While learning objectives may typically be located under the abstract or background knowledge section, it is important to note that providing students with a clear overview of objectives and expectations from early on is incredibly important. To be truly effective, learning objectives cannot merely be something that teachers create and use for themselves. Instead, learning objectives should be shared with students and should be specifically discussed so that it is clear to students as to what skills they are learning and focusing on for a said unit, activity, or assignment. Another powerful opportunity is to allow students to contribute to the goals for a said unit or activity. The discussion and questions at the end of the update to the left allow students to talk with one another to ensure understanding and leave space for students to include additional goals that they feel the class or themselves personally should accomplish in regards to that particular unit.

As stated in the article “Knowing Your Learning Target” by Connie M. Moss, Susan M. Brookhart and Beverly A. Long (2011),

Regardless of how important the content, how engaging the activity, how formative the assessment, or how differentiated the instruction, unless all students see, recognize, and understand the learning target from the very beginning of the lesson, one factor will remain constant: The teacher will always be the only one providing the direction, focusing on getting students to meet the instructional objectives. The students, on the other hand, will focus on doing what the teacher says, rather than on learning.

The quote above illustrates how problematic it can be if teacher and student are not on the same page. Delivery of content, the importance of the skills being learned, and the level of engagement are ultimately meaningless if the student is unaware of the desired outcome or what they are supposed to take away from the learning experience. Therefore, it is always important to begin units and lessons with objectives and to be sure to involve students in this process.

Sources:
Moss, C. M., Brookhart, S. M., & Long, B. A. (2011, March). Knowing Your Learning Target. What Students Need to Learn, 68(6), 66-69. Retrieved July 20, 2016, from http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/mar11/vol68/num06/Knowing-Your-Learning-Target.aspx

Whenever reviewing old material, or when starting a unit in general, it is incredibly important to check for the prior knowledge of the students in a particular class to ensure that the instruction matches their skill level and ultimate needs. The second update, therefore, provides an opportunity for the educators to gain some information in regards to what the students currently know about literary theory and the particular lenses that will be covered within this mini unit. Once each individual student completes the google form that is included at the end of the update on the left, the teachers can go over that data and determine whether or not any changes need to be made in the following lessons and activities. This also provides students with an opportunity to self assess where they are in terms of the content that will be covered in the unit; if the student is unsure of their answers on the pretest then they can then be sure to ask for any additional help that may be needed for them to successfully review the material. In all, the pretest allows for teachers to differentiate and build lessons that will truly be at the level of their students.

In “Developing An Assessment Of Learning Process: The Importance Of Pre-Testing,” authors Michelle Sheran and Jeffrey Sarbaum (2012) talked at length about the many benefits that pretesting can ultimately have in the classroom. They stated that “Pre-testing is essential for establishing a baseline. Without a measure of what students know at the beginning of a course or program, it is difficult to estimate the value added.” If a teacher is unaware of the level at which their students start at, there is no way that they can realistically build lessons, assignments, and assessments that are going to meet the needs of those same students. Using the Google forms pretest will work as a formative assessment of sorts and allow the instructor to make changes to the curriculum moving forward.

Sources:

Sheran, M., & Sarbaum, J. (2012). Developing an Assessment of Learning Process: The Importance of Pre-Testing. American Journal Of Business Education, 5(5), 609-616.

This is the first update that focuses specifically on small group work and the collaboration that needs to exist amongst students when working towards a common goal. While the activities and assignments that require group work within this learning module are admittedly small, these shorter activities provide great learning opportunities for students in regards to practicing how to work with other individuals and how to contribute to larger group discussions and products. One thing that the instructor absolutely must think about when planning for this lesson would be the way that they decide to group students. Groupings must be purposeful and well thought out to ensure that all students in the classroom are gaining valuable skills from the lesson.

