Chapter Seven

Well, look at us. Finally coming to the end of the course. I love the consistency that these ETE courses have. While reading through the chapter, I couldn't help but think of my ETE 371 course that I took last year. While we covered many of the same strategies as were discussed in the chapter, this book really breaks it down quite nicely. When I think about how quickly we covered all of that material in a 2-week course, it makes me glad to have this refresher so close to student teaching.

Anyway, let's move on to the reflection, shall we? One of the things that really stood out to me was how each example of student assessment had both an "advantages" and a "disadvantages" paragraph. Because, truth be told, there is no perfect assessment; at least not one that I have found. It's important to know the pluses and minuses that go along with each type of assessment so that we can plan accordingly, and apply what we know about our students to the type of test we choose. When it really comes down to it, I think that choosing the appropriate assessment strategy should depend significantly on what will work best for our students, and less about what is easiest or most convenient for us as teachers.

Secondly, I really enjoyed the breakdown of creating assessments based on the objectives that we write. I feel like this should have been obvious to me, but it really wasn't. When I was novice teaching, I wrote a couple of tests over the Civil War. At the time, I thought they were good tests—and they were for the most part. But, looking back, I didn't do enough to align the assessment with the objectives. My objectives were full of take-aways that I hoped the students would get; the tests were just about "how much do you remember?" What a poor assessment. It makes me wish I would have taken this course before I novice taught in a middle school. While I scored high marks, I don't know that I benefited the students near as much as I thought I did.

Overall, I really enjoyed this chapter in what it pointed out to me: no test is perfect, plan accordingly, and never settle for what's easy. While none of us is embarking on this new path so that we can kick our feet up as we copy and paste lessons from year to year, I can guarantee we've all had teachers in our lives who didn't plan lessons/assessments according to us as students, and definitely keep things fresh in the classroom. Let's all strive to not be that kind of teacher.

Chapter Six

I found this chapter very interesting. For starters, it really breaks down the lesson planning process, but more specifically, I love how they discussed learning objectives.

In my own experience, I've made the faults pointed out in the book—my objectives did not focus enough on what I wanted the students to be able to do. That's a very good point. After all, the purpose of that segment revolves around teacher communication. As I've stated in the past, communicating effectively with your students is crucial to their effective understanding and completion of the tasks expected. Looking back, I never knew anything at all about lesson plans when I was in school. I like that the authors eluded to the lesson plan being publicly available to the students and their parents, because it will allow the intentions and objectives to be known up front. This can only help the students meet expectations more effectively in my opinion.

Also, the rationale aspect was something that I've never really seen previously in other classes, but it's so true! I've been asked in the past, "Why do we have to know this?!" and have been unprepared with an effective answer. But when we include that rationale right into the lesson plan process, the reasons why become obvious (at least to us). But, just as importantly, we will already have an answer to the question when it arises.

On that point, I don't blame the student for asking the question! I know I've asked it in the past myself and, to be honest, I don't know that I've ever needed to use algebraic formulas in my every day life. Sometimes the reasons why we have to do something is not always obvious. When a student asks that question, we can oftentimes take it the wrong way. Maybe a teacher will just view the student as lazy, or possibly entitled. The truth, however, is that we are asking the student to devote time and attention to what we are doing, and their time is just as valuable as our own time. They have a right to know that their time is not being wasted, and that what we are doing has value. After all, if we can't justify that point, then maybe we are just wasting their time as well as ours.

Overall, I thought the lesson planning process they have laid out was incredibly straight forward and offers a somewhat step-by-step guide (even though it isn't really step-by-step like that). Regardless, it breaks the planning portion down into easy to understand sections, and that's something that works well for me and brain.

Chapter Five

I know the bulk of the chapter was about the different taxonomies, and learning to engage the students senses, but I've had all that before. So I wanted to focus on the aspects of the chapter that were new to me. I'd never really seen curriculum broken down to that degree. It's one of those things I had always just assumed was "what we teach." Turns out, there's a lot more to it than that. One thing that I really found interesting was the differences between overt and covert learning. Not because it was new and fascinating, but because it was something I had never really considered.

Think about it: how do we know if our students truly understand something? We can ask them questions to try and wring some information out of them, but is that just knowing, or is that actual understanding? What is understanding anyway? There are a lot of movies I've seen that I could explain to you, but that doesn't mean I understood them at all. It's hard to find that line, and I'm not sure that it will always be obvious. It's true that our assessments should be designed to pinpoint these various levels of grasp, but I don't know how well I'll be able to do that early on. It'll take time, but I'm sure we can get there with a little help.

Which brings me to my next point: getting help. I love that the authors encourage collaboration between teachers, and even between subjects! Most textbooks have encouraged us to find a mentor in the school while we are still educational saplings, but never have they spent as much time on collaboration like Mr. and Mrs. Kellough. I think this is incredibly important, and it's one of the first pieces of advice I got my from CT when I was novice teaching; always collaborate! He would even try to work in the vocabulary words from their Language Arts class into the History lessons just so students could hear them more often and associate new meaning. It was a brilliant move, but it was also a great example of how teachers in different specialties can work together to help each other.