Lesson Plan: Marzano techniques

 

Lesson Design Template: Simplified for Teaching
Teacher Candidate (+5)		Kaarina Aufranc
Mentor Teacher (+5)		C.H.
University Coordinator (+5)		Betsy Le Doux
School  (+2)		PMS
Grade (+1)		8th
Subject  (+1)		U.S. History
Date (+1)		1/24/12
3. Learning Targets – What are the objectives for the lesson?
3.3 – Cite the EALRs/standards using the numbers and text. Usually limit the lesson to 1 – 2 EALRs. (+5)
EALR:  4: Student understands and applies knowledge of historical thinking, chronology, eras, turning points, major ideas, individuals and themes in US History in order to evaluate how history shapes the present and future.
3.4 – Cite the corresponding GLEs/performance expectations using the numbers and text. (+5)
4.2.2 Understands and analyzes how cultures and cultural groups have contributed to U.S. history
3.5 – Cite the objectives (skills or concepts) for the lesson. What do you want students to think, know and/or be able to do at the end of the lesson? They need to be aligned with the GLEs/performance expectations and EALRs/standards. (+5)
Students will know and analyze the differences and similarities between American Colonists and the English during Colonial times.
4. Lesson Assessment – How will students demonstrate their learning?
4.8 – Complete the following table to highlight what the students will do to demonstrate competence specific to learning for this lesson.
Description of formative assessment activity (required) (+5)			Evaluative criteria (+5)	What the assessment is designed to assess (+5)	Feedback to students (+5)
Students will follow a pictorial narrative with ELL color-coding strategies.  They will create a T-chart comparing and contrasting American Colonists and Englishmen.  Students will follow along taking specific notes from lecture.Students use a half sheet for a ticket to leave predicting why the Revolution began using prior knowledge.			– T chart should have a minimum of two specific notes in each category: Appearances, Children, Government, Women and Religion.	If they can compare and contrast two different cultures.	Written feedback and comments indicating whether they have fulfilled the minimum requirement and if it related to the criteria indicated.
Description of summative assessment activity (optional)			Evaluative criteria	What the assessment is designed to assess	Feedback to students
Post test and essay			Passing is 60%	Student knowledge of unit targets and essential questions.	Written comments on test.
5. Instructing and Engaging Students in Learning – What will happen in the lesson?
5.5 – Describe the sequence of steps in the lesson in the following table. General lesson sequences may be more directive (e.g., ITIP) or open (constructivist). Whatever design is used, the lesson needs to be explicitly outlined. (+45) Points here will depend on clarity, organization, and applicable Marzano strategies.  Blog reflections are scored separately.Complete the following table: Provide an estimate of time. List the sequence of the various learning experiences in the lesson. Include specific strategies from Classroom Instruction that Works, R. Marzano
Time	Learning experiences
10 min                                             5 min       25 min           10 min	Review targets and assessments for the new Unit: The Causes of The Revolutionary War.  Students write the targets, essential questions, and assessments in their notebook as I create a poster to check off as we go along the unit.  As we do this we asked the students to circle which targets they think will be the most useful information, and which assessments they would like to do the most.  This will be revisited at another time when students give us ideas on how they can personalize their goals for individual learning.  This idea is represented on page 95. Of the Marzano text when he states that goal setting must be specific, but also flexible to provide students with the sense that they are in control of their own learning (Marzano, 2001). Targets- I will… *know the main people and events that lead to the Revolutionary War *know and understand what a revolution is and how studying the American Revolution helps me to understand past and current revolutions. *be able to analyze and interpret historical materials including primary and secondary sources *be able to analyze multiple causal factors and form a position on an issue. Essential Question: Was it right for the American Colonists to fight for their Independence from Britain? Assessments: Weekly ticket to leave Powder Keg Summary: key events that lead to the Revolutionary War Cornell Notes Research another revolution Persuasive Essay Post Test Vocabulary words into the word wall (this is done in their US History notebook): This is modeled at the same time on the doc camera using vocabulary sheets with pictures that correlate to the word.  Vocabulary Words: Revolution and Radicals.  Students copy the meaning of the word into their word wall with a small picture that represents the word in their own perspective. Pictorial narrative:  A picture of the similarities and differences between the American Colonists and the Englishmen is drawn on a large poster using color-coding for each category as an ELL strategy.  This picture coordinates with a T-Chart students create in their notebooks.  T-Chart is also modeled on the doc camera as we go along.  As Marzano states, graphic organizers enhance student understanding and ability to use their knowledge.  This was also done with his suggestion of doing comparing and contrasting when he says that a teacher should do this as a highly structured task (2001) Ticket to leave.  Students must analyze information learned and make predictions about coming events.  Students first turn and talk to their neighbor to discuss the question and analyze the poster that we have created together during the lesson.  This coincides with Marzano’s technique of cooperative learning in his “face-to-face promotive interaction” strategy.  He states that when students are helping each other learn they create accountability and interdependence (p. 85, 2001).

