O1. – Offer an organized curriculum aligned to standards and outcomes: Teacher-candidates align instruction to the learning standards and outcomes so all students know the learning targets and their progress toward meeting them.
The learning goals and standards in a classroom should be transparent to all students. Each student should be informed as to what is expected and their progress should be made aware through timely feedback and creating expected learning targets. Being aware of standards and tracking each student is very important as an educator and helps the students immensely.
As evidence I have attached a file in which show 3 different lesson plans of one unit on the concept of area in mathematics. Before planning the activities of my lessons, I wanted to make sure the lessons were aligned to 3rd grade Common Core Mathematics standards and outcomes, and that my lessons built off one another. This is directly related to O1 by providing a curriculum in my internship that is not only aligned to standards and outcomes, but to provide lessons that build off of each other based on the standards and outcomes. For example, my first lesson of the unit was aligned to CCSS 3.MD.5: Recognize area as an attribute of plane figures and understand concepts of area measurement. As a learning target that students could check back in with throughout the lesson, I posted that they should be able to use different size square units to describe the area of a shape, and discuss the meaning of using appropriate sized square units. Students checked in with the learning target during the beginning, middle, and end of the lesson. The second lesson was aligned to CCSS 3.MD.6: Measure areas by counting unit squares. As a learning target that all students understood and checked in with before, during, and at the end of the lesson, I wrote that students should be able to demonstrate describing the area of a shape by identifying the amount of square units in it. The third lesson in the unit uses the Common Core State Standard 3.MD.7: Relate area to the operations of multiplication and addition. In order for students to track their progress toward meeting the standard, I created a learning target that stated students should be able to find the area of a rectangle by multiplying its base by its height. For a more detailed example of my unit, please see my attached Evidence of Area Unit.
Because my students were able to check in with the learning targets of each lesson in the unit before, during, and at the end of my lessons, I was then able to go back and re-teach any areas of misunderstanding that either the student or I noticed. It also allowed students to take ownership in their accomplishment of the learning goal of the day.
Although I want to make sure the pacing of my lesson does not drag (knowing that checking back in with the learning target constantly does take a large chunk of time) it is important that I make sure all my students know the learning target and their progress toward meeting them. The next steps I would like to take is creating a more engaging way of checking in with the learning targets at hand.
Elizabeth McKinnon's bPortfolio 