Lesson 2 Review

Name: Kelsey Kinard Date: March 6, 2013

Lesson Topic: Jack and the Beanstalk Date of the Lesson: February 27, 2013

1) State one objective and describe the ways in which your students met that objective. One of the objectives for this lesson was to be able to identify characters and major events in a story with prompting and support. After the lesson most of the students were able to name the story and some were able to tell who the characters were and retell the story using main events.

2) Describe how you sequenced the lesson so that your students were guided from their known experiences to new learning. I started off by reiterating what the students already knew about fairy tales and reminding them of the other fairy tales we have been reading in class and what they all had in common. I then introduced the new fairy tale (Jack and the Beanstalk) and read it to them aloud. Before starting their group activity, we reviewed the events of the story once more. To tie in the story with a personal experience and hands-on activity, the students planted their own beanstalks. This was a new experience for most of the students in the class.

3) Describe the kind(s) of groupings you used and the effectiveness of your use of grouping. For the lesson, I used whole group instruction. I read the book, discussed it, and performed the activity all while the students were together in a whole group. Working with such a large group was okay, but the lesson may have been more effective if I had broken the class into two smaller groups. If we had divided the class into two smaller groups there would have been enough questions for each student to answer at least once during the activity portion.

4) Describe one way in which you addressed the individual needs of one child or a small group of children. Working with the students on comprehending a piece of literature is difficult when the students are so young. It is even more difficult when the students speak a different language. Understanding and comprehension are not easy skills to teach in the first place. With the Spanish speaking students, I tried to make sure they understood the basics of the story that was read. I also had to make sure I explained the story and activity clearly so that they understood. When assessing them, my questions had to be clear, direct, and to the point otherwise they had no idea what I was talking about. For this reason, my assessment of these students took longer than some of the other assessments.

5) If your management of the lesson presented difficulties, what were they and how did you handle them? The lesson did not run as smooth as I hoped it would. The version of the story that I had to read was a tad too long and I could see that the students lost interest before the end. During the group activity, the students became very excited and yelled out answers, forgot to raise hands, went out of turn, and tried to perform the task before answering the question. This behavior had a lot to do with their age, so I used it as an opportunity to reinforce the rules of patiently waiting for ones turn, raising ones hand before speaking, and listening to directions.

6) Describe your assessment process and the ways in which the process provided/did not provide you with an accurate evaluation of how well the children learned the content. Before the lesson, I asked students individually if they were familiar with the story of Jack and the Beanstalk and if they could tell me any details about it. Very few of the students knew the story by name or could tell me anything about it. The postassessment took place a week after the lesson and the same students were asked the same questions. Thankfully more of the students were able to call the story by name and recall characters and events. This assessment wasnt greatly successful because it turned out that some of the questions were above their heads. It didnt allow for me to see what they learned as much as their ability to answer the questions.

7) Describe the manner in which your lesson addressed more than one of the developmental realms of the child. The lesson included cognitive thinking, auditory listening, and kinesthetic movement. The students were engaged in auditory learning while they listened to the story of Jack and the Beanstalk. They were also given a cognitive thinking activity where they had to stand up and move a Jack figure as they correctly answered questions about the story.

8) Identify the dimension of multicultural education that was most critical for you to consider as you taught this lesson. Why do you believe your chosen dimension was most important for this learning experience? The dimension of knowledge construction was the most critical when teaching this lesson. The purpose of the lesson was to familiarize the students with the story Jack and the Beanstalk and allow them to answer questions based on the story. Having the students understand the story was critical in the success of the lesson.

9) When you teach your next lesson, what teaching strategy will you work to improve? I will continue to work on my assessment technique. For this lesson, I attempted to use checklists so that I could see the students progress. Unfortunately, my attempt did not work well to show what the students had learned. I gave the students storyboard figures as a prompt to recall events from the story while I asked questions. The questions turned out to be confusing and beyond the students understanding. Even those students who understood the story did not do well with the post-assessment.

10) How would you rate your implementation of this lesson? Why would you rate your lesson this way? I would rate my implementation of this lesson as fair. Looking back on the lesson, I now see many things that I could have done differently to direct learning more towards the objective. I know that some students learned from it, but it is my goal for all of the students to learn. I realized that my lesson lacked definite direction and clear explanations.