Comprehensive Reflection

Assessing students’ prior knowledge may change throughout each lesson that is taught and mine did when I taught my lessons. Assessing students’ prior knowledge is important when teaching. This may take the form of asking students questions, having students tell you what they know about a certain concept, and even doing a KWHL chart. This affects my future teaching experiences because it is important to know what students prior knowledge concerning a concept that way you know what to teach them.

Planning and designing instruction is vital when teaching because teachers shouldn’t “just wing it”. They should know what they are going to teach and how they will teach the concept(s) to the students. Designing instruction can take various forms including, using technology and hands on materials/activities. This affects my future teaching experiences because it is important to know what you are going to teach to your students and different ways that you are going to get the concepts across to your students.

Planning assessment and the assessment of learning are the only ways to know whether or not your students have understood your teaching and what you are presenting to them. These two elements of teaching also lets you as the teacher know how effective you were in getting the information across to the students. This affects my future teaching experiences because it is a reminder that I need to always plan for assessment and actually implement an assessment.

Instructional decisions and teaching need to have a variety of formats. For example, teaching shouldn’t always be based on verbal/linguistic formats. Teaching needs to occur through bodily/kinesthetic, logical/mathematical, and etc. Instructional decisions shouldn’t be based entirely on the teacher’s decisions, yet students should also have a choice as to what occurs during the school day. This affects my future teaching experiences because it is a reminder to vary instructional decisions and teaching itself.

Kente Cloth Reflection Part 2

In order to teach my lesson about Kente Cloth, I had to explain to my peers about the Homowo Festival. When teaching this lesson to actual students, this would be day 2 of a lesson about the Homowo Festival and students would have already learned about the festival the day before; however, I would still review the festival with the students anyway. After reading a short synopsis of the Homowo Festival to my peers, I showed them a short powerpoint presentation that described Kente Cloth and gave real life examples of what it looks like. I then asked them to describe the patterns that are in the cloth. Students would need to know what a pattern is in order to be successful in my lesson. Because my peers already knew what a pattern was, I didn’t go into too much detail explaining the patterns in the examples of the Kente Cloth. I would change this in teaching this lesson to younger students. In a math lesson we would learn about patterns, but to reinforce it more we would talk about patterns in the Kente Cloth more than what I did here. After we looked at real examples, I showed them how to create patterns in Pixie and gave them the task of creating their own Kente Cloth in Pixie using the different meanings of the colors.

My teaching aligned to the objective because students learned about Kente Cloth and its purpose in the Homowo Festival. Students were even able to create their own Kente Cloth. As for modifications, a couple students finished early. When that occurred, I asked them to explain their Kente Cloth to me and show me the patterns they created. As well, I explained to my peers that they could use the meanings of the colors in their Kente Cloth for an added challenge.

For assessment, my peers were successful in accomplishing my objective for this lesson. They were able to create their own Kente Cloth with patterns in Pixie. After teaching using Pixie, I should have explained in more detail how to create a pattern in Pixie. My explanation was brief. One of my classmates commented on the fact that I should be little more familiar with Pixie than I was, but I totally agree with her. I was successful teaching; however, I could have explained a couple more things in more detail than I did, as already discussed. Overall, my classmates thought I taught the lesson well and they said that they wouldn’t do anything different than what I had done. They liked how I had real examples of Kente Cloth in my powerpoint presentation and how I had created a teacher example using Pixie.

Kente Cloth Reflection Part 1

Assessing Prior Knowledge:

To assess students’ prior knowledge I would ask students if they knew what Kente Cloth was and what it was used for. From assessing students’ prior knowledge, I would expect to learn how much they know about Kente Cloth. This knowledge would help me to know what I need to teach to my students.

Plans Instruction:

My objective for the students is to learn about what Kente Cloth is, what it is used for, and to create their own Kente Cloth with patterns. This objective is appropriate for students because each students is capable to learn about Kente Cloth and each student can make their Kente Cloth to their own ability. Students can make their Kente Cloth as simple or as complicated as they like. This is aligned to state standards because 2^nd graders need to learn about other cultures and be able to describe elements of the culture such as food, dress, and customs.

Designing Instruction:

My lesson is logically organized. First I review with the students what the Homowo Festival is, which they learned the day before. Next, we learn about Kente Cloth, see examples of what Kente Cloth looks like, and then students get a chance to make their own Kente Cloth on the computer, using Pixie. My lesson also meets the various needs of each learner in my classroom. My powerpoint about Kente Cloth is both a visual tool and an auditory tool. I will be elaborating on each slide. Allowing students to create their own Kente Cloth appeals to students’ creative side and also gets students involved in their learning with the computer. Finally, my lesson addresses global awareness by introducing a topic related to other cultures.

