1a: Demonstrating Knowledge of Content and Pedagogy
Madison Kubik
November 27, 2018
Leading Reading Range Discussion
Every morning when the students come in to the classroom, they work on an activity called reading range. Around the room, there are twenty cards that have activities or questions for them to complete. All the cards are based off of ELA skills the students should have had experience with. My cooperating teacher asked me to lead discussing the answers to the reading range every day. There is no lesson plan for this activity because it is a quick 5-minute activity all based off of content knowledge. My cooperating teacher didn’t provide me with an answer key, so I had to find the answers myself. The content knowledge I possess allowed me to answer and discuss the answers freely and correctly. The students had an understanding that I knew the information I was talking about and I was confident in knowing that the information I was sharing was correct. Throughout my 12 weeks, I saw major growth in the student’s abilities to identify the different ELA skills.
1b: Demonstrating Knowledge of Students
1d: Demonstrating Knowledge of Resources
Madison Kubik
Pinterest Project Captions
Reading in the Content Areas
- 15+ Inspiring Science Picture Books: 20+ books to spark the interest of young scientists. This list is divided into the different sciences to help narrow the list into sections. These books can used for lessons or to create variety in your classroom library.
- Common Core Social Studies Texts: This artifact is a great resource to find high-quality nonfiction social studies authors and books. This list includes 10 authors and examples of their work. There are books and authors listed for all grade levels.
- How Did You Grow as a Mathematician Today? This list would be a great poster to hang around the classroom and used for daily use. These steps allow students to incorporate math and ELA by having the students write how they grew as a mathematician every day.
- 7 Ways to Support Student Writing in Any Content Area: This list emphasizes the importance of writing but also rewriting. It lists simple steps to help support and encourage writing in the classroom. It also gives a description of the steps and why they are important.
- Alphaboxes, Content Area Strategy: This resource would be very beneficial to teachers because it allows them to activate a student’s prior knowledge of a subject. This resource could be used for all subjects too. It lists what teachers can do with this strategy before, during, and after instruction and what teachers can do to extend a student’s learning.
Spelling
- Spelling Contracts for the Entire Year: Although this resource costs $5.00. It gives three examples of different contracts to be used for different months in the classroom. Provided in these contracts are five-point activities and ten-point activities meaning those activities are worth different amounts of homework points. This resource gives many different examples and descriptions of these activities to allow you to incorporate a variety of spelling practice.
- Scribble Spelling/Word Work Activities: This resource shows 18 different word work activities including pictures and descriptions. These activities would be great to create a variety in the classroom and also promote spelling practice.
- Great Apps for Spelling Practice: This list of apps available in the app store gives teachers 17 different apps to promote spelling. All apps are free, and they all focus on writing the spelling words. Students can work on these apps in the classroom or at home.
- My garden of Spelling Strategies: This resource from teacherspayteachers.com is great for creating spelling folders. Included in this file are a spelling strategies page, list of strategies for educators, words I know template for students, spelling strategies check page for teachers, and student self-evaluation forms. If you don’t want to purchase this file, it gives an example of the spelling strategies page intended for students that you can use ideas from.
- 5 Things Struggling Spellers Need: This list helps educators focus their teachers on what to do if they have struggling spellers. This list states the importance of spelling and why we should help those who are spelling. Each need is carefully stated and a description of what is needed is provided. There are pictures and links to further explain these needs.
Comprehension
- Comprehension Ideas for the Special Education Classroom: This resource lists for strategies to incorporate in the special education classroom. Each example is shown using visualize and links for further understanding.
- Assessing Comprehension Without Making Students Hate Reading: This resource from readingandwritinghaven.com provides educators with several ways to assess reading comprehension. Students may feel pressure when they know they are being assessed on their reading but this list displays strategies to take this pressure away. Each strategy is thoroughly described and shows the importance of incorporating them in the classroom.
- Autism and Reading Comprehension: This article is a great resource for special educators and general educators. 9 tips to help children with Autism are provided in this article. Not only are there tips for teachers, but also things parents can practice at home. Along with the 9 thoroughly described tips, this resource states 7 things to consider when working with children with Autism. Lastly, 10 activities you can use with children who have Autism are provided and described using links and other resources.
