Phase 1: The Creation of the Lesson Plan

1.       Assessing Prior Knowledge: If you were teaching this with the targeted grade level students:

·         How would prior experience have been assessed?

The prior experience of the students would be assessed in numerous ways; first, during the anticipatory set and instruction period of the lesson, when I, the teacher, will be checking for understanding, and, again, during the guided practice and independent practice portion of the lesson.  During the anticipatory set, the students will be asked to use their prior knowledge to interpret the story line of a photo essay, through the pictures and words.  Similarly, during the checking for understanding portion of the lesson, the students will be asked to link captions to pictures, based on any previous knowledge they may have of word and picture comprehension.  This will help me, the teacher, assess them on their understanding of creating and interpreting a photo essay to accurately portray a story, using images and captions. During the guided practice portion of the lesson, the students will be separated into groups to create a short photo essay and, again, the students will be assessed on their previous knowledge of picture and word comprehension, as well as, their previous knowledge on operating a computer.  Likewise, both previous knowledge of picture and word comprehension and technology proficiency will be assessed during the independent practice portion of the lesson, as well as, their incorporation of knowledge on their family background, in order to, create a multicultural classroom.

·         What would be the implications for instructional planning and assessment based on the activities you chose to do for assessing prior knowledge?

The activities being used, specifically, the class discussions (check for understanding portion), anticipatory set activity, and group photo essay activity, will provide accurate measures for the level of understanding based on the students prior knowledge.  These activities will provide me with the knowledge of where the students are with the basic comprehension and interpretation skills for creating a photo essay, based on their prior knowledge of word and picture associations.  These activities will also provide me, the teacher, with an accurate measure of the student’s technology proficiency.

2.       Plans Instruction: Discuss how your goals, objectives, and outcomes are:

·         Clearly stated- My goals, objectives, and outcomes are clearly stated throughout the entirety of my lesson.  The main goal of the lesson is for the students to comprehend and accurately create a photo essay and I am continuously addressing throughout the input, modeling, checking for understanding, guided practice, and assessment portions of my lesson plan.  I also provide detailed rubrics that explain what I expect to see from the students during the class period and their out-of-class assessment.

·         Appropriate for students- My goals, objectives, and outcomes are appropriate for students, mainly because I revised an already in-use lesson plan for third grade students and aligned my goals, objectives, and outcomes to the AZ Language Arts state standards for third grade students.  I also made sure to specify certain accommodations for any individuals needing additional services during the lesson.

·         Aligned to state standards- The entirety of my lesson was developed using core state standards from the Language Arts area for third grade students.  My goals, objectives, and outcomes, were based on these standards to ensure me that the students would be walking away from this lesson knowing what a photo essay was, how to use descriptive phrases effectively, & how to create a story using a specified format.

3.       Designing Instruction: Discuss how your instructional design

·         Is contextually and logically organized- I based my lesson plan on the Madeline Hunter format, which kept my lesson in a very organized and contextual design.  First, I begin with my anticipatory set, to engage the students in the lesson.  Next, I start the input portion of the lesson, providing a brief review of previous pertinent lesson information, new material, and a modeling section.  Next, I engage the students in a short exercise to test their comprehension of the input and reviewed material (check for understanding), and then I pair off the students into groups to complete the guided practice portion of the lesson, where they create a group photo essay of their own.  Lastly, before handing out their assessment project, I review the essays created by each group and have a discussion to close the lesson on what we, as a class, like and find to be effective about photo essays’.

·         Uses varied instructional methods that meet individual student needs and target higher order thinking skills- I have many accommodations listed in my lesson plan that can vary or alter the instructional method as needed.  The main ideas I have for this are, rather than using an overhead/PowerPoint/Prezi/SMART Board to display the lesson, I could use manipulatives during portions of the lesson, such as the check for understanding portion.  I also could allow the students to, rather than complete the photo essay on a computer, use a digital camera/webcam/or video camera to generate digital stills to print out and place on a poster board to use as their photo essay.  

·         Integrates technology from a constructivist perspective- I am a huge fan of constructivism.  I believe that including students in the least restrictive environment possible is the way to go and that all students should have the opportunity to learn through their own self-discovery, with simply me, the teacher, acting as a facilitator for learning.  The bulk of my lesson, involves the students working in groups, on their own, to create a digital photo essay, with me, the teacher, acting as a facilitator for their learning.  

4.       Planning Assessment: How will your assessment tools demonstrate

·         The performance of linked goals and/or objectives- My assessment will demonstrate all of the above things in an independent photo essay assignment that the students will work on at home and have one week to complete.  The essay will need to display understanding of what a photo essay is, with accurate pictures and grammatically correct descriptive captions.

·         Student engagement in higher order thinking- The student will be engaged in a higher order of thinking, because the assignment will be based on their family heritage, namely their customs, traditions, holidays, and any other interesting information they would like to provide in the essay.  The student’s will need to be highly creative for this assignment, because along with the objectives/goals for the lesson plan, the student’s will also be being graded on their level of commitment to creativity and detail put into the specified areas of their family heritage.

·         Meeting individual student needs- I have many accommodation listed for the assessment in my lesson plan, to adequately accommodate for individual student needs.  I have additional requirements for gifted education students to keep them interested and further challenged; I have fewer slide/photo requirements for those students who may not be able to complete the necessary amount of slides.  I also require in the lesson, a parental consent form to be returned to me, the teacher, because I realize that requiring so much use of outside of class technology may not be manageable for some students; thus, the consent form will allow me to accurately determine by which method each of my students will need to complete the assignment, whether it be on poster board or the computer.

Digital Atrifacts:
 

•         Original Lesson: http://youth.net/cec/ceclang/ceclang.20.txt

•         Modified Lesson: https://w.taskstream.com/Les/View/6C51516EAD27F19000C9A87E781F607F