5. Instructional Delivery

The competent teacher differentiates instruction by using a variety of strategies that support critical and creative thinking, problem-solving, and continuous growth and learning. This teacher understands that the classroom is a dynamic environment requiring ongoing modification of instruction to enhance learning for each student.

Artifact 1: Flipped Classroom Lesson Plan

Flipped Lesson Plan: Spanish 3

Description of Artifact

This artifact is a lesson plan that I taught while student teaching that is designed for a flipped classroom. A flipped classroom reverses traditional teaching methods. While traditionally the teacher talks about a topic at school and assigns homework that reinforces that day's material. In a flipped classroom, the instruction is delivered online, outside of class, so students can spend time in class practicing or utilizing the information learned. In this lesson, students watched a video about reflexive verbs and took notes on a graphic organizer. In class, students practiced using the concept in writing and speaking and several collaborative learning tasks. All of this applied practice would not have been possible if class time was dedicated to explicit instruction. Additional time for practice and application of concepts and knowledge is one of the greatest benefits of teaching flipped lessons.

Standards Connection

This lesson demonstrates the IPTS performance indicator 5N which states that "The competent teacher uses technology to accomplish differentiated instructional objectives that enhance learning for each student." In the flipped classroom, students can adjust the pace and amount of repetition in explicit instruction to meet their individual learning needs. When students come to class, I can then assist students by addressing the specific questions and misunderstanding they may have. With more time for practice of the content being learned, I offer students more opportunities to increase their learning and I am afforded additional opportunities to assess student learning. This lesson also demonstrates the IPTS performance indicator 5K which states that "The competent teacher varies his or her role in the instructional process as instructor, facilitator, coach, or audience in relation to the content and purposes of instruction and the needs of students". In the Flipped Classroom, teachers take on the role of a facilitator by creating opportunities for students to demonstrate learning and to guide them in meeting the learning goals. It is important for today's classrooms to be student-centered and this method puts teachers in the perfect position to do that.

Reflection

This lesson allowed me to apply the flipped classroom approach at the high school level and it was very successful with the students in the class. Some of the benefits of this approach to teaching that I identified by teaching this lesson are: 1. By watching videos in order to receive explicit instruction at home, students get to control the pace and amount of repetition they receive in the explicit instruction to meet their individual needs, 2. Students come to class with some prior knowledge of what is going to be practiced and bring questions they have about the material, and 3. Class time can be dedicated to personalizing the learning experience, guiding learning and engaging students in practice using the content they are learning in order to extend their thinking and learning. My students were very successful in completing the lesson tasks and meeting the learning objective. Due to this, I will certainly integrate this approach into my classroom.

Artifact 2: Unit Plan for Beginner Spanish Students

Unit Plan for Google Portfolio.pdf

Description of Artifact

I created this unit plan as an extension of a series of lesson plans completed for a course titled Secondary Literacy in the Disciples (AEDU380). The unit plan is designed for high school level students of Spanish who are in their first semester of world language instruction. The focus of the unit centers on teaching students to use present tense forms to communicate effectively about their everyday lives in meaningful and authentic contexts. This particular three-week unit would follow a general introduction on how to use high frequency, regular present-tense verbs as well as vocabulary instruction that would allow them to communicate about their interests and hobbies in order to meet the goal of the unit. In the unit plan, I have included the series of three lesson plans which would be incorporated into the three-week unit as noted in the unit calendar. Each lesson provides students with the opportunity to practice all four communication skills that are essential to world language education:listening, reading, speaking and writing. The lessons are designed with the goal of what students will be able to do at end of the lesson in mind. For the three lessons provided, this is for students to be able to use gustar and verbs like gustar to be able to communicate their preferences both orally and in writing. In order to obtain this goal, each lesson provides students with the opportunity to interact with the language and with their peers, creating a classroom that is interactive and based on active learning.

Standards Connection

The IPTS performance indicator 5K states that “The competent teacher varies his or her role in the instructional process as instructor, facilitator, coach or audience in relation to the content and purposes of instruction and the needs of students”. In the three lesson plans provided within the unit plan, my role as an instructor changes from activity to activity. For example, in Activity 1 of Lesson Plan 2 I am in the role of the instructor, however, I become a guide for Activity 2 when students are working in groups and a facilitator for Activity 3 when students are competing in an online race against one another to practice the target concepts. The dynamics of the classroom change as I take on different roles and students become more and more actively engaged in working with the concepts being learned in the lesson. This is key to getting students to move from acquiring passive knowledge to active knowledge of the targeted concepts. In addition, this unit plan exemplifies the IPTS performance indicator 5S which states that “The competent teacher implements appropriate evidence-based instructional strategies.” Each of the lesson plans included in the unit plan demonstrates how research-based instructional strategies were used in the design and planning of the lesson. For example, in Lesson Plan 2 Activity 3, I based the “Opposites Activity” on research by Savignon (1997) which demonstrated the importance of developing students’ communicative competence in more than one linguistic domain and this activity includes practice for using the target grammatical concept in both writing and speaking. In Lesson Plan 3 Activity 3, I designed the Socrative Space Race on research by Olha Ketsman (2012) which emphasized the benefits of technology-enhance foreign language instruction for grades 6-12. This activity allows students to develop mastery of the target grammatical concept through technology and group work. Finally, this unit plan represents Illinois Professional Teaching Standard 5R which states that “The competent teacher maximizes instructional time (e.g. minimizes transitional time)”. Each transition included between activities in Lesson Plans 1-3 connects the previous activity to the one following in a clear, concise way.

Reflection

Through this project I learned how to design lesson plans which fit into an overall unit plan on a topic for beginner Spanish students. I had to put a lot of thought into the design of each lesson, incorporating a variety of evidence-based teaching strategies and modifications for a diverse classroom of students. My overall goal in each lesson was to engage students in using all four communicative skills: reading, speaking, listening and writing. Each lesson adds to my goal of creating an active and dynamic learning environment in which all of my students can succeed. The design of the unit helped me better understand how each lesson would fit into the course curriculum and allowed me to include aspects of the unit that are not present in each lesson, such as lessons which focus on culture and the arts. While this unit plan was designed for the purpose of the my class, I learned a lot through this project which I hope to apply to designing units for my future students.

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