Now we know our CBC's......

Week 2 was another interesting adventure in Methods. We grew closer together and learned more about eachother. I feel that it's easier to work with people when you know who they are as a person, not just a 'co worker' or peer. Sharing our T shirts was a great way for us all to connect and find that each of us has something in common with others. I'd like to incorporate a similar activity into my classroom for the students to get to know eachother and feel more comfortable working with one another. It might be a fun idea to have them do an activity like this with help from the teachers/parents or also with the same idea in mind, only on a t shirt template cut out where they can cut/glue/draw pictures descibing the different parts of themselves.

I read about authentic assessment and different means of assessing students and their work. From my understanding of the readings, authentic assessment is a form of assessing students by having them perform tasks that apply to their life that demonstrate their understanding when they apply the information to real life tasks. It's a different type of assessment which to me seems more beneficial to the students. When I begin to plan lessons for my class I'll make sure to use authentic assessment to see if it has a better affect on the children than that of standard assessment methods.

CBC stands for : Condition, Behavior, Criterion

Condition is the setting or the specific task or materials given to the student.

Behavior is the action of the student, what the student will be or expected to do.

Criterion is the specific performance expected. Almost every part of education has a criteria for the students, and even teachers, to follow.

I did some reading about instructional models, strategies, skills and methods as applied to the different ways of teaching children. WHAT you are teaching the students aren't as important as HOW you are teaching them. Children learn different ways and as a teacher you need to discover different instructional methods. Out of the entire structural framework, modeling is the most general level of instruction. The model is the basic outline or stucture of what is going to be taught.There are four types of modeling which are: information processing, personal, social interactive, and behavioral. The four are just different ways to model the information for the students.I feel that the Social Interaction method of modeling is the most effective way of modeling and will be strongly enforcing this method of modeling in my classroom. I feel that we learn so much from others just by simply talking to or observing them. Children may learn on the same page as each other and one may understand the issue better than the other and that student may be better able to explain the material to the other student than the teacher can. Especially in today's world, interacting with others and ones role in society is crucial. Strategies are what is used inside of the model. These are the ideas that go along with the models. There are many different types of strategies. There is indirect, direct, interactive, experiential, and independant. Strategies are known as the approaches that the teacher takes to achieve the goals. Methods are basically the how. of the instrucation. They are how the teacher is going to deliver the information and lesson. Opposite of Models, Skills are the most specific of the instuctions. Skills are like the fine print. The skills are the different techniques such as asking, explaining, listening, discussing, and demonstrating.

These are all important to keep in mind when creating your lesson plan. In the beginning of your lesson plan you state the goals you want the students to reach. Later in the lesson plan you get more in depth and explain the objectives. But aren't goal and objectives the same thing??

NO!Goals and Objectives are slightly different! Along with goals and objectives, there are aims. Aims are general statements that provide the purpose of the action. Goals are the more specific statements of intention. Objectives are like goals in that they state intentions, but they also state specific outcomes.

The third week of this course I began looking further into creating my WIKI using Pedagogy21 as an outline and model for what it needs to look like and what it must consist of. I'm excited to add more to my WIKI and eventually share it with the class. I looked at other WIKIs to get some ideas and there are so many out there with such great themes and ideas. Some helpful sites are http://webquest.org/search and http://techtrekers.com/webquests

When planning a lesson there are many things to keep in mind. You must think about the learning outcomes of the session, the characteristics of the learners, and practical requirements.
A lesson is a unit of instruction. It is a structured period of time where learning is intended to occur. A plan is any procedure used to achieve an objective, and the intention to carry out an action. Lesson planning is creating a detailed description of instruction and how to present the desired materials. There are three stages in the process of developing a lesson plan. First is the Pre Lesson preparation which focuses on the goals, content, and the student entry level. The second is lesson planning and implementation which includes the unit title, instructional goals, objectives, rationales, content, instructional procedures, evaluation procedures, and materials. The third step is the post lesson activities which basically includes the lesson evaluation and revision. There are so many different types of lessons. Some lessons include discussions, reading lessons, lessons that can activate prior knowledge, and math problems.

Direct instruction is another topic that I read about and found really helpfull to my future career as a teacher. DI is what takes learners through the steps of learning systematically. DI focuses on setting clear goals and making sure these goals are understood, presents well organized information, gives students clear explanations of the subject matter, asks frequent question as means of assessment to see if the student is understanding the work, and it gives students frequent opportunities to demonstrate and practice what they have learned.