Digital Blog Post E
Chapters four, nine, and eleven offered numerous ideas for opportunities in the classroom. Of these new ideas, three that stood out to me as effective ideas include; understanding by design, service learning, and pre-assessment. There are multiple ways these could be successful in a classroom if presented correctly.
Furthermore, understanding by design, or UBD, is an approach to curricular development, presented in books written by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe. The three main stages of UBD are: one, identifying the desired results; two, determining evidence that is acceptable; and three, planning the instruction and goal for learning experiences. The first stage would be considering what the instructor wishes to result from the lesson for the students. This would then lead to developing essential questions and enduring understandings. The second stage would allow for the teacher to come up with ways to assess the students and the progress they made throughout the lesson plan. Third, would be planning the experiences the instructor wants the students to have and then also how the instruction would take place. As for my ongoing career, UBD seems like an extraordinary way to develop a lesson plan when you may be stuck on certain ideas. Especially since the development is backwards, I feel if you're in a rut, it would definitely be a new take and allow for some extra creativity. This connects to what I already knew, because I'm aware of the traditional take on lesson plans, but I have never actually heard of moving backwards through them. I really think that by working backwards a more thorough lesson plan could be presented.
The second concept that stood out in chapter eleven was service learning. According to the text, service learning refers to outside the classroom, experiences by students that feature both service and learning. Personally, this was one of my favorite ways to learn and I know that future students will also find this beneficial. Service learning often teaches students commitment and responsibility, in addition to time management. There are many opportunities for service learning, no matter where a student is located as well. In my career, I wish to employ as much service learning as I'm allowed to. I know that certain schools even have designated classes for this. For instance, high schools often allow students with jobs to take this type of class, in which they only show up for the period once a week, but turn in their timesheet for work to prove that they have been putting in the hours for service learning. The ideas presented are connected to what I already knew because I participated in service learning by volunteer coaching for a local non profit volleyball club. I spent countless hours working in the gym with girls and boys teaching them the sport and I learned numerous amounts of patience, and understanding from doing so. Overall, I think that this is a well thought out idea and could be beneficial to a multitude of different student types.
Another concept that would reap beneficial in the classroom is pre-assessment before a lesson to understand what level of understanding the students already have of the concept. Pre-assessments occur before an instructor introduces a new lesson or topic. It's a way for teachers to determine what the students already know in order to gauge how to inform the students further without boring them. Not only is this a great way for the teacher to engage their students, this is also a great way to keep the teacher amused because they're not running through the exact same lesson plan all day because it would differ by each class periods knowledge. I think pre-assessments are a great way to keep the classroom energy up and make sure that each student is getting the exact amount of attention that they need. The pre-assessment doesn't need to be a huge test that the students have to take, it just needs to some how gauge how much the students understand about the concept, whether it just be the instructor asking the class a couple of questions verbally and engaging in a discussion.
Overall, there are numerous ways to engage your students, but these are just three that stood out to me the most. I really enjoyed these chapters and thought they had much to offer. Understanding by design, service learning, and pre-assessment allow for high students interest in the lesson at hand.
Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.
Shearer, Lance. Naples Daily News. "Naples New Years Beach Clean up Part of Broader Effort". January 1, 2016. Web. 3 Apr. 2016
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