- Guided Reading Beach Ball: This activity would be a great resource to use when reviewing comprehension of a text read in class. Whether it’s as a whole group or small group activity, children would have the opportunity to have fun while learning. This beach ball has printed sentence starters that can lead in to a discussion about a text. As a teacher, this resource can be used as an informal assessment tool. When you click on the link, it describes how you can make the beach balls yourself, so it is cost efficient too.
- 50+ Books for Modeling Comprehension Strategies: This article stresses the importance of modeling reading comprehension for your students and provides links on how to teach comprehension and different books used to practice comprehension. The books that the author discusses are ones she believes are written in ways questions and predictions will come natural to students. There are over 50 books listed and described.
- Close Reading List: This poster identifies what students should do after 5 readings of a text. Each time you read a text, the poster asks you to focus on a different part of a skill. Rereading a text will help students comprehend a text better. This poster could hang in your classroom and be used as a resource for students to reference.
Vocabulary
- Tools for Building Vocabulary: This article can be used to find tools for vocabulary practice. Included are games, worksheets, and multimedia tools all used to promote vocabulary instruction. Within the article, links for the different tools are provided.
- Teaching Vocabulary to Gifted and Advanced Learners: This article stresses the importance of building new vocabulary for all learners. It shares effective strategies for introducing new words and gives descriptions of how you can use them. Then, the article address, the gifted component and introduces new strategies that can benefit advanced students. There are also graphic organizers attached for students to keep track of their vocabulary words.
- 10 Do’s and Don’ts for Effective Vocabulary Instruction: This list describes 10 steps you should do as a teacher to help students develop a strong vocabulary. It also lists 10 steps you shouldn’t do with students when teaching students vocabulary. This list does a great job of linking vocabulary to other ELA concepts and shares the importance of having a strong vocabulary.
- Vocabulary Words Comic Strips Style: This resource lists 100+ vocabulary words you can use for your students. It lists authors and the books they created with even more words. There are also free printables for students to create their vocabulary comic strips. This resource is a great tool to use when introducing vocabulary and their definitions.
- 15 Strategies go Ramp up your Vocabulary Instruction: These strategies will help students become more engaged with learning their vocabulary words. Each strategy is described, and resources are listed. This resource is geared towards upper elementary/middle level, but the strategies can be adapted for all grade levels.
Fluency
- Fluency Flipbook: This website goes into great detail of a fluency flipbook and how it can be used in the classroom. It provides a video on how to assemble your flipbook and you can get a free download of the flipbook by signing up to the website by email. The flipbook emphasizes fluency, pace, phrasing, expression, punctuation, and accuracy and describes each one.
- Fluency Task Cards: This blog gives ideas on how to use fluency cards in the classroom. There are two different ways to monitor fluency. One way is by partnering up and having your partner test your fluency. The other suggests incorporating it at a center. Both help students monitor their fluency.
- What is Fluency?: This handout defines fluency and describes the different aspects of it. This would be a great resource for teachers and students. Students can benefit from referencing this sheet when they are having trouble with fluency.
- Decoding Drills for Fluency: This resource from a teachable teacher shows the importance of decoding, the purpose for decoding drills, and how decoding drills link to fluency. This resource is great for teachers who want to help their students with fluency and decoding.
- Fluency Self-Evaluation: This resource is great if you have a 1:1 school. It lists two different resources. In a 1:1 school, this resource provides an app where your students can record themselves and listen as they fill out the self-evaluation sheet. If your school doesn’t have 1:1, this resource lists other ways you could use the self-evaluation sheet. It is a great way for students to be involved in their own learning.
1e: Designing Coherent Instruction
Madison Kubik
Dr. Frick
ED365
Mini Unit
The learning objectives I chose tie closely with the state standards. The standard used in the first lesson states: students will be able to identify and explain behaviors for responsible classroom citizens and consequences for inappropriate actions. This lesson objective expresses the importance of classroom citizens and the understanding of consequences when people don’t follow rules. Learning the importance of rules is relative to students because they need to follow rules at school and at home.
The next lesson had two learning objectives. The first one is saying, students will be able to describe a good citizen. It will be important for students to be able to describe a good citizen, so they realize that they could be good citizens in school and the community. It will promote a positive classroom environment and create good citizens within the community. The next lesson objective states that students will be able to describe how citizens participate in school and community activities. Not only should students want to be good citizens by having the correct character traits, but they should be able to participate in school and the community.
