Planning for learning

Jan. - Apr. 2019 (Year 4 Practicum)

Planning for Learning Goal:

• To gain further experience in planning for long-term projects.

Action Plan:

• Make plan for 5+ connected lessons.
• Collaborate with my mentor teacher for richer ideas.
• Use available resources to inform my work.

Artifact:

• One professional resource that I have been going back to in order to guide my inquiry is Sharon Friesen's Teaching Effectiveness Framework.
• The Teaching Effectiveness Framework

Sept. - Dec. 2017 (Year 3 Practicum)

• Planning for Learning

Through my practicum I grew in planning for the various different learning needs of my students. The link above shows my planning for differentiation from a lesson near the beginning of practicum in comparison with my planning from a lesson near the end of my practicum experience.

Jan. - Apr. 2017 (EDUC 2375-002)

• EDUC 2375-002 in-class task

In this in-class task a few of my classmates and I looked critically at a lesson plan and assessed whether we thought it was effective in certain areas or not. This was a great activity to remind us to dig into other peoples lesson plans when we are planning for learning to make sure that they are providing sound assessment and are going to facilitate high-quality learning.

Jan. - Apr. 2016

• Lesson Plan

Above I have attached a lesson plan of mine where I had grade 3 students look at some of the traditions and art from Peru and compare it to our art and traditions in Canada. This lesson also focussed on cultural diversity and global equality.

Growth:

During this lesson I realized that I need to work on time management and classroom management. The students gave me feedback on this lesson as well which helped identify some strengths and weaknesses. They recognized that at times they felt a bit rushed and that the classroom got a bit too loud at other times. They also gave me feedback on what they thought went well, a lot really liked digging their hands into the bucket of beans to fill up their rainstick. That let me know that tactile activities might be more engaging for this particular group of students. I also could have created better questions using Bloom's Taxonomy that would have elicited stronger responses and discussions between the students.

Actions:

The program outcomes urge teachers to, "develop activities and assignments that are clearly aligned with learning goals, require deep thinking and support student engagement and choice" (P7). Using Bloom's Taxonomy in the future will help me create better questions for discussions that engage students and encourage deep thinking. I also did not have much student choice in this lesson and I would like to incorporate that more into my future lessons. I believe students will be more engaged and invested in the lesson if they are given some choice. Next year I hope to teach more lessons which will help me work on some of the areas I know need improving. I also hope to be able to look over lesson plans that my mentor teacher creates and engage in a conversation about the different aspects of the lesson plan.

Sept. - Dec. 2015

I have learned both in my field days and in my education class that you need to be prepared for your lesson, but you also need to be flexible and able to mould the lesson around the needs of the students in the moment. At the school I did my field experience at, there was a very set schedule. Every morning and afternoon had designated subjects so the students were prepared for what was coming next. I asked my mentor teacher about how she plans for lessons and she recognized that often she does not teach the lesson she has planned or she finds that she drastically changes it to fit within the time frame or incorporate ideas from other subjects.