UbD Stage 3

This week, we completed stage 3 of the understanding by design structured unit. I laid out my unit as I would any other unit, listing activities by the day. Then I labeled them according to which letter of WHERETO each applied to (many applied to both). I constructed it this way because it shows the sequence of activities as well as how they apply to each of the ides presented in the WHERETO acronym.

W- Where are we going?

H- How will we hook and hold educator interest?

E- How will we Equip educators for expected performance?

R- How will we help educators Rethink and revise?

E- How will educators self-Evaluate and reflect on their learning?

T- How will we Tailor learning to varied needs, interests, and styles?

O- How will we Organize and sequence the learning?

I think my plan showed how the spiral design is incorporated into my unit, helping the students remember to always return to previous knowledge. I think this idea helps the students truly build on their own knowledge, rather than learning a bunch of disordered facts.

I liked reading others’ plans, especially to see the different ways they put them together. I saw many of my peers post individual ideas under each letter, rather than present a consecutive list of activities. Some presented a consecutive list of activities, but only listed those that pertained to each letter in order. I saw some great potential in others’ work, and saw how their layout made sense for the type of unit they were trying to accomplish. I think this activity helped show how different level teachers and different subject teachers can use a similar form of lesson planning to accomplish their goals. I also saw that different layouts can work for different goals, but all parts are still necessary to create a viable unit plan. I enjoyed this project, and it really helped ground my planning for my first unit as a paid teacher!!

Learner-Centered Approach

This week we talked about multiple intelligences. I thought it was interesting to hear everyone’s ideas about how to use multiple intelligences in the classroom. I liked that everyone thought that this was a given in the classroom, because students have such different ways of learning, and such different personalities. It is nice to see that new teachers embrace this idea, because so many older teachers teach only how they were taught, or how they learn best. Students are not all cut by the same cookie cutter. They all learn very differently and we have to account for that when we are teaching. It is very important to think about differentiation in our classrooms and using different teaching strategies to account for multiple intelligences id a great way to differentiate instruction. Every student learns differently and we cannot make every individual lesson applicable to all of those intelligences. However, we can vary lessons within a unit so that the each of the concepts can be presented in a way that all learning strategies can benefit.

Cooperative Learning and Constructivism

In this week’s module, we read and discussed a lot of the strategies that many teachers are relying on in the classroom today. We are emphasizing cooperative learning because we know that practice will help the students learn how to work with others. The career field is looking for future employees that can work with others well, so we want our students to be able to do this. Group projects are a huge part of cooperative learning and I personally like to use them in class often. I think they are a great way for students to set their own goals and objectives and figure out a way to meet them. This helps the students become more independent and able to work on projects without the always present oversight of the teacher.

Constructivism is a very modern approach to education. Many older teachers that I know have a big problem with this method because they feel that it takes too long, and would limit the amount of material that we can cover in a year even more than it already is. They also feel that there is too much of a chance that the students could understand the concepts incorrectly, misinterpret how they can be used, or use them incorrectly out of context. Constructivism is a new concept, and very different from direct instruction. I think it is a powerful tool that we can use, because students are building their own knowledge in their own words. Each student will own the knowledge themselves, rather than feel like they are absorbing the knowledge of others.

Global competiveness, Improved outcomes, and the Need for new methods of teaching

In this week’s module, many topics were covered, including global competiveness, improved outcomes, and the need for new methods of teaching. The Stewart article was based on the idea that high school students in the United States are far behind their counterparts in other countries, and the United States is, therefore, putting their students at a disadvantage when they are going up against foreign students for jobs. Although I did not think Stewart’s article made the most convincing argument, I do think her point is valid. There have been studies that have shown that our students are behind those of other countries. I think it would be beneficial to study their methods of education to see if we can learn anything from them.

In order to raise the achievement level of our students, we need to study improved outcomes for our students. The Black article discussed intrinsic motivation for students, helping them to appreciate learning as a way of bettering oneself, or improving their knowledge to become a well-rounded citizen. This is hard to do, as students are so focused on getting good grades so that they can get in to a good college. We have to work on convincing the students that these goals are mutually inclusive. It is hard because students have not been brought up to think this way, but I think it is something we can work on changing.

Finally, I commented on George W. Bush’s statement that we do not need more trendy education theories, as the ways we have been using for the last few decades have worked just fine. But he does not take in to consideration that methods of teaching have been changing, especially over the past decade. There has been new research, including new information about ourselves, our brains and the way we learn. This research has affected educational theories and teaching methods. I think these ways are more appropriate for the younger students, and make a much more interesting way of learning. I think the methods we have come up with are more effective than the old ways. It is always important to take into account new research in any profession. In scientific research, for example, of you find a method that is more efficient and more effective than the old methods, you do not ignore the new information just because the old way worked. It would be inefficient, and waste valuable resources. The same attitude should be applied to education.

Advance Organizers

This week, we read all about advance organizers, and helpful examples of how to use them in the classroom. My first thought was using them to organize the ideas from a lecture or textbook. Many of my colleagues had this same idea, as it is the easiest way to relate this concept to something many of us may already do in the classroom. I was interested in the idea of using the advance organizers before hearing any of the information we give them. Using the organizers to elicit misconceptions or allow students to make connections between broad ideas before going into the details of the concepts. I thought this idea would be great to slowly introduce students to the material, rather than periodically dumping big, complicated ideas on them and then expecting them to organize all the pieces.

I think that last week’s material, concept attainment, goes along very well with this idea. If we go through brainstorming and categorizing, we can go one step further to organize the ideas into a concept map, which helps the students prepare for the material to come.

