A lesson in co-planning lessons.
This lesson was required to be co-planned with another member of our cohort. My lesson was planned with a student teacher in my same teaching site in the 6th grade classroom, a class only two years older than my 4th graders. While the first iteration of our plan reflects an attempt to create continuity both in lesson type and all content, further review and work led us in slightly separate directions, though our planning process was done together. |
Reflection and Analysis
I taught this lesson with a table group of 4 students during “center” time. While the beginning of the lesson followed the basic format of the lesson plan, the lesson was cut short (to about 30 minutes) unexpectedly because the students were asked to go to a special event I did not know was happening. In hindsight, I take responsibility for not knowing exactly how much time I had before I began and just expecting the regular 45-minute block. I also think that I likely would not have finished my lesson in 45 minutes anyway, and in the future I might plan to do less in one small period of time. I was the first of the two of us to teach my lesson, so my lesson was shaped only by our plan and its revisions rather than by the observation of the other class.
As the lesson unfolded, I realized that the students I had had widely disparate abilities in writing and group work. I had one of the most advanced readers and writers in the room, two students who tend to read on a first or second grade level, and another student with social difficulties. I am glad I had this diverse group of students because it forced me to think about differentiating my instruction in small groups, but it definitely made time management difficult. I wanted each student to have enough time to think during independent brainstorming, but I also did not want any student to become bored and disengaged. Because of this anxiety, I did not give students how long they would have for each portion of individual brainstorming or group writing, and upon reflection, I consider this a mistake. I would have rather told students how long they had then altered it later if I needed to do so than have given them no time expectations at all. The small group format did, however, allow students to talk to each other and respond to each other’s ideas, which mitigated boredom for the more proficient writers in the group.
I felt I was able to get students to engage in thinking about each other’s ideas by asking students to build off each other’s ideas and asking them to discuss both their favorite parts of each other’s ideas and what they might change. When, however, it came to narrowing down ideas to one group write, I was a bit surprised at how difficult a task this was (see observer notes). Students felt shyer, even in the small group, than I expected when faced with the task of a group decision. Some students clung to their own specific ideas, and others seemed not to want to take too much leadership. I am not sure how, in that moment, I could have handled the discord better, but I imagine if I were the classroom instructor, I could facilitate a culture where students group write more frequently and subsequently might feel more comfortable doing it.
I did not get to finish my lesson, so I did not end up with a “final product” for the students to evaluate and discuss. We only got as far as coming up with a general theme (a headless horseman chasing someone) and characters with brief descriptions (the headless horseman: headless, mean, dresses ugly, ugly, old; the horse: white, 3-legged, a man turned into a horse; and Kakarot: has a pet Pegasus, runs fast, martial artist). We did not have time to finish our plot or discuss what we might edit in the writing process. My aim in writing a set of characters with traits and a plot summary was to mimic the actual writing process. I wanted the assessment to be authentic, “built upon a bedrock of meaningful performance tasks that are credible and realistic (authentic), hence engaging to students” (1998, Wiggings, p.12). While I can assess that each student contributed one character and all students contributed to more characteristics of those characters meaning that the students at least understood the role characters play in a plot, I cannot assess their ability to then write narratives or even understand the entire writing process. I do think in drafting and thinking together students were able to access the idea that writing is a process, but I feel unable to say much more than that when it comes to assessing student learning. In this way, I do not feel my lesson met my goals of thinking about writing process and narrative development.
If I were to follow up on this lesson, first I would try to finish it. Upon completion of the lesson, including a discussion of possible edits, I think I would try to have each student draft a short play based upon our group character sketches and plot. The writing of a longer narrative with these 4th graders strikes me as particularly difficult because of the difficulty they had making group decisions. I would allow students to discuss with each other their decisions as their writing process unfolded. For these students, I expect writing even a short play to take at least a week of 45 minutes writing and editing each day. This sounds like a big undertaking to me, but I also think the focus on developing a narrative and on the writing process and drafting seems a worthwhile pursuit. The goal of the writing would be to eventually have 4 short plays that have been edited and, if interest and time allowed, could be acted out. This, if implemented well, could be an authentic assessment where students produce plays, something professionals do often in the real world.
If I were to teach the lesson again, I think I might choose a general theme for them rather than having them debate and choose. While I see something useful in the play being entirely student generated, agreeing on a theme seemed such a large stumbling block for this group of students that eliminating it might open the rest of the lesson up to better discussion among the students about the other details they would have to choose. It seems to easy to say that I would choose homogenous groups of ability because I think there is some value in connecting students with different abilities around a content area, and I also think there are interpersonal learning opportunities better met by the challenge of working with someone different than oneself, especially when finding common ground is central to the task. Lastly, if I were to teach it again, I would focus more explicitly and more often on the fact that writers write in drafts, editing their work multiple times with the help of editors and sometimes even other writers. In this way, I would connect their task even more so to the learning goals and objectives.
