Week 1
I must admit, this class scares me. There is so much information and reading included in this course, with only a little over a month to learn it. Compared to other MLIS courses I have taken, this is the one I have the least background in. So, while I have been building off of prior knowledge in my other classes, I feel like I'm completely unprepared and starting from scratch with teaching methodologies.
I have begun working on Assignment 1 and I have chosen the 10th grade Health class topic because I usually choose the most alternative options. In class the other day, the professor discussed making assignments personal so that students will want to put more effort into it. The topic I chose as an example for my product model is the danger of binge drinking and alcoholism. This is something that has had a major impact on my life because I have had many friends who suffered from drinking issues and one friend in particular died from alcoholism at the age of 26. I'm hoping that students would feel a similar draw to another area of healthy living that they would want to create a flier for.
This assignment must be completed in the form of a Madeline Hunter lesson plan, which I have found to be a pretty difficult task. The rigid format is turning out to be a bit of an issue for me because there are so many little steps, all of which are required. The part I am having the hardest time with is the closure section, which I still do not completely understand. The section I find the most interesting is the Anticipatory Set because it forces the SLMS to focus on not just the upcoming assignment, but the lead in, which is where she will either grab the attention of the students or lose them completely. I believe that a fantastically engaging Anticipatory Set can mean the difference between a successful lesson with excited student and great results and a dud. The concept for my whole Madeline Hunter lesson plan actually came from my Anticipatory Set idea of showing a clip from NBC's The Biggest Loser.
Week 2
In class the other day, we began discussing Bloom's Taxonomy. While the diagram itself is pretty self-explanatory, I found it to be a bit of a challenge to come up with questions that related to each step of the pyramid. The professor then gave out a ditto, titles "Applying Bloom's Taxonomy to..." that made the creating of questions much less daunting. There is a chart at the bottom that is broken down by Bloom's steps and lists a large number of strong verbs that can be used in lower, middle and higher level thinking questions.
This week I began reading the Manzano text and completed the first related assignment. We were instructed to read through the first few chapters and pick out one methodology and explain how it would be applied to assignment 1 and then another methodology and write what standard it relates to. For the first half of the assignment, I chose student-directed tasks. Within my assignment 1, I allow students to choose their own health topics, which they are interested in researching and focusing on for the rest of the course, which is an example of a student-directed task. For the other part of the Manzano assignment, I chose the summary frame, where students must fill in information about something they have read or learned. For example, a second grade class, which had read Jack and the Beanstalk, would need to fill in the names of the different characters, the main plot points and the setting, just to name a few. This lesson includes lower level thinking because it is mainly the result of remembering details from the story. The most in depth the students go is when they have to figure out what the main plot lines are before writing them down.
I also worked on my Socratic Seminar for assignment 2 this week. I chose to focus on the possible ban on military conscription in Germany, which I discovered when sifting through the latest international new pieces from the New York Times. I feel that this topic can be approached in a couple of different ways, focusing on the history of the German military or the end of many conscription forces around the world. While I enjoyed reading the documents very much, I found it a bit of a challenge to create core questions that flowed properly and hit the different levels of Bloom's Taxonomy.
Week 3
In class yesterday we worked on RAFTs, a type of lesson plan that I had never heard of before. I enjoyed working with this form and can definitely see how it will apply in the classroom for all ages. I believe that students will find RAFTs fun and interesting because they are able to choose most aspects of the assignment and typically the assignment itself requires thinking outside of the box. My group chose to create a lesson plan for a second grade fairy tale unit. While it doesn't require large amounts of research like the assignments the other groups came up with, I believe that the students would have a lot of fun with it, creating wanted posters for fairy tale villains, such as the wicked stepsisters from Cinderella and the big, bad wolf from the Three Little Pigs. I believe that this assignment requires mostly lower level thinking skills because the students would have to remember what the villains looked like to draw them and remember what evil acts they conducted to write them on the poster.
Another item the professor had as discuss in class was the choosing of a student who we know and feel struggles in school. We are to keep this student in mind throughout the course always remembering the essential question: What would it take for this student to have a good day and be successful? I chose Jake, a kindergartener who I have seen while subbing in his classroom and in the SLMC during his class' library time. His teacher told me that he has been diagnosed with ADHD, which she explained is actually a medical condition where the frontal lobe does not properly communicate with the rest of the brain. While observing Jake, it is easy to see that he is unlike most five year olds in that he often does not notice or comprehend what is going on around him. The day I found this most pronounced was on field day when I was assisting his classroom teacher because her TA was out. Right before leaving the classroom to going outside for the field day events, his teacher wanted to take a class photo, so she had all the student sit on the floor, smile and say cheese. While every other student in the class executed this action with the precision that was to be expected, Jake seemed to have no interest in or understanding of what was happening. Instead of looking at the camera and saying cheese, he continuously turned away to look at classmates posing. Later on in the afternoon after the end of field day events, the students returned to class to complete a small amount of work before the end of the day. While the other students sat in their seats working, though many had to be reminded that field day was now over and work had begun, Jake walked up to the teacher every few minutes wanting to tell her a story without having completed any of his work. I have started to think about what would make for a good day at school for Jake and, aside from a few generalities like assignments that interest him and going through a whole day without being yelled at, I'm not really sure yet of how to execute actions that would help him be successful and keep him happy.
Week 4
This week I have been working on creating a RAFT assignment, which is a method I have truly enjoyed. RAFTs allow me to be very creative with a topic and make the task of creating an assignment that works for every type of student a cinch.
