Week 6 Reflection

 

                  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 students understand those core state standards. 

               

                We also discussed the idea of backward design and how it works. The first step of this design is to recognize what you want your students to know/remember at the end of a lesson. From there, you then create appropriate assessments and finally plan instruction. By working backward, you can ensure that students finish the year with an understanding of what is most important for them to learn.

                 Lastly, I had the chance to create an objective based on a standard in a small group. My group received a second-grade standard about locating information in the text. Using the ABCD formula, we came up with the following example in the picture below. This was a great activity that helped me feel more confident about writing objectives. I noticed how easy it was for me to write them, and I am no longer worried about writing them in the future.