As stated by Etienne Wenger (1998) in Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning and Identity when discussing the learning theory communities of practice, “The primary focus of this theory is on learning as a social participation. Participation … refers not just to local events of engagement in certain activities with certain people, but to a more encompassing process of being active participants in the practices of social communities and constructing identities in relation to these communities.” Wenger’s explanation moves beyond grouping and discusses the importance of socialization in regards to student learning. As will be evident in the remainder of the updates, social learning is a key component to this module as are student led discussions and ownership of the conversations that are being had in regards to these literary lenses.

Another important aspect to keep in mind in regards to this update is to present and introduce new material/review material in a way that is accessible for students. In this update, the instructor is able to use a picture/illusion to introduce a fairly complex subject. Providing students with opportunities to understand at their level can allow them to slowly build on these more difficult subjects as they progress through the unit.

Sources:

Wenger, Etienne. 1998. Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning and Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 4, 6, 86, 102, 134, 136–7.

In looking at this particular update, it is important to note the balance in regards to the resources and activities utilized. One thing to constantly be thinking about when designing and putting together lessons for students is to ensure that the lesson content and delivery of instruction is varied and different for students at all stages. This particular activity/lesson is broken up into four different sections, one being lecture/content based, one that uses multimedia as a means to provide examples, one that has students discuss and work together in groups, and the last being homework that allows the student to practice working with the new skills and content individually.

While Sapna Das’ (2015) article “Teacher’s Counselling Module for Managing ADHD Children” focuses primarily on accommodations and modifications that can be made within the classroom for students with ADHD, the author brings up a lot of strong points that can be applied to all students. When discussing students with ADHD in particular, the author states that, “Students with ADHD typically have underdeveloped self management skills which affects

their ability to plan and carry out tasks to completion. This deficit could result in students

having difficulty with the following skills: time management….maintaining on-task behaviour long enough to complete work.” When we are thinking about students with ADHD and students in general, it is important to notice that many students struggle with attention and the ability to focus on any given assignment. Chunking or blocking classroom time, and limiting any activity to 15-20 minutes can help students move from one activity to the next and maintain their attention for the entire lesson. This is ultimately the goal with the lessons and activities included in this learning module.

Sources:

Das, S. (2015). Attention Deficit Hypertensive Disorder Teacher's Counselling Module for Managing ADHD Children. International Journal Of Multidisciplinary Approach & Studies, 2(4), 105-118.

While this was touched on above, another important aspect of this learning module is its commitment to the concept of gradual release of responsibility, a teaching and learning method that focuses on slowly providing more and more independence to students as they progress through a particular unit or lesson. This idea can be seen to the left in this update. The lesson starts off with a lecture/overview of the content, which would be led entirely by the teacher and directed towards students as a whole. Afterwards, students are provided with two examples and are asked to discussed the concepts that they went over in the lecture portion in small groups. The idea here is that they can begin to grasp the concepts together, ask questions, and build understanding through discussion. The last step for each of the learning modules that is reintroducing one of the lenses is individual homework in which they are applying the lens to a particular text. The idea here is that after hearing the lecture and practicing with peers, now they are ready to practice the skills and attempt to access the content on their own, which will in turn be a true assessment of their understanding of the concepts.

In Ailing Kong’s (2002) article “Scaffolding in a Learning Community of Practice: A Case Study of a Gradual Release of Responsibility from the Teacher to the Students,” he discusses the social cognitivist approach to learning as well as the importance of gradual release of responsibility (GRR) as a whole. Kong goes on to discuss the importance of scaffolding and ultimately connects these ideas to Vygotsky’s principles. “The concept of scaffolding is grounded in Vygotsky's (1981) concept of the zone of proximal development (ZPD), defined as the distance between what children can do without assistance and what they can accomplish with the assistance of adults or more capable peers” (5). This illustrates that the teacher must be aware of how students are gradually learning and that they are doing so in a very social way, along with their peers, and that educators must also be very much aware of allowing students to gradually access the content of the lesson.

Sources:

Kong, A. (2002). Scaffolding in a Learning Community of Practice: A Case Study of a Gradual Release of Responsibility from the Teacher to the Students.