 

Reflection:  This lesson was a successful one in that it may seem that we were trying to cover too much information, but we have taught lessons that were similar to this in the past, so students are ready to do what is expected now that we are in the second semester.  We have done Targets and Assessments, pictorial narratives, vocabulary with pictures and tickets to leave many times in the past, so the transitions were smooth and quick, and the students are already moving forward in creating their pictures and charts in their notebooks without scaffolding each step along the way.

My mentor teacher like to scaffold what students write in their notebooks very carefully, and makes a great effort to be certain they are writing everything down correctly.  We model note taking on the doc camera as we go along in the lesson and they are to write exactly as we do in their notebooks.  For some of these students this can be a very routine and easy task for them, but for others it is incredibly challenging because of their different skill levels.  I can see that many of the students that are higher level learners find this mundane and get frustrated by how slowly we must go to include all of the students.  This unit we are going to use a gradual release for all students for them to take notes on their own and assess how students do on their note taking skills.

My mentor teacher uses pictorial narratives often in her class, and students have expressed in Unit reflections that these help them remember the information when they are taking the tests.  One student told me that she can see the poster in her head and when she is taking her post-test she can close her eyes and remember the picture that we hang on the walls during the unit as we go along.  This picture was a large poster and on one side there was a drawing of what an Englishman would have looked like at this time, and on the other side there was a picture of what a colonist would have looked like at this time.  We highlighted similarities and differences in the categories of appearance, children, religion, government, and the role of women in these two places.  Each category was highlighted in a different color.  Students often express to me that highlighting the pictures in different colors is especially helpful, because it helps them categorize  these comparisons in their minds.  When we refer to the poster often we will say, “remember when we talked about the role of women in our picture in red?”.  This consistent reminder has helped some of our visual learners in particular.

The ticket to leave was very interesting when I went through their answers to our questions which was: 1. What were the main differences between these two groups of people and 2.How do you think the differences between these two groups of people may have lead to the Revolutionary War.  We had not discussed this in our class, but we were asking them to think critically and to come up with some inferences about our lesson.  Many of them focused on religion being the main cause of the war.  Others thought that the role of women was a larger part of why the war started.  I realized looking at their exit ticket and then reviewing the poster again that the second question was not a fair question in relation to the poster.  The poster did not discuss taxes, or laws, or how the British were trying to control the colonists’ lives, it merely looked at the similarities and the differences.  It was fair to ask the question, but they would have had to rely on their prior knowledge to answer that question correctly.  It was good to see the students take a guess at question number two and their answers did show that they were listening to lesson and trying to relate it to the question.

