Amanda Dlugi

ED321- Self-Assessment on Lesson 3

Uploaded November 23, 2012

ED 321 Self-Assessment (Lesson 3)

Planning and Preparation (AEA: Conceptualization, DiagnosisWTS: 1,7DISP: Respect Responsibility)

When preparing this lesson, I knew it would not be challenging for me to
determine the standards and objectives I would want the students to have the opportunity
to accomplish by the end of my third lesson on November 15, 2012. The main reason for
this would be because the following day, the students would be taking their unit test on
cells, so I knew for sure I wanted to provide the students with some time in class to
prepare and have an overview of the material which they would be expected to recall for
their assessment the previous day. When planning out this lesson, I was most interested,
as I am with every lesson, in preparing an in class review of the material the students had
be exposed to all quarter, with an engaging exercise to really get them to get excited
about the accomplishments that they have made and been working toward throughout the
quarter, as well as to provide the students with a great experience to practice the material
hands on one last time. After my cooperating teacher provided me with a copy of the
students assessment, I was able to achieve a good understanding of the material that was
essential for the students to be prepared on the previous day, so I was able to develop a
review game based off of the main focuses for the students throughout the cell unit. The
review game I developed and modified for the 7th graders was called, Trashquetball,
which was a review game that my previous cooperating teacher had used to prepare his
students for an assessment. The level of engagement and excitement of the students to
play this game, even mentioned days in advance to my previous cooperating teachers

Amanda Dlugi
ED321- Self-Assessment on Lesson 3
Uploaded November 23, 2012
students was through the roof, so I really was excited and thankful to have been giving
the opportunity of my current cooperating teacher to be able to practice this review game
within my own instruction. Overall, the main objective I had for the students was to be
able to practice and apply the material they have been learning all quarter to a review
game to prepare for their assessment the following day, and also, this would be a great
way for me to assess the understanding and effort of the teams of the students within
the classroom. I was able to determine the corresponding Wisconsin Common Core
Standards because of the focus on the cell unit in science.

Classroom Environment (AEA: Coordination, Integrative InteractionWTS: 2,3,5DISP: Respect,

Responsibility)

Because of the fact that my third lesson was going to be a review game, I had
prepared myself for a high level of excitement, competition, engagement during in the
review game, which I was more than pleased to be able to prepare and hope for within the
classroom. However, I knew that I needed to develop ideas of ways to address discipline
within the classroom during this lesson to be implemented equally within all four of my
cooperating teachers classes that I would be facilitating that day. Prior to beginning the
review game, directions for the game as well as rules were directly stated to the students,
as well as consequences that would follow if students did not respect the rules of the
game: penalties, such as in every game or sport which follows acts of disrespect. After
checking for clarifications of all of the rules, and the game began, students that did not
follow the rules would have a point deducted from their score. This aspect of my lesson
was most challenging for me to address because it was difficult for me to determine

Amanda Dlugi
ED321- Self-Assessment on Lesson 3
Uploaded November 23, 2012
which group was being disrespectful while trying to monitor all of the students at once
during the game because of how excited the classroom was, and how to take points away
from the team in a way that would not eliminate review time. Because of the difficulty to
determine which group was being disrespectful, I would quick announce to the students,
Do we want penalties, and any team that continued to display visible disrespect to other
classmates or myself, I would them be able to determine who to apply penalties too.

Instruction (AEA: Communication, Coordination, Diagnosis, Integrative InteractionWTS: 2,3,4,5,6,7DISP:

Respect Responsibility),

Assessment (AEA: Diagnosis, Integrative InteractionWTS: 8,9DISP: Respect,

Reflection), Professional

Responsibilities (AEA: Communication, Integrative InteractionWTS: 10DISP:

Collaboration, Communication)

Overall, this was my favorite lesson that I have had the opportunity to teach this
semester thus far because of how strongly my lesson was able to impact student learning.
To be able to watch the students become so engaged in the material and in their
understanding of the material is seriously one of the most rewarding experiences as a
future educator. I really believed that Trashquetball was a great success in providing
the students with time for practice with the material they have been learning thus far, as
well as prepare in an environment where they would be expected to individually
demonstrate this material the following day. An additional aspect of this lesson that
reflects student learning that I am most proud of occurred even after my instruction of all
four of my cooperating teachers four classes. The students have a provided resource

Amanda Dlugi
ED321- Self-Assessment on Lesson 3
Uploaded November 23, 2012
hour to attend at the end of the day, which can not only serve as a study hall, but also, if
students are struggling in a particular subject area, they will be placed in that resource
classroom to be able to have the opportunity to work one-on-one with their instructor on
the material in order to gain a better understanding of it. For students that do not express
an area of struggle, they have the privilege of choosing which resource hour they would
like to go into to work on a specific subject area. I was beyond pleased that I had
received at least 20 students to come back into my cooperating teachers resource hour to
practice and prepare more for their assessment the following day and play more
Trashquetball. The level of engagement was astounding, as well as the level of student
learning was prominent throughout the day.