While I was frustrated and sad not to be able to complete my lesson or feel like we achieved the goals I had set for us, I do feel I got experience managing very different abilities in a small group, and I hope that moving forward I would be better at managing my time and even more effective using discussion facilitation like student repetition of other’s ideas (see observer notes) to ensure students felt included, heard, and supported in creating an authentic piece of work.
Wiggins, G. (1998). Educative assessment: Designing assessments to inform and improve student performance. San Francisco, Calif.: Jossey-Bass.
As the lesson unfolded, I realized that the students I had had widely disparate abilities in writing and group work. I had one of the most advanced readers and writers in the room, two students who tend to read on a first or second grade level, and another student with social difficulties. I am glad I had this diverse group of students because it forced me to think about differentiating my instruction in small groups, but it definitely made time management difficult. I wanted each student to have enough time to think during independent brainstorming, but I also did not want any student to become bored and disengaged. Because of this anxiety, I did not give students how long they would have for each portion of individual brainstorming or group writing, and upon reflection, I consider this a mistake. I would have rather told students how long they had then altered it later if I needed to do so than have given them no time expectations at all. The small group format did, however, allow students to talk to each other and respond to each other’s ideas, which mitigated boredom for the more proficient writers in the group.
I felt I was able to get students to engage in thinking about each other’s ideas by asking students to build off each other’s ideas and asking them to discuss both their favorite parts of each other’s ideas and what they might change. When, however, it came to narrowing down ideas to one group write, I was a bit surprised at how difficult a task this was (see observer notes). Students felt shyer, even in the small group, than I expected when faced with the task of a group decision. Some students clung to their own specific ideas, and others seemed not to want to take too much leadership. I am not sure how, in that moment, I could have handled the discord better, but I imagine if I were the classroom instructor, I could facilitate a culture where students group write more frequently and subsequently might feel more comfortable doing it.
I did not get to finish my lesson, so I did not end up with a “final product” for the students to evaluate and discuss. We only got as far as coming up with a general theme (a headless horseman chasing someone) and characters with brief descriptions (the headless horseman: headless, mean, dresses ugly, ugly, old; the horse: white, 3-legged, a man turned into a horse; and Kakarot: has a pet Pegasus, runs fast, martial artist). We did not have time to finish our plot or discuss what we might edit in the writing process. My aim in writing a set of characters with traits and a plot summary was to mimic the actual writing process. I wanted the assessment to be authentic, “built upon a bedrock of meaningful performance tasks that are credible and realistic (authentic), hence engaging to students” (1998, Wiggings, p.12). While I can assess that each student contributed one character and all students contributed to more characteristics of those characters meaning that the students at least understood the role characters play in a plot, I cannot assess their ability to then write narratives or even understand the entire writing process. I do think in drafting and thinking together students were able to access the idea that writing is a process, but I feel unable to say much more than that when it comes to assessing student learning. In this way, I do not feel my lesson met my goals of thinking about writing process and narrative development.
If I were to follow up on this lesson, first I would try to finish it. Upon completion of the lesson, including a discussion of possible edits, I think I would try to have each student draft a short play based upon our group character sketches and plot. The writing of a longer narrative with these 4th graders strikes me as particularly difficult because of the difficulty they had making group decisions. I would allow students to discuss with each other their decisions as their writing process unfolded. For these students, I expect writing even a short play to take at least a week of 45 minutes writing and editing each day. This sounds like a big undertaking to me, but I also think the focus on developing a narrative and on the writing process and drafting seems a worthwhile pursuit. The goal of the writing would be to eventually have 4 short plays that have been edited and, if interest and time allowed, could be acted out. This, if implemented well, could be an authentic assessment where students produce plays, something professionals do often in the real world.
If I were to teach the lesson again, I think I might choose a general theme for them rather than having them debate and choose. While I see something useful in the play being entirely student generated, agreeing on a theme seemed such a large stumbling block for this group of students that eliminating it might open the rest of the lesson up to better discussion among the students about the other details they would have to choose. It seems to easy to say that I would choose homogenous groups of ability because I think there is some value in connecting students with different abilities around a content area, and I also think there are interpersonal learning opportunities better met by the challenge of working with someone different than oneself, especially when finding common ground is central to the task. Lastly, if I were to teach it again, I would focus more explicitly and more often on the fact that writers write in drafts, editing their work multiple times with the help of editors and sometimes even other writers. In this way, I would connect their task even more so to the learning goals and objectives.
While I was frustrated and sad not to be able to complete my lesson or feel like we achieved the goals I had set for us, I do feel I got experience managing very different abilities in a small group, and I hope that moving forward I would be better at managing my time and even more effective using discussion facilitation like student repetition of other’s ideas (see observer notes) to ensure students felt included, heard, and supported in creating an authentic piece of work.
Wiggins, G. (1998). Educative assessment: Designing assessments to inform and improve student performance. San Francisco, Calif.: Jossey-Bass.