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2. 0 Contextual Information A. I am in a Montessori classroom. We have students ranging in age from three to six. In our classroom we have different areas. These areas include: math, language, cultural (social studies), science, practical life, and sensorial. We have a total of 29 students. 11 of these are all day students (5 year olds), 9 in the morning (3 and 4 year olds), and 9 in the afternoon (3 and 4 year olds). I have no students who have special needs. We follow the Montessori Method in our classroom. By following this method, each student learns on an individual basis and lessons are given to individuals. B. In our classroom, all students develop at a different rate and we have to keep in mind that we have 3, 4, 5 year old students. In the Montessori classroom the physical, social, behavioral, and developmental factors do not affect instruction because each student is taught on an individual basis. With that being the case, accommodations are made for students based on their individual need. There are no linguistic, cultural, or health considerations that impact teaching and learning in our classroom. C. Most students in our school come from low socioeconomic homes; therefore, they do not have access to a lot of resources at home.
With this being a multi-day lesson, I chose to pre-assess the students based on previous works. Each student has at least 2 writing samples from each week. It is easy to look back in their folders to see how well their writing is progressing. For the assessment during the lesson, I chose to just take a look at students work while they were doing it. This gave me the opportunity to redirect if needed or answer questions. For the post-assessment, each child was dealt with on an individual basis; therefore, every students needs were met to best fit them. C. Attached here is the rubric. I chose to use a writing checklist as my rubric. I sat down with children and filled out a rubric with each of them. It was very child friendly. You could either receive a or a for each category. There were 10 different categories. D. By using this assessment process, I plan to look at each students 3-part-story to see if they correctly completed the assignment. This will be done with the use of the rubric and past works. Using the Montessori method, each student works at individual pace. With this being the case, it is acceptable to assess each child based on where they are with their own work. 2.1.2 Preparing Learners for the Assessment A. The instructional strategy that was used as part of my assessment was the rough draft of the 3part story. I chose this as the instructional strategy because students could compare each page of their story to the 3 planning boxes on the planning sheet to each page. This gives students the opportunity to make sure their story is in the right order before creating a final draft. B. The learning activities I used for this lesson were to ask students what they were going to write about as a whole class. Each student got a chance to tell me what he or she wanted to write about. This gave the class a chance to hear what their friends were writing about so that our stories would not all be so similar. There were no groupings for this lesson because each students story was done individually. C. In this lesson, the ending product was the assessment. With this being the case, all materials throughout the lesson were used in the final assessment. The materials used throughout the lessons were: Smart Board, (1) Planning sheet, pencils, (6) pages (a paper with 4 lines for writing and a box for the illustration 3 for rough draft, 3 for final), (1) piece of copy paper for the front cover, crayons, colored pencils, markers, and a stapler. 2.1.3 The Two Focus Students A. Focus Student 1 far exceeds the expectations in writing of what is expected of a kindergarten student. This student becomes bored easily and finishes the assignments very quickly. Focus Student 2 is a low writer. This student needs extra help and cannot correctly freely write on lines. B. For Focus Student 1, I let them complete the pages as they wished. Once they had completed the pages, I asked them questions about what they had written and how could more detail be added to their writing. Focus Student 1 wrote longer pages with more detail on the final draft than other students in the class. I asked this student to do this because they constantly make statements such as: This is too easy. I want to do something harder. or This is baby work. After asking this student to add more details in their story and picture. It took them a little longer to complete the assignment and they were happy. For Focus Student 2, I asked him to tell
me what he wanted to write. After telling me, I put blanks for each individual word. This helped him stay on task as well as knowing how to space his words on the paper. On his final draft, the lines for each word were given to him on the pages as well as the title page.
A. For Focus Student 1, I learned that this student needed to be asked to write more complex stories. This student had no difficulty with the assignment. Focus Student 1 exceeded expectations for the assignment. For focus student 2, I learned that by giving the extra help of writing the blanks for his words, he could then complete the assignment successfully. Focus Student 1 better understood how to create a 3-part story with a little extra help. B. From my observations, my modifications tremendously helped focus student 2 by helping him construct his 3-part story and correctly space his words. By him telling me what he was going to write before actually sitting down to write helped him to think before writing. From my observations, focus student 1 was much more interested in the writing when it had a little more difficulty than the original assignment C. I feel that my instructional strategies (the planning sheet) helped students to learn by making them think the entire story through before beginning to write. This also helped students to remember their story since this was a multi day lesson. As I looked at the planning sheets, I saw that this assignment needed to be modified for focus student 1. I modified the lesson for this student by asking for more sentences and more details. After focus student 2 completed the first planning sheet without blanks, I saw that this student needed help correctly spacing his words as well as thinking about what he was going to write out loud. After making this accommodation, the student successfully completed the assignment. D. For Focus Student 1, I let them complete the pages as they wished. Once they had completed the pages, I asked them questions about what they had written and how could more detail be added to their writing. After asking this student to add more details in their story and picture, the assignment was more appropriate for their writing level. For Focus Student 2, I asked him to tell me what he wanted to write. After telling me, I put blanks for each individual word. This helped him stay on task as well as knowing how to space his words on the paper. On his final draft, the lines for each word were given to him on the pages as well as the title page. I talked to focus student 2 about learning to use two finger spaces between each word he writes.
Step 3: Reflecting
2.3.1 Reflecting on the Assessment for the Whole Class A. After compiling the rubrics for the data analysis this is what I found: Our class needs to work on lowercase and capital letters. B. In the future, I think that I would have student to fill out his or her own rubric. Not only would this remind the students of what they were supposed to have done but it would give them the opportunity to change anything that they realized they had messed up on. This may help build the students confidence by correcting themselves instead of finding out they messed up on something when talking with the teacher. C. In the future I think that I would still use the smart board for my lesson but I would also develop a story that had more detail. I think that if I showed a story that had lots of detail and lots of words, the students might add even more detail to their stories. Since there was no student
grouping for the lesson this time, I may let the students pick a partner next time in order to let them learn how to give each other ideas. D. In the future, I may use a rubric for assessment that had ratings instead of and . If students got ratings instead, next time they could try and get higher ratings than the previous time. This would better demonstrate their achievement of the learning goals. 2.3.2 Reflecting on the Assessment for Each of the Two Focus Students A. For focus student 1, my data analysis informed me that this student achieved far above expectations. For focus student 2, my data analysis informed me that this student has to work on his sight words, his spacing, staying on topic, and his capital and lowercase letters; however, other students had trouble with their capital and lowercase letters as well. B. For Focus Student 1, I let them complete the pages as they wished. Once they had completed the pages, I asked them questions about what they had written and how could more detail be added to their writing. Focus Student 1 wrote longer pages with more detail on the final draft than other students in the class. Along with all of this, I would ask focus student 1 to For Focus Student 2, I asked him to tell me what he wanted to write. After telling me, I put blanks for each individual word. This helped him stay on task as well as knowing how to space his words on the paper. On his final draft, the lines for each word were given to him on the pages as well as the title page. C. In the future I think that I would still use the smart board for my lesson but I would also develop a story that had more detail. I think that if I showed a story that had lots of detail and lots of words, the students might add even more detail to their stories. Since there was no student grouping for the lesson this time, I may let the students pick a partner next time in order to let them learn how to give each other ideas. I may pair focus student 1 and focus student 2 together. With the over achievement of focus student 1 and focus student 2 needing some extra help, I think that this pair would be helpful to both students.