Technology reflection: Prezi presentation

I always learn so much when I try to do something I have never done before and this prezi presentation was no exception.  I had actually never seen a prezi presentation before and so using this technology was fairly time-consuming to understand how all of the pieces worked together.  I was amazed by other people’s presentations in the class and loved how some incorporated video into theirs, giving the viewer a little bit of a break from the zooming in and out.  I have to say that after looking at two or three I had to take a break because I felt a little seasick.  I do love the way that like animoto, prezi gives you already made templates to choose from so you do not have to start from scratch and can focus on the presentation itself rather than getting stuck on the design of the presentation. I can definitely see using this in a class when students need to give a presentation.  Unfortunately, I feel like it would take too much time to explain this technology to middle school students.  I can see them doing a few slides, but would much rather use it in a high school setting.

The article Technology helping Education: Tablets in the Classroom was helpful to see why a district would choose to use these instead of regular laptops.  I know that tablets are working on the applications and software as quickly as they can, and more and more uses are being discovered every day, but I do not think they are there yet.  As much as I would like to say that every child should have a tablet, I think that focusing on those that need an accommodation for the learning would benefit most.  I have many students that have a hard time reading small print or print on white paper, they also have trouble reading their own handwriting and taking notes and these tablets would benefit them immensely.

I also agree with the article Issues and Barriers to Integrating Technology, in that there are obviously so many barriers for schools that have limited funds.  It seems that technology will remain on the back burner for many of the schools and the longer they wait the more behind they will be, and the longer it will take for the teachers and administrators to catch up with other schools.  I think that small steps in integrating technology make a big difference and I know that I will use all of the pieces of technology I own for my own classroom and to at least give my students an introduction to the different applications that are available to them.

My question for this module is: How can we create a system where people feel that they can donate their used technology to schools when they are done with them?  I think this could be a huge way of filling in the monetary gaps in schools and if there were programs that could collect these tools from people and distribute them more schools could have access.  I know that schools are looking for these tablets and so many people upgrade to the newest technology, couldn’t we find some way to make it streamlined for the technology to reach schools instead of dumpsters, craigslist or a trade in?

After I did this prezi for this class I needed to create a presentation for The French and Indian War for my History class and this is what I came up with.  The students loved it and it was sent out to the rest of the department for them to use in their classrooms as well.

Technology in the classroom: Using Animoto

Animoto is a video creation tool that helps you pull slides together into a beautifully presented and comprehensive way, without all of the effort of having to design a video from scratch.  I always felt that one of the most difficult parts of creating video is adding all of the little animations and visuals.  They take such a long time to make the product look finished, and adding music to it it another part of the time consuming process.  This video creation website streamlines the process and makes specific video creation for teachers extremely easy.  Animoto also allows for open source sharing, which can be an amazing tool for teachers who are looking for a video to add to their lesson planning.  Often many teachers are teaching the same content, so why shouldn’t we be able to use each other’s videos if not for the classroom, then also for inspiration.

 

Here is a video I created for our next Unit which is on The American Revolution.  One question I asked the class at the end of the last unit was, “What is a revolution?” and not one student could answer that for me.  I created this video to help give them a visual of what a revolution looks like.

Technology in the classroom: prezi presentation

In this prezi presentation I explore the different type of technology I strive to use within my classroom.  Have fun going through the presentation.  This is my first attempt at prezi, which I can see being an incredibly useful tool for students to work on a collaborative presentation project together.  The different tools and visuals you can add to your presentation gives you so much control over the look and feel of the presentation.

Click here to view.

Technology reading and video reflection

After watching the videos and completing the readings for this module, I feel I have stumbled on the information I have been waiting for in the ARC program.  How do we create the schools of the future?  This is the question that everyone is asking and a few seem to have a glimpse into the answer, but it is still such an open-ended uncertain answer because simply, no one knows where it is going to go, if anywhere.  Watching Jefferey Piontek‘s TED Talk had a refreshing outlook on schools.  Often in my own internship I feel that my hands are tied, being the student teacher to two teachers who have yet to use a single piece of technology other than their doc-cam or their computer for videos.  I try to incorporate it by suggesting I make power points, or videos, but I often get the feeling that technology is not a big priority in this school.

