Reflection on my second lesson

Reflection on Apostrophes Lesson 2

Evaluation

·         2 weeks in a row girls have been late from netball.

·         The starter worked well.

·         Girls are more likely to volunteer if they get to write on the board.

·         Contraction dominoes needed more explanation.

·         Plenary worked well (post its)

·         There were lots of questions about homework, which indicated I didn’t explain it well enough (possibly put the homework on the PowerPoint Presentation).

·         I need to think about synonyms for okay.

·         I need to think about how to channel      's enthusiasm (get her hand things out).

·         What am I going to do about year 7 fuss? (I need to set tasks that don’t require, pen, pencil and ruler...)

·         I need to keep asking my students why.

·         Next lesson I need to create a seating plan.

·         For an extension I could have discussed formal and informal language.

·         I need to repeat to reinforce every time I do something for auditory learners.

·         I need to share the answers to good questions with the rest of the class.

·         ‘Good afternoon Miss Warner’ – making them repeat it more enthusiastically engaged them.

·         Collecting in the homework whilst the girls were writing down the definition of a contraction was a good use of time.

·         Getting them to say their names before they answered the question proves that I care about them.

·         Lots of small task works well, as the variety keeps the students engaged.

·         Giving the students options, gives them independence in their learning.

·         The fact that I gave them time for questions about their homework gives them no excuse not to do it.

·         I could make my PowerPoint presentations more interesting for visual learners.

 

My first lesson

On Monday 3rd October I taught my first lesson. It was to a year 7 class and it was about apostrophes. Here is my lesson plan. I have to complete one of these for every lesson that I take:

Class: 7Y1	Date: 03.10.11	Class size: 24	Subject: English
Literacy: Numeracy: ICT:		TA:
Differentiation: SEN:                                                                         G&T: No information available (NIA)
EAL: NIA		IEP: NIA
Learning Objective: To be able to use the punctuation mark an apostrophe.
Progression from previous lesson: NIA
Minutes: 2 Starter: What punctuation sign is this? ‘What about when I do this? ‘s or s’
Minutes: 5 Introduction: Apostrophe – possession: when something belongs to someone.Work through three examples together. Work through two examples as a class – think, pair share.
Minutes: 10 Main: Exceptions to the rule – when a word ends in a s, the apostrophe goes after s.Work through three examples together. Work through two examples as a class – think, pair share. When there is more than one of something or a group of people the apostrophe goes after the s. Work through three examples together. Work through two examples as a class – think, pair share. Try these 10 on your own. Pass your books three students to the left and mark the work – peer assessment.
Minutes: 5 Plenary: WWW and EBI.
Materials/resources: Powerpoint Presentation  and extra information on the whiteboard. Homework sheet.
Extension work:		Differentiation:
Due date: 17-03-11 Homework: Complete the seven questions on the worksheet.
By the end of the lesson- All will:be able to use a possessive apostrophe when words do not end in a s. Most should: be able to use a possessive apostrophe when words do not end in s and when words do end in s. Some could: be able to use a possessive apostrophe when words do not end in s, when words do end in s, and plurally.
Evaluation: I feel the lesson went well although I struggled to be enthusiastic about the subject! To overcome this my next lesson with this class is on contractions and we will be playing lots of fun games. My mentor gave me lots of positive feedback including about my presentation skills, which I felt was something I needed to work on. However, I let myself down by not taking the time to explain the answer to a question I was asked by a student.
Implications for my teaching: Positive feedback from my mentor and from the students. I am pleased with my presentation skills at this point but feel I need to include more varied and exciting activities to keep myself and my students enthusiastic. I need to work on my explanations when I am asked a question.

Here is the PowerPoint presentation that I used:

Here is the homework sheet:

Apostrophes                                                                      Name:

When something belongs to someone or something, there should be an apostrophe before the s.

For example:

This is Peter’s book.

When something belongs to someone or something, and there name or the object ends in s, the apostrophe should come after the s.

For example:

This is James’ book.

When something belongs to someone or something, and there is more than one of them, the apostrophe should come after the s.

For example:

Newlands Girls’ School.

Using these rules complete the exercise:

1.       This is Gavins bag.                                            5. This is the cats dinner.

2.       Where is Lewis phone?                                 6. Where is Dennis dog?

3.       Windsor Girls School.                                     7. Where is todays paper?

4.       These are the students books.

Here is my reflection upon the lesson:

Reflection on apostrophe lesson – 3.10.11

What could/did you do to differentiate or extend?

Did – I left the most challenging questions till last and I ask a student to give me the reason for her answer.

Could – To differentiate for the lower ability learners and auditory learners I could repeat the rules to reinforce the learning and repeat why something is the way it is. This could also be applied when students are writing down rules for a checklist. I could also ask more students to give me reasons for their answers in order to model to the rest of the group how I want my questions answered (higher order thinking skills). I needed to be clearer when one student asked me, do I need to stick the worksheet in.

