Reflective Journal #5
I think that once I pick an activity and I find a standard that matches well with it, then I can find my learning target. From there I break it down into kid-friendly terms, which is easier or harder depending on the standard. I do not generally consider the process difficult once I understand what I am doing, as far as planning the activity, finding the standard and writing a matching learning target. The part that I find myself pausing on and wondering what do I do is starting it and ending it. I am not sure how long or to what extend is acceptable in opening and closing a lesson, because many of my ideas could be entirely separate lessons all together. I need to make sure that the lesson begins and ends interestingly and satisfactorily to the students. Again, I do not want to over complicate the lesson and give too much material or too difficult of material to do all in one go. I also still hesitate to what assessment I should use throughout the lesson and to close it. One problem I am having is knowing how often I should be checking my students throughout the lesson. I realize that it should be ongoing, but what sort of assessment is best for the lesson? Then at the end of the lesson, I tend to pause on this, because I need to consider what my next lesson is going to be and how to assess for each lesson. If one lesson builds on another, when do I need to write into my lesson plan the point of which students will be assessing more formally? In this case, so far we have been writing lesson plans individually in a "hypothetical" class and we have not been writing more than one lesson that builds on another (necessarily). Therefore, I have to guess based on a "hypothetical" plan when I would assess a longer assignment, such as a performance or an extended written responses, since, so far, none of my lessons have been targeted toward a lesson that will come later in the unit.Overall, my problem is not my ability to write a lesson plan, but that I overthink everything and need to sort out all my many ideas into simpler terms.
Hi Lillian, I can relate to the problems you are having with writing your lesson plans! I have lots of ideas as well, and trying to narrow these ideas down to fit into one lesson plan is tricky. I also often wonder if what is making sense in my head is making sense to other people that read my lesson plans... One thing I do well is using my creativity to write my lesson plans. But I need to remember not to over complicate things! My favorite way to assess students is through self reflection, no assessment can tell us how they are feeling better than a student assessing themselves! Also don't underestimate the power of talking to students 1:1 to ask them how they are understanding a certain lesson, especially students that tend to need extra support.
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