When developing curriculum and lesson plans for students, it is incredibly important to incorporate multimedia and to find resources that students will connect to in a variety of ways. We live and work in a world that in many ways takes place on a technological platform and as such educators cannot ignore the impact that technology and the integration of media have on students. With this said, it is important to recognize that inserting technology without linking it to specific learning objectives can have negative impacts. In addition to this, teachers need to be transparent with students as to what this media and technology is ultimately being used for.

In the article “For Effective Use of Multimedia in Education, Teachers Must Develop Their Own Educational Multimedia Applications” Mohd Babiker (2015) stated, “Judging the impact of any particular technology requires an understanding of how it is used in the classroom and what learning goals are held by the educators involved, knowledge about the type of assessments that are used to evaluate improvements in student achievement, and an awareness of the complex nature of change in the school environment.” Babiker makes it clear that media and technology can not merely be dropped into curriculum. Instead, educators must think about what they are having students do with these resources and how they are ultimately helping students access the curriculum/content in more efficient and elevated ways.

As such, if an educator were to be thinking about integrating these lessons into their own curriculum, they should think about their individual students and the types of accommodations or modifications that can be made for that particular group. In addition to this, objectives should be made clear to students so that they know what these resources are being used for.

Sources:

Babiker, M. A. (2015). For Effective Use of Multimedia in Education, Teachers Must Develop Their Own Educational Multimedia Applications. Turkish Online Journal Of Educational Technology - TOJET, 14(4), 62-68.

In reflecting on the content of this session and past experiences when teaching about race, educators have to be incredibly mindful when talking about and having students discuss controversial topics in class. One has to recognize that students are still developing their ideas about these types of concepts and that it is ultimately the educator's job to provide a safe an open environment where all students feel safe and feel that they can add to the class’ discussions on any said day. This can make it very difficult to talk about social issues and topics that are divisive, but that does not mean that teachers and educators should back away from these conversations because of this. In fact, the opposite should be happening, and fear cannot keep us from talking about these things with our youth. Hopefully having more of these types of conversations in class will help our society work towards fixing these age old problems.

There has been a lot of research conducted on the importance of talking about race and making sure that you are not ignoring racial issues within the classroom or saying that the world is now color blind. Often when we avoid difficult conversations we suggest that these problems are not impacting our students when in fact they are in very significant ways. In the article “Kids Talking About Race: Tween-agers in a Post-Civil Rights Era”, Risman and Banerjee (2013) state that “Color blindness allows people to believe the world is post-racial without acknowledging any white racial privilege or contemporary institutional racial discrimination.” This clearly illustrates that having these discussions and going over resources relating to race, as seen to the left, is incredibly important.

Sources:

Risman, B. J., & Banerjee, P. (2013). Kids Talking About Race: Tween-agers in a Post-Civil Rights Era Kids Talking About Race: Tween-agers in a Post-Civil Rights Era. Sociological Forum, 28(2), 213-235. doi:10.1111/socf.12016

This section serves as the summative assessment for this mini review unit and will determine whether or not students have gained an understanding of how to use the literary lenses to analyze texts. One important aspect of this unit was seeing how much students had grown over the course of the unit as a whole. Educators will be able to take the pre-assessment that was used in session two and compare the students’ level of understanding in that pre-assessment to this post assessment. It is incredibly important to be able to use these results to determine the effectiveness of the unit but to also see if there are any additional review materials that need to be added before moving on to ensure that students are well versed in the skills and content.

Another important aspect of this session in particular is the main skill that is being focused on, using two different lenses/perspectives to analyze the same text/resource. This links directly with the Common Core State Standards. The CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.11-12.2 states that students should be able to “Determine two or more themes or central ideas of a text and analyze their development over the course of the text, including how they interact and build on one another to produce a complex account; provide an objective summary of the text.” This illustrates that the summative assessment is indeed something that is present in the Common Core, which is something that all educators should be focused on meeting as these are the standards that are ultimately linked to student achievement and often the evaluation process.

For more information on the Common Core, visit the website below:

http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/RL/11-12/