Good points:

·         Thinking time, whilst I was waiting for the late girls to settle worked well.

·       Repeating put your pens down when you’ve finished worked well and gave me a clear indication of when to move on.

·         Getting the students to write on the board worked well as it encouraged a lot of volunteers.

·         I feel I used praise effectively.

·        I emphasised the today’s example, as I felt it was the most difficult example to get to grips with, but I should have done that for all examples.

·        

Things to improve on:

·         I needed to repeat the concept of ownership in order to consolidate learning.

·         Next time interact more with the PowerPoint presentation.

·       When a student asked ‘shall I stick the sheet in?’ I answered eventually, but this was not a full enough answer.

Reflection on Group Work

These are the different types of group work I've witnessed whilst observing:

1) Rainbowing

Students work in groups of 4 and discuss a problem or task.  Each group member has a colour or number (could use coloured laminated cards).  Only four colours or numbers are used.  After discussion new groups are formed getting together students with the same colour or number.  This means that in a class of 28, new groups of 7 members are formed and the findings or ideas from each group of 4 can be shared. Pupils can then return to their original groups of 4 armed with new ideas.   You could of course begin with 4 groups of 7, each with a colour of the rainbow and then form smaller groups of 4 in the same way.

2) Jigsawing

A class is split into jigsaw groups of 5/6. Assign each student in a group to learn one segment of the task, making sure students have direct access only to their own segment. Give students time to read over their segment at least twice and become familiar with it. Form temporary 'expert groups' by having one student from each jigsaw group join other students assigned to the same segment. Give students in these expert groups time to discuss and summarise the main points of their segments. Students return to their jigsaw groups to present their segment.

3) Snowballing

Paired work combines, after initial discussion, to become work in groups of 4. The groups of 4 then share ideas with other groups of 4 or become a group of 8.

4) Envoying/Experting

Start with groups of 4/5. Each group works together to become 'expert' in a particular area of the task (Each group has a different area to work on). One person (an envoy) from a group moves to another group to share their expertise and teach the new group. Notes or jottings should be taken with the envoy.

5) Listening Quads

In groups of four, one student takes the role of speaker and explains a key idea from the lesson, without interruption. Afterwards the listeners can ask for clarification or correct misconceptions. This is a good pre-plenary activity to allow students to clarify their understanding before you ask them probing questions.

6) Rotating Trios

Students start in trios, with the groups arranged in a large circle or square formation. Give the students a question and suggest that each person take a turn answering. After a suitable time period, ask the trios to assign a 0, 1, or 2 to each of its members. Then direct the #1s to rotate one trio clockwise, the #2s to rotate two trios clockwise, and the #0s to remain in the same place; the result will be completely new trios. Now introduce a new, slightly more difficult question. Rotate trios and introduce new questions as many times as you would like.

7) Think, pair, share

The teacher asks a question and then gives students the opportunity to think about the answer. Then the student discusses their answers with another student. The student has then had the chance to think about their answer, discuss it with another student for reassurance, preparing them to share their answer with the rest of the class.

8) Fishbowl

This method involves one group observing another group. The first group forms a circle and either discusses an issue or topic, does a role play, or performs a brief drama. The second group forms a circle around the inner group. Depending on the inner group’s task and the context of your course, the outer group can look for themes, patterns, soundness of argument, etc., in the inner group’s discussion, analyze the inner group’s functioning as a group, or simply watch and comment on the role play. Debrief with both groups at the end in a plenary to capture their experiences.

RBWM training week 4

On 29th September in our central training session we looked at Assessment for Learning (AFL). AFL is the governments educational buzzword at the moment and it's something I had to write about in my first assignment. We started off by identifying types of assessment and discussed the difference between summative and formative assessment. In conclusion we defined summative assessment as assessment of learning (in other words exams) and formative assessment is assessment for learning (in class assessment). We then discussed the pros and cons of each concluding that formative assessment is far superior.

Effective dialogue:
fat questions - questions that require more than a five word answer.
skinny questions - questions that require five or less word answers.
We should aim to ask fat questions all of the time.
Things to think about:
why do you think children put up their hands? (these are answers that children said - I know the answer, I want the teacher to notice me and think I'm clever, I want to make my friends think I'm clever...)
why don't you think children put up their hands? (these are answers that children said - I don't know the answer, I never get it right anyway, I might get the answer wrong and look stupid...)
Ways to check a student's understanding - traffic light system: red - I don't understand, yellow - I sort of understanding, green - I understand.
We then discussed questions for remembering, understanding, applying, analysing, evaluating and creating.

Effective feedback:
Students learn better if the lesson is objective led.
WALTs (We Are Learning Today)
WILFs (What I'm Looking For)
WII FM (What's In It For Me)

The ultimate aim - Peer and Self assessment

Effective use of curricular target