Lastly, lesson three discusses the purpose of elections. Students will be able to explain the purpose of elections. Since the students will understand how good citizens participate in their community, they know that good citizens vote. Explaining the purpose for elections will further student’s knowledge of why they should vote. Students will also be asked to create a poster on why they should be elected. This learning objective will make students use their critical thinking and persuasive writing skills.
Teacher: Madison Kubik
Topic: Civics and Government/Citizenship Unit
Grade level: 3rd grade
Length of time for lesson: 30 minutes
Date: November 19, 2018
Relevant academic standards
- 5.1.3.A. Explain the purposes of rules, laws, and consequences.
- 5.1.3.B. Explain rules and laws for the classroom, school, and community.
Lesson objectives
- Students will be able to identify and explain behaviors for responsible classroom citizens and consequences for inappropriate actions.
Essential question
- How will creating a list of rules help me become a better individual in the classroom, school, or community?
Materials
- Poster board
- Index cards
- Dice
- Ticket out the door
Accommodations
- Allow students to type on their iPads instead of taking notes.
Management
- Use an attention grabber at the beginning of the lesson.
- Keep students engaged by including students throughout the lesson.
- Use proximity or stating students’ names to re-grab their attention.
- Reminding students to look at the board.
- Ensuring students are on task if working with partners.
- Ensuring students are not talking to their peers if work is to be done independently.
- Grouping will be determined by where students are sitting, make sure no one is at a table alone.
Lesson procedure
Preparation/hook (5 minutes)
- Have students close their eyes. If you could create your own community what would it look like? Are you the leader? How will you get people to follow and respect you? How will you control your community?
- Have students to share their ideas with a neighbor.
- Ask for 5 students to share their answers.
- Connect ideas to creating a set of rules.
Development of concept (10-15 minutes)
- Create a list of classroom rules with class.
- Take 10 rules and write on the poster board.
- After creating the list. Discuss the importance of rules. Why are rules important in school and the community? What happens when someone breaks a rule? What is a consequence? What would be a consequence if someone broke the law?
- Write all the ideas on the whiteboard.
Learning activity (10-15 minutes)
- Put students in groups of four.
- Give the students 15 index cards and a pair of dice.
- Give the students 10-15minutes to create and play a game that uses the index cards and the dice.
- Each team/group will explain the game invented, including the rules.
- Discuss the importance of rules in the game and relate it to real life.
Closure
- I care why? ticket out the door: students write and explain relevancy of rules to their life or how they would use rules in their lives.
Sources
Teacher: Madison Kubik
Topic: Civics and Government/Citizenship Unit
Grade level: 3rd grade
Length of time for lesson: 30 minutes
Date: November 20, 2018
Relevant academic standards
- 5.2.3.D. Describe how citizens participate in school and community activities.
Lesson objectives
- Students will be able to describe a good citizen.
- Students will be able to describe how citizens participate in school and community activities.
Essential question
- How will learning about good citizens make me a good citizen?
Materials
- Journal
- YouTube video
- Citizens skill worksheet
- Pencils
- iPads for Kahoot
Accommodations
- Read students Kahoot questions out loud.
- Allow students to watch YouTube video on their own iPad.
Management
- Use an attention grabber at the beginning of the lesson.
- Keep students engaged by including students throughout the lesson.
- Use proximity or stating students’ names to re-grab their attention.
- Reminding students to look at the board.
- Ensuring students are on task if working with partners.
- Ensuring students are not talking to their peers if work is to be done independently.
- Grouping will be determined by where students are sitting, make sure no one is at a table alone.
Lesson procedure
Preparation/hook (5 minutes)
- Journal Entry Response to question on the board: What is a citizen?
- Have students share their ideas with a neighbor.
Development of concept (15 minutes)
- Watch video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKCtzuvBZPc
- Stop the video to have students figure out the answer on the worksheet displayed.
- Have students take notes during the video.
i. Examples: kind and helpful to their community, polite, sharing, keeping communities clean, follow laws.
- “Can you think of any other ways to be a good citizen?”
- List the ideas students come up with and add the ones from the video.
- “We discussed what makes a good citizen but, how can citizens participate in school and community?”