I admire Piontek’s idea that schools in the 21st century will embrace mobile devices, and that if we do not have a large scale change, it may not happen at all, and this would be the biggest disservice to students.  The other point he spoke of that rang true was building the schools of the future with the teacher and student voices in mind.   I know they are asking for creative learning spaces from what I saw in “3 steps to 21st Century learning”, as well as places to focus on team building.  My students are always asking to do group projects and want to collaborate, communicate and create together.

In the Horizon Report I felt the most important message was that we must trust technology.  If we do not trust it and rely on devices such as the cloud or mobile devices, we will get left behind in the global community of the future.  The report said that innovation was going to be one of, if not the most valuable attribute a person will have in the next 10-20 years in the workforce.  Unfortunately many of our schools, including he one I am currently in have the “F” word (from 7 Golden Rules for Using Technology in Schools) burned in their brains- “Fear” is prevalent and they worry if they ask students to use their mobile devices, or have the ability to see youtube, that they will use it in the wrong way.  This definitely stunts the growth of a teacher going from Tier 1 to Tier 3 if they cannot count on support from the administration to incorporate technology into the lives of the students and trust them to use it appropriately.

The technologies I can see using are podcasts that students can create, videos they can create for social studies, and using devices for those that are low level students with their writing.  Many have difficulty with their handwriting and cannot get over that hurdle to study their notes, or to communicate with their teachers.

I also love RSA animate- I have had that video on my blog since the first week of school.  I feel like their efforts drive important information home to those that learn visually!

Reflection: Student Voice

“We can give you respect. We are able to understand the issues. We can think for ourselves. It’s our education. If we have a say, it will make a difference.”

– HS student in Colorado

This quote from a great resource online sums up the meaning of student voice and how we as adult educators must remember why many of us became teachers in the first place; we wanted to be life long learners and our students teach us something important every day.  If can keep reminding ourselves of this, we will do a better job of promoting student voice inside and outside of the classroom to give them the acknowledgement they deserve.

In our US History class we do a pre-test and a post-test for every unit, and although I do have some issues with how much class time it takes, as well as making the students feel “tested out”, it is interesting to see how they react to their growth.  To promote student voice we gave each of them reflection questions to look at as they got both their pre and post tests back and could look at the data themselves.  One of the questions we asked was, “Did you study?”.  I wasn’t sure if the student would tell the truth, but when I looked through the slips, most of them were very honest about their learning and what they understood.  I was impressed by how seriously most of them took the reflection questions, and although there were some students who did not fill out the sheets with much thought, the ones that did take the time gave us the gift of understanding them.

This test was on the 13 colonies, and the unit was taught over a five-week time period.  We used many ELL strategies to engage them and many of the reflections refer to the “posters”.  These were three posters that we drew pictures of the similarities and differences of the New England, Middle, and Southern colonies, used color coding with each section, and had them so the same in their notebooks.  We also did a table review game, as well as a Jeopardy review game for this test.

This student is an average to high scorer on tests, but she has been falling in her grades lately because of consistent absences.

Student #2 is a fast learner, and is always raising his hand contributing in class.  He seems to get bored in class, as I feel that the repetition bothers him.  You can see from his answers that he was not very thoughtful and rushed through the reflections.

Student #3 has an A in this class, but she struggles with comparing and contrasting.  From her work you can see that she gets caught with academic language and would benefit from someone reading the questions to her and explaining what they are asking.  This seems to be true for quite a few students in this class.

This is an ELL student who has been in this country for one year.  She is a very focused student, and I think the ELL strategies are really helpful for her.  She got 100% on this test.

