Mini-Lesson Plan Blog

Mini-Lesson 1
I have been working in Mrs. Beasley’s kindergarten class since late September 2010. For this mini-lesson I decided to work with a student one-on-one who struggles in many subjects, but I worked with him specifically on sound letter recognition. I have worked with Tristan many times throughout the semester because he is behind the other students in class in all subjects, including reading, writing, and mathematics. Tristan is still having trouble writing his name because he can’t remember what sound goes with what letter. He also struggles with identifying his letters, which may be one of the main reasons why he cannot remember which sounds go with what letters. I decided for this mini lesson I would only focus on the letters that are in his name, since I only had two weeks to work with him. The first week I worked with Tristan for 30 minutes out in the hallway. I started the mini-lesson by asking Tristan if he could use the letter blocks to spell out his name. I only gave Tristan the block letters that he would need to spell out his name. With the letters he spelled out Tisartn. I asked him why he spelled out his name like this and he said because he didn’t really know how to spell his name. For the next 15 minutes we worked on identifying the letters and their sounds. I would hold up the letters in the order that they appeared and asked him to identify the letter and what sound it made. For example, when I held up t he would say that is a t and makes the sound ttt. When I thought he had mastered this skill I set up the letter blocks in order, like this Tristan. I then had him study it and then I scrambled up the letters and had him put the letters back together. As he was moving the letters I had him say what letter it was and then what sound it made. He was able to identify T, i, and r consistently. With some scaffolding he was able to arrange the letters in the correct order. The next week I went back out into the hallway to see if Tristan had retained any information from the week before. For the first activity I asked him to identify the letters and what sound they made. He again, like the week before, was able to identify T, I, and r consistently. I then arranged his name and scrambled up the letters. When I asked him to rearrange the letters he was unable to do so. I think Tristan struggles so much with spelling his name because he cannot recall the letters or their sounds. I have also noticed from working with Tristan a lot of the semester that he has trouble retaining information. This can be seen even throughout this mini-lesson because he did not retain a lot of the information he learned in week 1 into week 2. Overall, I think Tristan needs to work on identifying the letters and retaining information in order for him to be able to identify his letters and what sounds they make.

Mini-Lesson 2
For my second mini-lesson I worked with Larry, who is a low to middle achieving student in my class. Larry sometimes struggles with identifying what letter an object begins with. For example, if I showed him a book he may struggle identifying that book starts with b. I wanted to work with Larry on looking at an object and identifying their beginning sound and what letter that is. For this mini-lesson I used a game that my coordinating teacher had in her classroom that I thought would be affective for teaching letter-sound awareness. This game was set up much like a candy land board game, except it had the letters w, x, y, and z scattered throughout the board. Each player chose a card and had to identify the object and what letter they started with. For example, if I chose a zoo and I identified that zoo started with z then I would move to the closest z spot on the board. Before we started the game I had Larry identify the letters that were on the board. Larry had a hard time identifying x and y, but identified w and z with no problem. We played the game and Larry was able to identify all of the objects on the card without any problem. He struggled, however, to identify what letter the object started with. I helped Larry by emphasizing the first sound of every word. By the end of the game Larry was better identifying what letter the objects started with.

2nd Technology Lesson Plan

Daily Lesson Plan

Your Name: Jessica Carney__ Grade Level: _5th Grade_ Date: April 20, 2011

Overall lesson topic/title: Predicting Shades of Grey and creating a Wiki.

Grade Level Content Expectation(s):
R.MT.05.01: Self-monitor comprehension when reading or listening to text by automatically applying and discussing the strategies used by mature readers to increase comprehension including: predicting, constructing mental images, visually representing ideas in text, questioning, rereading or listening again if uncertain about meaning, inferring, summarizing, and engaging in interpretive discussion

5 – P3.1.3: Give examples of how conflicts over core democratic values lead people to differ on constitutional issues in the United States.

Objectives
Performance: The student should be able to discuss the details of the book and predict what they think is going to happen at the end of the story. The student will then go to the wiki and do their role for the day and post what they think is going to happen next.

Conditions: There will be 4 students in each group. After each chapter the group reads they will go to the wiki and complete their role for the day. On the wiki they can also discuss things like their favorite part of the text or ask any questions they might have. Then each student will need to post about what they think is going to happen in the next section of the book.

Criterion: For the student to be considered participating in the wiki assignment they will need to do their role for the day. The student must also post a prediction about what they think is going to happen in the next section of the text.

Materials & supplies needed:
-30 copies of Shades of Grey
-30 laptops or desktop computers

Introduction to the lesson:
Depending on the skill level of the students in the class they will either read the book Shades of Grey individually, in a small group, or as a class. To introduce this lesson I will split the class into groups of four or five students and have them create a wiki page. They will have 20 minutes to explore the page and figure out how to use the site. In these 30 minutes they will also need to write an about me post. This post should include name, favorite book, and three interesting facts about themselves. Also in this time the class will go over each role and what each role is required to do. There will be 5 roles: the travel chaser, vocabulary enricher, connector, literary luminary, and discussion director. The travel chaser maps out all the main places that the characters travel throughout the book. The vocabulary enricher picks out words that they do not know and defines them. The connector links the book to their personal life. The literary luminary picks out passages they think are funny or important pieces to the book. The discussion director thinks of questions to ask the rest of the group. (40 minutes)