Though the review game itself served as a great assessment piece in order to
determine student understanding as well as student effort among the teams of students
throughout the day, I also was able to include an exit ticket as an assessment piece at the
end of the class period which I believe was a great method to gain a direct understanding
of student learning, and if the objective of the day was met. On the exit ticket, I had
asked students to be completely honest and write down a number on a scale of 1 to 5 on
the level which they felt how prepared they were for their assessment the following day.
It was extremely beneficial for me to be able to observe the level of confidence and
understanding among each student individually.

There were few difficulties that were posed during my third lesson, one of which I
mentioned briefly above. I spoke above of a difficulty that occurred in the discipline of

Amanda Dlugi
ED321- Self-Assessment on Lesson 3
Uploaded November 23, 2012
classroom management during my lesson. Although students were directly given
directions and rules to follow by, it was difficult for me to be able to constantly
implement these rules in a fair way for all students in the classroom, and determining
penalties for teams not following the rules posed a great challenge for me because of
how difficult it was for me to observe the actions of each individual student at once. A
way I would go about changing this would be to actually begin to remove points without
acknowledging the classroom that I am doing it in order to try to vary my approach of
discipline, rather to solely depend on verbal cues to address misbehavior. I also I tried to
ask if my cooperating teacher would serve as a referee to determine which group of
students were not complying to the rules, however, my cooperating teacher wanted to me
to able to have the experience of managing a classroom myself, without any assistance,
and how I would handle this situation myself in my own classroom one day. A change
that I had made that saved a lot of time that my cooperating teacher suggested was to
have the students record their own scores, rather than me having to write them down each
time they scored a point. I really look forward to better developing techniques to use
within my own classroom one day to address classroom management in a more efficient
way during review games, as well as direct instruction lessons.
A second difficulty that I faced during my first hour of facilitating the review
game was that it was picture day for the different student groups and sports. It became
overwhelming because students began to leave when called down to get their pictures
taken as rules and directions were being implemented, so students would come back
confused, and I would immediately have to briefly stop the game to place them quickly
on to a team, as well as explain directions swiftly depending on the amount of students

Amanda Dlugi
ED321- Self-Assessment on Lesson 3
Uploaded November 23, 2012
that would appear back into the classroom at once. Though my cooperating teacher gave
me positive verbal feedback that unexpected experiences happen during teaching, and
that I handled the situation extremely well, I felt an immense amount of guilt that the first
hour class may not have received as good of a review as the other three classes had later
in the day because pictures were finished. Overall, I was thankful for the time I was
given to work with the students in the first hour, and I hoped that the small amount of
time I had to work with them that they had walked away with at least a few
understandings, and to know to study for their assessment the following day.
Overall, I was very happy to have been able to monitor the students understanding
throughout the review game, as well as be able to distribute an exit ticket to determine the
levels of which students personally felt that they were at on a scale of 1 to 5 on how well
they were prepared for the test the following day. This was great to be able to pre-assess
the students before the following day in order to make sure to mention that regardless of
the level you feel you are at, that it is extremely important to study.

Professional Responsibilities (AEA: Communication, Integrative InteractionWTS: 10DISP:

Collaboration, Communication)

Though my supervisor was able to observe this lesson, the feedback which she
provided to me was not able to be used in order to prepare this lesson in particular;
however, I believe it will be extremely helpful in preparing for future instruction.
I was able to develop this lesson myself based on an experience I had with my
previous cooperating teacher, however, my current cooperating teacher provided me with
effective feedback in planning toward several aspects of the review game such as what

Amanda Dlugi
ED321- Self-Assessment on Lesson 3
Uploaded November 23, 2012
material she wanted me to focus on, and also how she felt about discipline throughout the
lesson. This feedback was helpful throughout the course of the day.