Planning Assessment:

My assessment will occur informally. I will walk around the classroom making sure that students are understanding how to create their own Kente Cloth using patterns and bright colors. The creation of the Kente Cloth will show students’ understanding in a custom of a specific culture which is the standard that this lesson is meeting. Students can engage in higher order thinking by choosing which colors they want in their Kente Cloth. My informal assessment by walking around the room meets the individual needs of the students

Fall Free Verse Poem Reflection Part 2

From teaching my lesson on fall free verse poetry, I learned that I need to slow down a little when teaching. The students got done with the activities earlier than I expected. At first, we went outside for a few minutes to use our senses to think of words that described Fall. After that, we went inside and learned about how to use Kidspiration to create a web with our words that students brainstormed. Another thing we learned is Pixie and how to decorate the background of our poem. Students got to create their own free verse poem. One other thing I could have done differently is explained a free verse poem in more detail. I didn’t really explain free verse poems that well. My goals and objectives were met through the use of students completing their required tasks and teacher observation. I didn’t need to make any modifications for individuals, but if I needed to I could have.

            For assessment, I did a checklist for my students. I felt that I couldn’t grade students on how creative they were. Students were required to complete a web using Kidspiration, create a free verse poem that was at least 3 lines long, using at least 3 words from their web. Students also were asked to create a background for their poem using Pixie. I’m including a couple of examples of the students’ creations. I feel that these pieces of evidence indicates the level of success that I had teaching my lesson and my students’ level of success because the evidence pieces were done correctly. I think that because I taught college students for this particular lesson, I didn’t explain the two software programs fully. My individuals reflection is that when I teach this lesson to 2^nd graders, I will take more time to explain the two programs better. My classmates agreed with me on that point. They also thought I would need to explain what a free verse poem entails. My classmates also suggested I read a book about Fall in the beginning to introduce the lesson.

Fall Free Verse Poem Reflection Part 1

Accessing Prior Knowledge: Prior experience would have been accessed by asking students what comes to their mind when they think about the Fall season. I would also ask the students if they have had any experience with Kidspiration or Pixie. I would expect to learn about my students’ experience with technology and the season from my questions. This information would be helpful when planning, especially for the technology portion, because I could plan time to introduce the two software programs to the students so they knew how to use them.

Plans Instruction: I feel that my goals and objectives come out of the state standards. The state standard for this lesson is: Strand 1: Writing Process, Concept 1: Prewriting, Prewriting includes using strategies to generate, plan, and organize ideas for specific purposes. PO 1: Generate ideas through prewriting activities (e.g., brainstorming, webbing, drawing, writer’s notebook, group discussion). I also chose: Strand 2: Writing Components, Concept 1: Ideas and Content Writing is clear and focused, holding the reader’s attention throughout. Main ideas stand out and are developed by strong support and rich details. Purpose is accomplished. PO 1: Write stand-alone text that expresses a clear message. Using Kidspiration helps students in the pre-writing stage. I also thought that writing a poem fulfills the standard of having main ideas stand out clearly.

Designing Instruction: I feel that my lesson uses a variety of instructional methods. I allow students to go outside, think of Fall individually, and then bring them back inside to think together as a whole class. This also meets the needs of diverse learners. Technology is also integrated. My lesson doesn’t explicitly talk about safe, legal, and ethical uses of technology or digital etiquette and responsible social interactions. I feel that these are part of the hidden curriculum that students may discover as they progress through my lesson. Higher Order Thinking Skills are implemented by asking students to think about Fall and to share what comes to their minds.

Planning Assessment: My assessment tool is a checklist. This is a simple way for me to assess my students. I feel that this is the best way to assess this type of activity because when writing free verse poetry there is no right or wrong way. It wouldn’t be fair to assess students any other way. This meets the needs of the diverse learners because each student has different abilities when it comes to thinking about abstract topics such as Fall.

First Blog Post

Safe, legal, and ethical use of digital information and technology means that there are certain rules that those who use digital information and technology have to follow. Addressing these three things when it comes to using technology in lessons will enable students to trust the information/technology you provide. Using these three guidelines will also allow for mostly accurate information. Nowadays, many things on the web and even some technology is illegal and not ethically good. Knowing these things will prevent you from getting into trouble.

Digital etiquette and responsible social interactions are appropriate actions that should be performed when using technology. Digital etiquette is a set of rules on how to act online. Responsible social interactions are watching what you are saying or interpreting someone else' information as. These things should be addressed when creating technology integrated lesson plans because communication is key in real life and communication is key online as well These two things help you to communicate online properly. Without these, the information you retrieve or the technology you use may not be good sources.

Meeting diverse needs of learners through learner-centered strategies and equitable access are ways to use technology. No two students are alike these days in the world of education so adapting lesson plans using technology will help cater to the diverse needs of each learner. Equitable access means to ensure that students have equal access to technology both at school and at home. This will help students to get familiar with the technology because they will have more experience with it. More experience with the technology sometimes makes using the technology that much more easier.


Global awareness and digital-age communication are key to using technology. Being globally aware helps when planning lessons because your lesson will be more rounded and serve to teach a diverse culture. Comprehending digital-age communication enables the user to understand the information fully and to better teach the information.