Preparing for Seminar on Friday, April 1st

I hope you have all had a wonderful spring break! In case you haven’t spent each moment of spring break reading over the syllabus, here is a quick review of what you will need for seminar on Friday, April 1st:

1. You should have watched analyzed your partner’s video. The questions for analysis can be found on this blog under the assignments tab > video analysis. If you have not already signed up for a partner for this assignment on the Google Document, do so now. Otherwise, we are assuming you do not have a partner.
2. Bring a hard copy of your typed analysis of your peer’s video to seminar on Friday.
3. We will have a guest speaker on Friday who will talk about language objectives. Please bring your unit (that you have already turned in) as we will work on revising and editing your language objectives in class. You do not need a hard copy; you can edit on your computer if you would like.
4. If you have not already done so, be sure to sign up for your second observation as soon as possible.

Hope you have a great rest of the week and that you have a chance to get out and enjoy the sunshine!

TB Tests

Hi all,

Yesterday we had an update from Professor Gomez who wanted to let you know that you should hold off on getting your TB test. In late August, MMSD will be conducting a session where they discuss TB tests and student identification badges as there will be a new roll-out plan starting this fall.

Thanks,

Jessie

Placements, 3 Segment Unit, Dress, and Mindfulness

Greetings Everyone:

Jessie and I are delighted with your stellar success of your first observations! Congratulations on a job well done! Your preparedness, rapport with students, and tenacity should be celebrated!

To start, here are responses to a few questions that have come up this week:

How will the placements be determined, since particular teachers already seem to have several student teachers looking to be paired?

We understand that you had the opportunity to meet/observe some teachers who are potential matches for your student teaching. It is our understanding that you will each have a one-on-one match with a cooperating teacher for student teaching. The placement schools are responsible for assigning the partnerships. I have passed on several questions in this regard and will follow up when more information is available especially in regards to the logistics of placement, which seem to be where the majority of questions are.

What do we need to do for the 3-part lessons that are due Friday?   What are the justifications and weren’t these due two weeks ago?

Two weeks ago in seminar, a “rough draft” version of the 3-part lesson was due in seminar, so that you could use them to workshop your plans during the centers. Those are the same lessons that are due this upcoming Friday.

We hope that you will make edits that show your application of the centers we facilitated. If we already observed one of your lessons in the segment, please indicate so, and your supervisor will not comment on that lesson again, but may reference it in the scope of the unit. Edits should be made on any already observed lesson to reflect comments from your supervisor. In addition, please make sure all lessons in this unit reflect any generalizable feedback your supervisor gave you on your lesson plan from observation one.

This assignment is a chance to focus mostly on your authorship of a UNIT as it a “next step” in lesson planning/preparation for teaching as well as to focus on variations of particular parts of the lesson, since we understand that some sections may be similar or exactly the same across the three units. Bullet points are acceptable and may be preferred in some sections where the information is consecutive. It’s completely acceptable if all sections of each lesson are different, however here are the requirements:

The syllabus says something about turning in a “Justification”à this is simply another way of wording that your instruction must be based on research practices.

Lesson sections that should be different on all three:

Opening Launch

Student Learning Goals/ Objectives

Prior Academic Knowledge (determined by previous experience and lesson order)

Structured Practice and Application

Closure

Learning Principles and or Research Based Practices

Assessments

Lesson sections that may or may not be different on all three depending on context

Content Standards

Common Errors/Developmental Conceptions

Differentiation

Student Interactions

What Ifs

Materials

ALL from “Academic Language Demands” section

ALL from “Analyzing Teaching” section

There have also been some questions about dress. Here’s an important review:

1. Ladies, leggings are only appropriateif you wear a long shirt or dress over the top.  Please make sure that your booty is clearly covered at all times.
2. Ladies, after you get dressed, please bend forward in front of the mirror, to ensure that when you do so in the classroom, students won’t be able to see down your shirt.  Consider wearing a fitted tank top of shirt underneath a blouse or top that fits loosely
3. Sweatshirts are not professional attire
4. Workout clothing is not professional attire
5. Large baggy clothing is not professional attire
6. As it warms up, also keep in mind that tank tops and flip flops are not professional attire
7. If you are working with a younger elementary grade, pants may be the most appropriate, so that you can sit on the floor and move easily
8. It is just fine if you feel you are “more dressed up” than your CT or other school personnel
9. Regular T-shirts are only appropriate when worn for school spirit

What’s going on with seminar and mindfulness on 3/18 and 4/15?