Technology discussion Module 2

After reading all of the discussion threads on Blackboard I can see that this idea of fear that was mentioned in the article, “7 Golden Rules for Using Technology in Schools” is the most talked about.  My unclear window for this week is why so many people are fearful of technology.  Clearly students are not afraid of it, and I think if we are going to tap into what they respond to, where they are spending their time, and what they are passionate about, then technology is the very best place to start.  I love it when I take a moment and think about the fact that I am student as well, and where my attention is in class, and what I respond to.  More often than not I respond when teachers give us small glimpses of technology and then follow up with something concrete (writing or reading) in the classroom to work on after.  There are just too many parts of the technological world that are inspiring not to use it just to get people to sit up and listen.

I remember very clearly from one of our classes, two SPU students gave a mini-lesson and they began it by teaching exactly what they were going to teach on video.  It was their faces teaching, but they were talking from the video instead of in person.  I thought it was brilliant because everyone’s attention (including mine) was so focused and clear when they were talking from the video, and less focused when they were talking three feet in front of us in person.  It just amazed me that this is how people are no matter what their age.  Maybe it is because in a video you never know what it going to cut to, so your brain is working that out, who knows?  But it was a very interesting moment for me to realize just how important technology can be.

My clear window for this week is that I am very thankful that I worked for a social networking technology company for two years.  I learned so much in those two years and figuring out a program like animoto is thankfully, not difficult for me.

My question for this module is: How can we support the administrations and teachers to help get them out of their fear of technology?  Is teacher education enough?

Technology discussion Module 1

In the article, “ Addressing the Nets For Students Through Constructivist Technology Use In K-12 Classrooms”, it was enlightening to see how teachers use technology in their classrooms.  Technology is a serious problem in the school that I am teaching in this year, as they have such limited resources and students are definitely behind other students their age in terms of being able to use technology to help their studies.  I am a big user and lover of technology and am a proponent to use the things that students are interested in to hook them into the classroom.  I teach Social Studies and I feel that having them create movies and podcasts about what they are studying is the perfect way to engage them.  I am not unclear on this reading, but I would like to know where I can find good technology lesson plans that pertain to Language Arts and Social Studies for research.  I hope that I can also learn more about grant writing for technology as well, as the district that I am in definitely could qualify for some of the grants.

Reading through the standards for technology I can see that they are very clear and detailed as most standards are, but it is overwhelming how much students are expected to learn and how they should be able to communicate with it.  I can see how difficult  it must be for teachers to integrate technology effectively.  I see this a lot in my school, especially with teachers who are older and struggle with technology.

These readings definitely gave me clarity in terms of what is expected of teachers and students in reference to technology in the classroom, but my lack of clarity is: How in the world these standards can be met when schools have a lack of teacher education with technology, as well as a lack of resources in the classrooms and computer labs?

Reflection 13

One of the biggest learning curves for me was teaching inclusion classes and now that I have been observing, assisting, and teaching many of these classes I feel like I am getting a handle on some of  the best strategies are to help ELL students.  I did not set out to become an ELL teacher, but because of the population within our school, so much of what we need to focus on in Social Studies has to be modified for the ELL students, and it has been an incredible learning experience for me.  We have been working with an ELL strategist, as well as having regular meetings with our ELL teacher that works in the school everyday.  She has amazing insight on what these students are facing and the challenges that they must overcome.

One strategy that I have learned is using visuals for student understanding.  At first I thought it would be too remedial for most of the students, but over time I realize how helpful these strategies can be for all students.  We have created “comparative charts” out of drawings and in every class we go over each chart as we outline each category in a different color.  Students take notes on a grid chart as we do this.  We have yet to take the test for this unit so I am anxious to see how they do.

Three charts comparing the New England, Middle and Southern Colonies

Close up of the New England Colonies Comparison Chart

Close up of the Middle colonies Comparison Chart

Close up of the Southern Colonies Comparison Chart

Since this was the first time this lesson has been taught we asked students if this was a helpful exercise and on the whole they said that it was helpful for them to remember the similarities and differences between the colonies.  We will see when they take the post-test if these charts helped.