Morgan's Blog

                    In week 6, we discussed what it means to have alignment between standards, objectives, instructional activities, and assessments. It is essential that lessons taught to young children contain all of these parts in order for them to be successful and also beneficial for students. Effective lesson planning begins by first selecting a developmentally appropriate standard for the current grade level. An objective is then created based on that standard that contains instructional activities explaining what a child should be doing. The teacher selects these instructional activities will the goal in mind that their students will be able to accomplish that standard after completing those chosen tasks. However, teachers must then implement multiple types of assessments for them to actually understand how well students have mastered that standard. Without a combination of all of these, teachers can not ensure that their student...

                  This week we discussed the importance of objectives and how to incorporate the A B C D formula. Objectives are needed because they describe what a child should be able to do or know in a given amount of time as a result of classroom instruction. Objectives should be student-centered, actionable, and measurable. Assessments help demonstrate if students have accurately measured the learning objectives, and if they do not coincide with each other, adjustments should be made. The  A B C D  formula is a guideline teachers should follow to ensure they create proper objectives. Objectives should contain all the  A B C D  formula elements, including A udience, B ehavior, C onditions, and D egree. A clear, effective objective should state who is being addressed, what students need to do, the circumstances they need to follow, and how teachers will check to see if students understand the content. An example o...

                                 We discussed Bloom's Taxonomy and Webb's Depth of Knowledge this week. Bloom's taxonomy is structured as a hierarchical pyramid and contains six different levels. In order, the list includes; remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, and create. The idea of this pyramid is that students start demonstrating learning by first recalling information until they can create new work. The higher you go up the pyramid, the harder the cognitive tasks become for students. However, students do become more knowledgeable about concepts after completing all six levels. Bloom's taxonomy would be a great tool to reference when planning instruction for my future classroom. I can create objectives using each level to help all my students think critically about current topics. I will be able to assess if my students understand material by having them demonstrate each step of the ...

                  I have always known the meaning of the word "documentation. " However, this week, I learned about how I, as a teacher, can document and the importance of documentation. Documentation is about creating a "portfolio" that contains children's progress. It can consist of observation notes, photos, videos, children's artwork, blogs, and more. Teachers should document to monitor student learning and ensure that they are meeting all current core standards. Documentation can also assist teachers in instructional planning by revisiting what students have already demonstrated or what areas require assistance. Families also benefit from documentation because they can visually see what their students are learning.                      There are two types of documentation that we learned about this week, which are the Conventional style and the Reggio Emilia ...

                This week we discussed observation techniques and how they should be implemented in the classroom. Observation is the foundation for all assessments and helps distinguish students' progress. There are many reasons for teachers to observe, including remembering what students can do and planning lessons that precisely fit students' educational needs.             The types of observation are running and anecdotal records, time and event sampling, checklists, and rubrics/rating scales. I believe checklists would be the easiest to implement because they are quick to make and would be a great handout for students to check if they have completed all parts of a project. I think that event sampling would be essential when it comes to a student constantly misbehaving and determining why that behavior is occurring. However, I want to include all observation techniques in my future classroom to best eval...

          In last week's lectures, we learned about assessments and their importance within the classroom. Assessments are the process of observing and recording children's work. The information from assessments should be gathered in several different ways before being interpreted. Assessment is necessary in the classroom for many reasons. They ensure students understand current material based on their grade level, aid teachers in planning instruction on subjects/areas that may need more or less demonstration for students, and communicate to families on students' progression. I also learned that all assessments are either formal or informal. Formal assessments are statistics-based data that is used to compare the performance of students and evaluate the effectiveness of a school's education. Some examples include tests and quizzes. Informal assessments are focused more on students' own performance and are useful for teacher planning when looking for student...