During Reading:
There are 16 chapters in Shades of Grey. In order to finish this book and allow time for wiki posting each group will be required to read two chapters a night at home. When they come back to school they will get together in their wiki groups and post about their role for the day and predict what they think is going to happen next. The students will be given their role of the day so they can focus on it while they are reading and can prepare an answer to post on their wiki. Some example questions could include: The student will still be required to predict what is going to happen next. The students will have 20 minutes each day to work on their wikis. This means that for 10 days the students will be working on their wikis and discussing what they think is going to happen. (20 minutes each day)

After Reading:
After the students are done reading posting on the wiki they will come together for 15 to 20 minutes and discuss their roles and their prediction. The reason they are coming together as a group separately from their wiki is because I want them to also have verbal interaction with one another. If the assignment is all online students may not go and read other students wiki posts. This way the students are exchanging new ideas online and face-to-face. (20 minutes)

Post-Assessment:
The students will post on the wiki a reaction of how the book ended. This will allow the teacher to see if the student can personally relate to the book and if they can give their reaction about how the book ended. This will also show the teacher if the student comprehended and understood the main concepts of the book. (20 minutes)

Re-Aranging Boys in Learning

Websites to Teach Young Students About Coumputers

http://askatechteacher.wordpress.com/2011/04/01/weekend-websites-28-websites-to-teach-tech-to-kindergarten-first-grade/

I follow @AskATechTeacher on twitter and every weekend she posts a link to her blog that has information about how to use technology in the classroom. The reason I like this blog is because she covers many different types of technology for many different grades. As I was browsing her blog this weekend I came across a post that I found very interesting and it was called 28 Websites to Teach Tech to Kindergarten-First Grade. I am currently volunteering in a kindergarten classroom and I found this post very interesting because my kindergartners are not learning about how to use the computer. I looked through many of these website and found the following very helpful to teach young children about technology.
Clicky’s Web World:
This website has activities that teach students how to stay safe on the computer. This is so important in this day and age because kids have so much access to the computer. I know that this topic is not taught very much in schools and I think this website does a good job of teaching it in a fun and interactive way.
Mouse Skills
This website is an interactive classroom that teaches students how to click, double click, and drag items around the screen. This is important for young student to know how to do because they become easily frustrated with using the mouse and if they are taught early then they will not have this problem.
Parts of the Computer
This website contains a game that has a picture of the parts of the computer and the word of that part. The students are to match the word to the picture, which teaches the students the parts of the computer, so they can properly use a computer by themselves.

Wiki Use

I have used wiki’s for many of my classes to share thoughts and ideas, but I have never created a wiki space for my own personal use. I really like having my own wiki space because you have the opportunity to do whatever you want with an infinite amount of space. The wiki space allows you to add files, pictures, videos, widgets, tables, and many more. I like wiki spaces as compared to a blog or a weebly because you are allowed to have as many pages on your account as you want. For examples if you needed a wiki for your first, third, and fourth hour each class can have their own page that only they can see, but the teacher has access to all three hours on their home page. The other advantage to using a wiki is that as many people can access it as possible. In order to edit the wiki the person has to be invited by e-mail so not just anyone can revise the wiki. I liked this because on google docs anyone can access and edit the page and the information may not be valid or correct. With the wiki no one can edit the page without the teacher’s consent. I like using the wiki and am glad I got the chance to explore it more than just using it for a TE class.

What Do Kids Say Is The Biggest Obstacle To Technology At School?

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/what_do_kids_say_is_the_biggest_obstacle_to_techno.php

I found this article on what students, parents, teachers, and administration think about how schools are integrating technology into the classroom. I was surprised about a couple things. Number 1: out of the 300,000 students surveyed 21% of K-2 students had a cell phone and 67% of high school students had a laptop. I thought these percentages were kind of high for how young these students were and I was wondering what their need for these technologies were. Number 2: When students in high school, parents, teachers, and administrators were asked if their school was doing a good job using technology to enhance learning and or student achievement 74% teachers, 72% of principals and 62% of parents said yes, while only 47% of students agreed. This surprised me and alarmed me at the same time because if we are not meeting the needs of our students then we are not doing our job. I found this study very interesting and relevant because we are getting the students opinion on how they think technology is being used in schools. Read the attached article I think you will be surprised by some of the results!

Google Docs in the Classroom

This youtube video shows how google docs can be used in a real life classroom. Not only does it talk about how teachers can use it with their students but also how teachers can use it when planning and talking with one another. My favorite part of the video is when the teacher is talking about students who were uninterested in his class seem more engaged now because of using google docs. I think this technology is very beneficial because it can be used in different grades, with many levels of students, and across subjects.

Google Docs: Making Group Projects More Accessible

As a college senior I dread group projects more than any other type of assessment. This loathing stems from the inconvenience of being partnered up with people you don't know, trying to find a time that everyone can meet, and relying on other people's work to determine your grade. It took me four years to discover the break through in group projects...Google Docs. I learned abut this in my integrating technology in the class and have used it for three group projects since then. I like this technology because it allows multiple students to work on and revise a document at once. This means that students don’t have to find a time when they can all meet because they can work on the document from the comfort of their own home, when they have time to do so. Another feature that Google docs has that is beneficial to group projects is a chat feature. If members are in the document at the same time they can chat about changes that they want to make. This technology also eleviates the stress of depending on someone else’s work to determine your grade because you can see and edit parts of the assignment that you feel need to be improved. There is another very similar technology to Google docs, which is called Google power point and is used in the same way as Google docs. This technology can be used successfully in elementary through college age classes. It eleviates having a group of children sitting around one computer working on a document or power point. With Google doc and power point each student can be working at a separate computer on the same document. Since learning about this technology I do not dread group projects as much any more because I can work on it in the comfort of my own home, on my own time, at my own pace.