Posted: May 12th, 2015

Lesson Planning and Authentic Assessment

ACTIVITIES / ASSESSMENTS

Part A: Answer the following questions in one to three paragraphs each, except for question 4 as described:
• Teaching for understanding requires reducing breadth of content coverage so as to develop the most important content in greater depth. Thus, teachers are caught between their desire to focus on topics in depth and their responsibility to cover a wide range of content. As you consider the secondary subject area you plan to teach (or are teaching), what is your response to this dilemma? How might you resolve the tension between quality and quantity for your own classroom?

• How might you determine your students’ zones of proximal development with respect to your particular curriculum or subject area?

• Give a brief summary of two or three authentic activities that you might use in your own classroom and in your own subject area over the course of a term.

• Following the form of the examples provided in Borich Chapter 4, prepare a one- page lesson plan (one-day’s class) for a topic in your teaching area. Within this lesson plan, please include several measurable OBJECTIVES that might fit into a larger overall unit. Please consider Bloom’s taxonomy of classifications when building objectives.

• Identify some ways of providing for student diversity in the context of the lesson plan you created in question 4 above. For example: What would you do for
students who are second-language learners? Or students who do not understand the basic concepts? Or those who do not participate comfortably in class? Or those who go above and beyond your expectations and want more? etc.

Part B: Classroom Observation
For specific details and information on how to approach each of these observations, found in the Course Introduction section.
The focus of Unit 2 has been lesson planning and assessment. As you observe classrooms for this unit, please keep this focus in mind.
The written requirements for the Unit 2 observation are as follows:
1. A page of introduction that includes:
• Date, time, and place of observation.
• Specific class being taught (subject and level), duration of class period, number of students in class.
• Lesson(s) or unit being taught on that day.
• General layout of seats, general description of the environment.
• Other factors that might impact the observation: unique characteristics of the class, the mood in the room or school as a whole, directly before or after a holiday, end-of-term exam time, etc.
• A brief description of the teacher: male or female, how many years teaching, particular style of interaction, any unique traits.
2. Detailed answers (one or two paragraphs each) to the following questions:
• What were the overall unit goals and specific learning objectives of the day’s lesson? Were these objectives made clear to the students at the beginning of
class?

• What activities did the students engage in during class? Did these activities seem to be authentic or more along the lines of busy-work? Why?

• What forms of assessment will the teacher use to measure the desired outcomes? Explain the advantages and disadvantages to the method(s) the teacher plans to use.

• How did students respond to the teacher, both in terms of participation as well as behaviors and attitudes? Did you find individual differences in student responsiveness? Give specific examples.

• What questions, comments, reflection, or insights do you have concerning this unit of study and observation?