the student, it would also have to include a more knowledgeable peer. To see if I'm using DLT I'd want to question if I'm teaching abstractly or concretely and how I'm going back and forth and utilizing the spectrum to reach my students. For CLT I'd want to see how much of their past knowledge is being used and incorporated. I'd also have to question if schema is being used as well as how the students are making the new information fit into their previous knowledge. Are they using assimilation or accommodation? Obviously there are many more questions that can be asked once there is a specific lesson/topic. But I feel these are good starting points to see if you're on the right track to incorporating multiple learning theories into teaching!

DLT & SLT

Today I was able to FINALLY understand what DLT really is. I have been viewing it as a kind of teaching rather than something that influences how we teach. I found it really helpful to see how we would use this theory to help with classroom management which is a pretty hard task in itself. After discussing in class, I realized that through modeling, that is how I truly learned how to act in a classroom. Whether it was a group skit done by other members of my class or the teacher acting out different scenarios, it was much more beneficial when ideal behaviors were modeled. After learning and understanding more about the DLT, I found it interesting that Piaget put age limits on how the DLT works. I think it is hard enough to learn about this theory that being taught using parts of this theory would be even more difficult. I think it's apparent why you can't put age restrictions on how a student learns abstractly or concretely.

After finally grasping the concept of the Developmental Learning Theory, I was much more comfortable discussing and engaging more in group discussion. This made it easier once we started talking about SLT. I think that was because DLT and SLT are related. As it came up in class, the most knowledgeable peer seems to be a connector between the two theories. Both theories seem to rely on this peer, whether it is another classmate or the teacher. They also force us to acknowledge the role of other people in learning and utilize our peers to gain as much knowledge as possible.

I think in order to understand and build off of our knowledge of each theory, we have to truly understand the previous theory to learn about the next one. For example, knowing about the DLT informs us and makes it easier to learn about the SLT because they are related. Although the SLT relies mostly on language because language is socially constructed, they are similar and do have some common characteristics. To be good teachers, we have to be able to take bits and pieces of each theory and apply it to our teaching in order to help our students become well rounded and knowledgeable. This applies to the rest of the theories because they all must have some kind of relationship if they can eventually be used all together.

Developmental Learning Theory (DLT)

The most interesting aspect of class was discussing the idea of abstract vs. concrete teaching. It made me question how much I have really learned and how much of it was just memorizing some vocabulary that was thrown at me but never actually learned. I seem to have just remembered things just long enough to take the test and then I don't remember it after that. The idea of teaching abstractly is all too common, it seems that by giving notes, even word for word, is thought to be the most beneficial way to learn. However, this isn't true. After learning about the phases of the moon it was evident how much damage teachers have done by not using concrete evidence to teach us. It was a seemingly simple concept that none of us could produce the right answer to. However, when we did the partner demonstration and the group demonstration, it all made much more sense. Actually seeing the concept we were being taught was much more beneficial than just reading the words. And even when we had questions, it was helpful to see that things can be broken down to their simplest form and that's how people truly LEARN.

In high school, I acted as a student teacher in a forth grade class. Most of the time I observed but a lot of the time I had to work with the students who were not as strong as other students were academically. When the teacher pulled all the students together for a lesson about decimals and place value I was doubtful that all of them would be able to understand. However, she sifted out those who understood from those who didn't by first showing them a single example with some vocabulary. Some understood it, but most did not. That's when she began teaching more concretely, she pulled out a whole set of blocks to help them picture which place each number was in and she gave them a variety of examples to help them make more sense of it. While this isn't as concrete as she could've been, she was still able to reach all of her students, not just those who could think abstractly. This is how I want to teach so all of my students can gain something from my lessons.

As a Special Education teacher, I know I will have to break things down to the most basic ideas and things will have to be repeated. But being able to show my students what I want them to learn makes grasping certain things much easier. When I was in my practicum last year, I not only observed teaching styles but classroom styles as well. I saw a lot of color in all of the special education classrooms, there were not a lot of books or anything but there were lots of hands-on things they could use to help them learn basic skills. There were activities that helped them master the tying of their shoes and it broke that task down into a step by step process. I want my students to be able to teach themselves things and not rely solely on me for information and knowledge. I feel by using hands-on, concrete activities and devices, I will be able to help them help themselves too.