- Examples: pick up litter, help others, take care of the school and community, and VOTING (express the importance of voting)
Learning activity
- Citizens skills worksheet
Closure and Assessment
Sources
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKCtzuvBZPc
- https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Citizenship-Skills-Worksheet-648580
- https://play.kahoot.it/#/k/e63dbc34-b076-4c0c-baae-af73d6445464
Teacher: Madison Kubik
Topic: Civics and Government/Citizenship Unit
Grade level: 3rd grade
Length of time for lesson: 30 minutes
Date: November 21, 2018
Relevant academic standards
- 5.3.3.G. Identify individual interests and explain ways to influence others.
- 5.3.3.E. Explain the purpose for elections.
Lesson objectives
- Students will be able to explain the purpose of elections.
- Students will be able to create a poster on why they should be elected.
Essential question
- What are qualities that make a good president?
Materials
- So You Want to Be President by Judith St. George book.
- Microsoft word to create pamphlets.
- Graphic organizer for campaign project.
Accommodations
- Have students listen to book on their iPad.
- Give students individual KWL charts.
- Give students graphic organizer while reading the book.
Management
- Use an attention grabber at the beginning of the lesson.
- Keep students engaged by including students throughout the lesson.
- Use proximity or stating students’ names to re-grab their attention.
- Reminding students to look at the board.
- Ensuring students are on task if working with partners.
- Ensuring students are not talking to their peers if work is to be done independently.
- Grouping will be determined by where students are sitting, make sure no one is at a table alone.
Lesson procedure
Preparation/hook (5 minutes)
- KWL chart: what do you know about elections? What do you wonder about elections?
- Leave the learned section blank and come back to it.
- Remind students that good citizens vote.
Development of concept (10 minutes)
- Read: So You Want to Be President by Judith St. George book.
- Have students take notes of the good qualities that the best presidents have.
- Go back to the KWL chart after reading the story.
Learning activity (15 minutes)
- Students will begin to fill out a graphic organizer to create their own campaign.
- What qualities do you have that would make you a good candidate?
- What is your purpose for running in the election?
- What law(s) would you want to change?
- What law(s) would you want to add?
- Why should people vote for you?
Closure
- Explain that the students will present the graphic organizer the next day and the class will vote.
Sources
What qualities do you have that would make you a good candidate?
| What is your purpose for running in the election?
__________________________________________ |
What law(s) would you want to change?
| What law(s) would you want to add?
|
Why should people vote for you?
|
Integrated with other subjects
Integration is a very important skill that all teachers should participate in. Some schools do not allow time every day for all subject areas. This unit can be integrated in many different ways. Each lesson can be used in different subject areas in different ways.
Students will help create a list of rules to be used in their classroom. Although we are creating a list of rules in social studies, these rules do not have to be guided towards social studies only. Students can make the lists relevant to all subjects. Another way it could be integrated is students could use math when creating their group game. Leaving the task open-ended could allow students to be creative and use other subject when creating the game.
In the second lesson, the students start off by journaling which integrates ELA. Students will practice writing a response to a prompt and can journal in any way they want. The importance is to practice writing in complete sentences while discussing a social studies concept. Another way this lesson could be integrated in when the video describes a good citizen. One of the examples on how to be a good citizen, states that a good citizen would pick up litter. This could relate this lesson to science. Actually, having the students go outside and participate in being a good citizen by picking up any trash they see on the ground would incorporate science.
In the last lesson, the teacher will be reading a book to introduce the key concepts of this lesson. Students don’t realize that reading can be incorporated in all subjects. Reading a book in social studies may inspire other students to pick up a historical fiction book. The students will also use a graphic organizer to take notes and summarize their ideas. Lastly, by creating a poster, students are integrated social studies with art.
Technology Within the Lesson
With technology becoming more popular in schools, it is extremely important for students to be exposed to it. In the first lesson, one of the accommodations was to allow students to take notes using their iPads. Some students may find using their ideas to be easier and quicker than writing. In the second lesson, the students watch a YouTube video, integrating technology. YouTube is a great resource to find informational videos to teach content in a different way. Lastly, the students will be completing a Kahoot which allows them to use their individual technology to participate in learning. Using various technology resources will enhance students learning by making it more individualized and active.
1f: Designing Student Assessment