Student Portfolio Analysis

Illinois Professional Educator Liecnsure Lesson Plan Portfolio Assessment
Creating lesson plans has been a learning curve, at best, in my journey to becoming a teacher. The plans chosen show a transition from my learning experiences and my expectations of the students based on development or exceptionality. My instructors and fellow colleagues I worked with were very helpful in guiding the design of these plans and also assisted in my implementation. I feel I have grown tremendously in the last year, particularly in my preparations and actions in the classroom.
Lesson Plan 1 My first lesson to analyze was a very early piece from the Spring quarter in 2016. In the course for Methods of Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment, my fieldwork was
carried out in a Kindergarten, dual immersion classroom in the heart of our urban city. This lesson wrapped up a series of four lessons intended to teach observation techniques to the students about nature and the natural processes, such as metamorphosis, habitats, survival, and plant and animal growth. The lesson was taught in English as a bridging lesson.
My host teacher familiarized the students with the basics of the science curriculum concepts intended for the grade level in Spanish being sure to cover the points I was intending in my own lessons. In meeting the needs of English Language Learners (ELL), I believe this lesson was too abstract. I wanted the lesson to be able to stand alone in case weather was not permitted to an actual outdoor walk, but with ELL students, a hands-on experience to incorporate language and sensory stimulation is a key to building the learning experience in a meaningful pattern. (Henry, Murry, and Cabral, 2013) If the weather was a factor when implementing this type of lesson, I would consider bringing in samples of nature pieces and have exploration stations for students to observe and discover a variety of characteristics of nature. The stations would include items from around the school- tree nuts, flowers, pine cones, etc.; furs, bones, feathers, or turtle shells from a personal collection; various leaves from the neighborhood; a listening center of nature sounds of the county or state; and in season flowers, fruits, or plants from the local farmers market. This lesson was intended for an end of the year or spring season where these items would be more available. With the impending spring break or summer, this would be a lesson to create connections to items they may see in their area while out with friends and family, enriching the
knowledge of their community. Another weakness in my instruction was in my expectation of journaling and the completion of a KWL chart. For authentic assessment, the quality in completing the KWL chart with intentional dialogue and time to discuss would have had a greater impact on student learning. A secondary lesson or part two portion with the journaling would have been a better reflection addition to this lesson and may have been carried through the next day or later in the week. Originally intended for late kindergartners, short sentences would be possible, but I believe my expectations were too high for the majority of the students. Although, I had already offered an option of either language to show their learning in sentence form, an option of a drawn picture to further guide their reflection would have been more encouraging and validating of their intent in their writing.
Lesson Plan 2 My second lesson plan was carried out in a preschool, self-contained classroom for the ECE 322 course, Methods of Teaching Young Children with Special Needs, in the Fall quarter of 2016. This was a part of my second round of lesson plans to design and shows my next level of growth with greater attention to the physical and developmental needs of the students. The lesson focused on large motor, sensory stimulation, and also an integration of math concepts with number identification. This lesson was carried out in a circle time format with extra large pom-poms, or ‘snowballs’, that served as ‘snowballs’. They were soft and could be thrown easily with gentleness for a light indoor activity that was safe for the classroom. The activity showed a weakness in my expectations on number recognition for the students. I was expecting all of the children to be able to roll the dice, count the spots, and match the number of dots to the number of snowballs they would get to throw into the bucket. This was a difficult expectation. We added a number line and I modified the steps, by counting the snowballs for the students. I made sure to count out each piece in sequence and had the students count verbally or physically touch the snowballs with me. This was a great, immediate modification, but I believe a spinner would have been better for the math integration and a preliminary lesson that introduced the fun of the snowballs, would have given a better intent of the activity. The snowballs really stole the show unfortunately. Another weakness with my expectations in the lesson was the underestimated ability of the students to throw the ball into the bucket.
I had chosen a wide, shallow bucket for my snowman to sit in, but we had balls bouncing out and many would just not make it. This created a moment of scrambling to try and collect the balls. For some of the more physically challenged students, instead of throwing the balls, we had them place the balls into the bucket, but also focused on the counting. Where some students I was able to focus on the number count and recognition at the beginning of the activity, for others the focus came towards the end. Knowing which students this activity would have worked better within the math portion would have been more intentional as their turn came up. Really knowing my students’ strengths would have been a great help in tailoring the lesson to each of their needs accordingly. I do believe we were able to apply immediate accommodations as we saw the
need.

Lesson Plan 3 My third lesson plan was a challenge for its demand on differentiated activities in mathematics. Designed and implemented in the Winter quarter of 2017, course ECE 407 Methods in Teaching Mathematics, I was beginning to finish my second consecutive year at Kendall in working on my teacher certification. I was able to incorporate two modes of technology and contribute a significant portion to ELL students, which assisted in my clarification of differentiated instruction. The lesson was to bridge a previous Spanish lesson in word problems from English to Spanish for second grade students. Understanding how to present vocabulary for ELL students was an important lesson in effectively carrying the lesson to understanding for these particular students. (Baker, 2011) The differentiation breakdown for this lesson and the understanding of a bridging lesson for a different grade level, helped to make sure I could offer a many opportunities for engaging the students in the lesson. As complete as my lessons were for this course, this lesson had a particular weakness in managing the time once in the classroom. In all aspects, my dialogue in presenting and in my management of the workshops proved very inefficient in getting to the core of quality learning. Students would just understand the activity, getting excited, and then we would be moving to the next portion of the lesson. Many of the students had asked that I bring the activities back so they could complete them. My host teacher brought out a timer that was unique. It offered five minute increments to set, with a five minute warning, and an audio/visual component for the alarm. This provided a watcher for our allotted work time and when we would need to consider wrapping up our activity. This timer had many functions that I could see valuable to consider and incorporate as a main component of the classroom. The audio and visual characteristic this particular timer provided with its many settings is an asset that I will consider in my planning to guide my time-management. A second weakness with this lesson plan was the type of activities I chose for the small group workshops. They were much more intense in their set up and thought process. A simplified version of the Europa 1912 activity would have been easier to manage in this type of a differentiated math set up. Instead of having full word problems for the students to solve, an identification of the type of problem (ie: addition or subtraction) would have moved them further through the map. I would have also liked to add a stand- alone answer key or answer proctor that would have allowed the students ‘to move to the next train station ‘ in their ability to correctly answer the question. I could see this activity as a great whole class game that could reinforce the objectives in world problems for this grade level. The realistic visual, given by the use of tickets and a map of train stations was a characteristic in a forward momentum in engaging the students. Honing in on more specific requirements of the standard and secluding those requirements for practice would have made the workshop activities more efficient for an opportunity to work the pieces together to a greater portion of the standard.