I must admit, this class scares me. There is so much information and reading included in this course, with only a little over a month to learn it. Compared to other MLIS courses I have taken, this is the one I have the least background in. So, while I have been building off of prior knowledge in my other classes, I feel like I'm completely unprepared and starting from scratch with teaching methodologies.
I have begun working on Assignment 1 and I have chosen the 10th grade Health class topic because I usually choose the most alternative options. In class the other day, the professor discussed making assignments personal so that students will want to put more effort into it. The topic I chose as an example for my product model is the danger of binge drinking and alcoholism. This is something that has had a major impact on my life because I have had many friends who suffered from drinking issues and one friend in particular died from alcoholism at the age of 26. I'm hoping that students would feel a similar draw to another area of healthy living that they would want to create a flier for.
This assignment must be completed in the form of a Madeline Hunter lesson plan, which I have found to be a pretty difficult task. The rigid format is turning out to be a bit of an issue for me because there are so many little steps, all of which are required. The part I am having the hardest time with is the closure section, which I still do not completely understand. The section I find the most interesting is the Anticipatory Set because it forces the SLMS to focus on not just the upcoming assignment, but the lead in, which is where she will either grab the attention of the students or lose them completely. I believe that a fantastically engaging Anticipatory Set can mean the difference between a successful lesson with excited student and great results and a dud. The concept for my whole Madeline Hunter lesson plan actually came from my Anticipatory Set idea of showing a clip from NBC's The Biggest Loser.
Week 2
In class the other day, we began discussing Bloom's Taxonomy. While the diagram itself is pretty self-explanatory, I found it to be a bit of a challenge to come up with questions that related to each step of the pyramid. The professor then gave out a ditto, titles "Applying Bloom's Taxonomy to..." that made the creating of questions much less daunting. There is a chart at the bottom that is broken down by Bloom's steps and lists a large number of strong verbs that can be used in lower, middle and higher level thinking questions.
This week I began reading the Manzano text and completed the first related assignment. We were instructed to read through the first few chapters and pick out one methodology and explain how it would be applied to assignment 1 and then another methodology and write what standard it relates to. For the first half of the assignment, I chose student-directed tasks. Within my assignment 1, I allow students to choose their own health topics, which they are interested in researching and focusing on for the rest of the course, which is an example of a student-directed task. For the other part of the Manzano assignment, I chose the summary frame, where students must fill in information about something they have read or learned. For example, a second grade class, which had read Jack and the Beanstalk, would need to fill in the names of the different characters, the main plot points and the setting, just to name a few. This lesson includes lower level thinking because it is mainly the result of remembering details from the story. The most in depth the students go is when they have to figure out what the main plot lines are before writing them down.
I also worked on my Socratic Seminar for assignment 2 this week. I chose to focus on the possible ban on military conscription in Germany, which I discovered when sifting through the latest international new pieces from the New York Times. I feel that this topic can be approached in a couple of different ways, focusing on the history of the German military or the end of many conscription forces around the world. While I enjoyed reading the documents very much, I found it a bit of a challenge to create core questions that flowed properly and hit the different levels of Bloom's Taxonomy.
Week 3
In class yesterday we worked on RAFTs, a type of lesson plan that I had never heard of before. I enjoyed working with this form and can definitely see how it will apply in the classroom for all ages. I believe that students will find RAFTs fun and interesting because they are able to choose most aspects of the assignment and typically the assignment itself requires thinking outside of the box. My group chose to create a lesson plan for a second grade fairy tale unit. While it doesn't require large amounts of research like the assignments the other groups came up with, I believe that the students would have a lot of fun with it, creating wanted posters for fairy tale villains, such as the wicked stepsisters from Cinderella and the big, bad wolf from the Three Little Pigs. I believe that this assignment requires mostly lower level thinking skills because the students would have to remember what the villains looked like to draw them and remember what evil acts they conducted to write them on the poster.
Another item the professor had as discuss in class was the choosing of a student who we know and feel struggles in school. We are to keep this student in mind throughout the course always remembering the essential question: What would it take for this student to have a good day and be successful? I chose Jake, a kindergartener who I have seen while subbing in his classroom and in the SLMC during his class' library time. His teacher told me that he has been diagnosed with ADHD, which she explained is actually a medical condition where the frontal lobe does not properly communicate with the rest of the brain. While observing Jake, it is easy to see that he is unlike most five year olds in that he often does not notice or comprehend what is going on around him. The day I found this most pronounced was on field day when I was assisting his classroom teacher because her TA was out. Right before leaving the classroom to going outside for the field day events, his teacher wanted to take a class photo, so she had all the student sit on the floor, smile and say cheese. While every other student in the class executed this action with the precision that was to be expected, Jake seemed to have no interest in or understanding of what was happening. Instead of looking at the camera and saying cheese, he continuously turned away to look at classmates posing. Later on in the afternoon after the end of field day events, the students returned to class to complete a small amount of work before the end of the day. While the other students sat in their seats working, though many had to be reminded that field day was now over and work had begun, Jake walked up to the teacher every few minutes wanting to tell her a story without having completed any of his work. I have started to think about what would make for a good day at school for Jake and, aside from a few generalities like assignments that interest him and going through a whole day without being yelled at, I'm not really sure yet of how to execute actions that would help him be successful and keep him happy.
Week 4
This week I have been working on creating a RAFT assignment, which is a method I have truly enjoyed. RAFTs allow me to be very creative with a topic and make the task of creating an assignment that works for every type of student a cinch.