Curriculum development and implementation

In this module, we read about how curriculum is planned, and discussed how we plan our own curriculum at our respective schools, or districts. Each district has its own ideas about curriculum development. Issaquah, for example, develops curriculum at the district level for each science discipline. After a group of teachers agree on a curriculum and what subjects will be included, basing their decision off the state standards, then the curriculum is implemented, and teachers can use their discretion on how in depth they want to go into each subject. Sometimes, they are even forced to omit a subject or two if time is too short at the end of the year (which it often is). Deciding which subject to omit can be at the teacher’s discretion as well.

Next, we discussed principles and examples that are important to curriculum implementation. We each talked about ideas, such as supportive classroom environment, and cooperative learning that help the students succeed in learning the material. I noticed that many of my colleagues thought that both of these ideas were important in their classrooms, and that shows how important these ideas are valued at all levels in our society. Teachers know how important it is to be able to work with others in the work environment, and in a social environment. We discussed in what ways we use technology in the classroom every day. Everyone had a pretty long list, which is good in today’s world, being as immersed in technology as we are. I wonder if even ten years ago the lists of what teachers use would have been even half as long.

It was interesting to see all the ideas my colleagues had about how we can implement curriculum. Their responses give me idea that I can work on in my classroom, or even new perspectives on an idea I have already heard of.

Attaining Concepts

We have to help students do this every day, yet we need to determine the best way to help students do this. In the reading this week, we were given many examples of how we show the students facts and help them explore and discover the concepts we desire them to learn. The discussions my classmates and I had this week helped give all of us more examples of how facts can be strung together to form concepts.

Facts can be combined to form the concepts we are trying to teach, but it is also possible for the students to piece them together incorrectly, so that they form misconceptions that can stay with them for a long time, as the video of the Harvard students showed. This is one of the struggles we must face when helping students learn new material, or revisit material they have previously learned. We must elicit what misconceptions they already have (most students have some misconceptions- never assume students are blank slates!)  and keep them from forming new misconceptions. As we teach, we must be conscious of those misconceptions in order to help the students explore the concepts and reach the correct end point.

As one of my classmates said, once the students have reached the correct concept, they can then elicit more facts from that concept, and delve deeper into the material they understand. This continued study can deepen their knowledge, and help them make it more meaningful.

Inductive Strategies

In this week’s module, we discussed inductive strategies and their benefit or detriment to today’s students. Many people had similar ideas. I think there is a lot of benefit because the students are formulating their own ideas, rather than being made to learn the ideas of others. Many of my colleagues spelled out this same idea, adding that students can explore different ideas and develop their own from their explorations (Rossi, blackboard). I also think inductive strategies are beneficial because students can learn more than simply the topic on which the lesson is based, or even learn more than one topic at once. Because inductive strategies are so flexible, many ideas or subjects can be combined into one lesson (Sanders, blackboard). I think that inductive strategies are a great way to teach certain subjects to students, because students can use their own ideas, which motivate them to learn it because it is based around an interest of their own.

However, the strategy does have its drawbacks. Sometimes, these kinds of activities take much longer for some students to understand because backgrounds of students can be so different. Sometimes the whole class will take much longer to get to the right idea, or one group of slower students will not understand which makes planning difficult. Then, there is the issue of students potentially coming to incorrect conclusions (Seamans, blackboard) or embedding their misconceptions further, rather than correcting them. All these cons make these kinds of lessons take much longer than simple direct instruction, but I think the benefits outweigh these possible consequences because I think student built learning is much more valuable and stays with the students much longer than memorizing from a lecture or textbook.

Helping Students Succeed through Curriculum

In this module, there are a lot of different ideas. I believe the overall arching ideas were similar to the big ideas in education. How do we make sure that our students are learning the most that they can under the best circumstances so that we can help them become functioning well-rounded citizens? We started out our discussions with ideas on overlying ideas for education, and what our perspectives or approach to education are. I think it was interesting to read how different people’s view are, yet they are all based around these four ideas, though I saw more behaviorist speaker’s incorporated somehow in everyone’s posts. Embedded in those questions were ideas that come from our own classrooms. It was interesting to read how all the different age groups and subject matters incorporate different aspects of implicit curriculum, or how they collaborate with others. Many people had the same ideas of self-discipline, respect, a comfortable, safe environment and self-confidence. I thought it was interesting that many people did not incorporate collaboration or cooperation. Maybe it was implicit in one of their other implicit lessons, but I think one of the most important skills we can teach our students is to work well with others, no matter who those people are or what ideas they have.

My favorite article was Anctil’s, which discussed the three A’s. Last year, it was very difficult to handle all of my 504 and IEP students. In one class I had six students, in addition to a couple ELL students, plus a few with behavior issues. When I was reading about the three A’s, I was like, “hey, this is what I was doing every day for 6^th period last year!” It was a huge learning experience, and at the time quite frustrating at times. I had to keep up with multiple changing 504s, make sure my IEP kids were getting the right assignments and material in their Learning Strategies classes, and make sure the parents were in the loop about what was expected of their child and what I could do to help. I am sure that I will have to handle a similar situation this coming year, but I feel I am much more prepared for the task by myself after my experience last year.

Use of instructional strategies in the classroom

This week we discussed how we use different instructional strategies in our classrooms. It was fun to think back to different activities I had done with my students in the past year. I really liked reading others’ posts about ways they incorporated different strategies into their classrooms. I am excited to learn more this quarter about new ways to incorporate Marzano’s strategies into my classroom.