Reflection

Working as a teacher and being a student has been demanding. I've been challenged to meet new goals both professionally, as a student, and a human in general. This month gave true responsibility a more personal touch. The knowledge I've gained from this course and others makes me the bearer of such wealth, it can be daunting to think of all the goals I've set for myself. However, the success I've had with implementing new strategies and technology in my classroom is so reassuring. The planning I have been able to practice has enabled to me to be confident in my future attempts. Finding out my weaknesses has been an honest relief as being ignorant can never satisfy the feeling of defeat. Taking differentiation, technology, pre-assessment, and reflection into more consideration enables me to become a better version of my self. The guidance I acquired this month has been a nice wake up call to what I aim at producing. 

Field Experience

In order for students to become engaged in our new unit on feudalism I decided to create a pre-assessment that showed prior knowledge and critical thinking. I explained the purpose of the pre-assessment and encouraged them to consider certain topics such as social class and hierarchy. They are used to annotating a visual text and have become comfortable with political cartoons. Because of this I choose a political cartoon to activate that prior knowledge of annotation and asked three questions along with it to center their thinking and guide them. I passed out the handout and gave them 8 minutes to annotate and answer the questions by themselves. They were then asked to share with their partners and rethink their answers. We then held a discussion on the meaning of the visual text and shared the responses to the questions. I collected the handout and graded on a rubric based on annotation and responses. The next class period I handed back the assignment and had them glue it into their interactive notebook with written and verbal feedback.

The pre-assessment went according to my expectations. I had made adjustments to my lesson plan before hand, such as collecting the assignment the day of instead of gluing it into their interactive notebook and checking their work at a later time. In this way I wasn't just checking for completion the day of, but for proper assessment to help me guide the lesson the next day. I really enjoyed seeing students feel motivated by sharing their responses with their peers. I saw many assignments that had students make corrections or additions to their responses, this I take into account while I am grading with the rubric. Once I was done grading I had data on who was still lacking proper annotation skills and who was not motivated to make corrections to their responses. One thing I would change is the handout itself. I would include the rubric at the bottom of the page and possibly have them grade their work and understanding of the pre-assessment. In this was not only am I getting instant feedback but they are as well. Whether they are honest with themselves or not on the rubric they have and understanding personally of how well they are performing.

This reflection exercise has definitely made me more critical of the type of pre-assessment I give students. Using more of the data to guide my lessons is my goal at the moment. I would like for students to take a active role in their learning and assessment of themselves. I found that self-evaluation might be the key to this, especially in a pre-assessment where the time frame encourages students to stay on task and show their potential and motivation.