Like we always say, all questions about mindfulness should be directed to the mindfulness facilitators:

Seminar on 3/18 is cancelled. In place of the Friday before Spring Break, seminar was conducted via students’ requests before you were placed in the schools. There will still be mindfulness on that day. Jessie and I will not be attending. If you cannot attend on Friday, no worries, please just email Devon, Lisa, and/or Lori to let them know ahead of time.

Seminar on 4/15 is cancelled due to Teachology the following Saturday. Again, mindfulness will still be conducted. Again, if you cannot attend, please email Devon, Lisa, and/or Lori. Jessie and I will be attending Teachology on Saturday.

Requested Documents

A few people asked for the documents from Friday’s seminar and stations. This document has all of the stations and the launch from Friday, March 4th: Starting Your Lesson Center Directions (1)

This document provides an overview of expectations for each section of the lesson plan template: Expectations for Lesson Plan Example (a copy of this has also been added to the “Additional Resources” tab on this blog)

We are waiting hear back from our edTPA resource leader about a lesson plan example from edTPA and will post that as soon as it becomes available.

Benjamin Bloom is here to stay!

While you are writing your objectives for your three segment unit, be sure to remember that your objectives must include measurable verbs (they must be verbs that you can say “oh, yes I can clearly mark down that they have done this). For a reminder, this website has a great overview of Bloom’s Taxonomy and a long list of measurable verbs. If you prefer, this video provides a brief, illustrated version:

Answers to Seminar Questions from 3/4

Thank you for a wonderful seminar today! Here are answers to the questions from today:

Q: Can we use our unit lessons for our second observation or is it a rule that they can’t overlap?

A: Yes, please use your unit lesson for your observation if this works with the time schedule.

Q: What is the difference between the central focus and the learning goals?

A: The central focus is a brief description of what will happen in the lesson and the main purpose. Think of it this way: it is kind of a summary of the whole lesson plan that sums it up much as an abstract would do for a journal article. Although it appears first in your lesson plan template, you might choose to answer this last as a way to summarize the lesson. The learning goals/ objectives are clearly written statements that explain exactly what the student will be able to do by the end of the lesson. Objectives use measurable goals that can be found using Bloom’s Taxonomy. They usually start like this: “Students will be able to…” You might see “I Can” statements/ objectives in your classrooms. “I Can” statements are just objectives written from the student point of view. For the lesson plan, you can use either teacher focused (Students will be able to…) or student perspective objectives (I can…).

Q: What is “pattern of judgement”? 

A: Unfortunately, I am unsure what this questions refers to and am therefore unable to answer properly. With a little more context I would be happy to answer. Just add a comment on this blog post with clarification and I will respond with a proper answer.

Q: Would we be able to see an example of the edTPA lesson plan so that we can trouble shoot any questions? 

A: Yes, I will work on getting this together over the weekend and will post it here.

Q: Can we have a lesson plan that, within each section, lays out what the expectation is? 

A: Yes, I would be happy to create that. I will work on creating this over the weekend and will post (and make an announcement) here just as soon as possible.

Sign up for Partners and 2nd Observation

The semester is going by so quickly and it is already time to start thinking about upcoming assignments and your second observation.

Video Analysis Assignment 

As you can see from the syllabus, this month you should be working on the video analysis assignment. For this assignment, you will need a 5-10 minute clip of your teaching to a small or large group with the focus on dialogic instruction. I highly recommend recording more than 5-10 minutes so that you can pick one clip that you would like to use for the assignment. Consider having your teaching partner record the lesson for you so that you can help one another.

By March 29th, you will need to send your clip to a partner so that he/ she can review it, answer questions, and come to seminar on April 1st ready to discuss your lesson. For a complete description of the assignment, please click on the Assignments tab and find the link for the video analysis assignment.

Please sign up here for a partner with which you will exchange your video for analysis.

Second Observations

While you most likely have not yet had your first observation, it is time to start having a conversation with your CT about your second observation. Schedules are available on Allie and Jessie’s info pages.

The second observation must be individually taught. If possible, try to teach a different subject area than you will be teaching for your first observation.

Info for seminar on March 4th

Hi all,

There have been lots of questions on details for tomorrow and the unit. As we stated last week, this unit does not have the be the perfected, most amazing unit ever written–we know that you are still working on it. Our goal is to continue to work on different parts of the lesson plan/ unit through seminars so that you can revise before turning it in for a grade.

If you prefer (as I know printing can get costly), you do not have to print off a copy if you don’t mind your peers writing and commenting on the document on your computer.

Looking forward to tomorrow!

We will use the following videos during seminar:

Lesson Starters

Class Starting

Setting Expectations

Ground Rules