Lesson 5/Assessment - 3/21

We completed our unit on Wednesday with our fifth lesson and assessment. For the prior three lessons, I began the group part of the lesson with an oral formative assessment, asking students to tell me where the characters were, what the setting was, or the definition of the terms. I think this helped keep them thinking about the terms and the significance of including them. On the last day, we gave our summative assessment, and included both an oral and written part of the assessment.
We began in our groups, and Marianne and I switched our groups' stories. The students were very curious about the other story, so we decided to incorporate it into the day. In my group, I read the story to the students. They loved seeing what the other group had written, especially since the stories were so different. I then asked them questions about the new story. They picked apart the beginning, middle, and end, and were able to identify characters, settings, problems in the story, and the resolution to the problems. They have trouble with the term resolution, so we have been calling it 'solving the problem'. The students all seemed quick to respond and were able to answer these questions.
Marianne and I then became a center for center time in class. We gave students an organizer page to begin thinking about their own stories that they would write at a later time. They filled out a line telling us the beginning, middle, and end of the story with the terms characters, setting, initial problem under one, actions under another, and 'solve the problem' under the third. Students then brainstormed and wrote about the characters, setting, etc. of their own stories. I think that most of the students did well on this activity. As we expected, we gave much more support to the lower groups, while the highest group was able to complete this themselves.
We had a lot of trouble determining a good summative assessment for this unit. Since we changed gears after our pre-assessment, we wanted to ensure that we tested both parts of the unit.
I think that the oral part of the assessment in our writing groups was a good way to test the sequencing and the students' abilities to pick apart the pieces of a story. It was also motivating to use a story written by their friends. We then used the center time to have them apply this knowledge to their writing. We are reviewing these assessments to determine whether they tested properly. It is interesting that some of the students were able to do this very well orally, but have more trouble writing things down.

Fourth Lesson 3/20

For this lesson, we once again split into our two groups to complete our stories. Marianne brought in some ribbon as a tool to help resolve problems from the stories, or 'tie up the loose ends'. We split into our groups and reviewed what we had written the week before. I have been having the students read as a group at the beginning of the lesson to review and get them thinking. It is also helpful for students who missed a part of the class due to a pull-out. I am still a little bit confused about how to handle this issue, as it seems I am almost always missing someone from my group for a pullout. I have generally been asking the others in the group to fill in the student. The reading aloud also helps. I have been trying to give a quick overview of what we are studying as well during that lesson to bring them up to speed, but it is difficult.
As we read during this lesson, I taped a piece of ribbon on all of the problems we developed in the first two parts of the story. Students then brainstormed ways to tie up all of those problems and make sure they were resolved. They did a good job of ensuring that we resolved problems, although occasionally a student would want to add in a whole new problem or storyline as we were finishing. I used this time to let students know that they would be able to work on their own stories later and can hold on to their ideas. This seemed to be okay with them.
This lesson was actually relatively short, since there is less development in this part of the story. I think this was good for the students because they had been sitting for quite a while throughout the morning.
I am wondering whether there was another method we could have used to teach a couple of these lessons. I really liked using the group model, but am wondering if there was another type of lesson we could have tied in to mix up the format for the students. I think that this model worked well for the lessons we planned, and I think time constraints could have caused problems, but am determining whether something else might have worked also.

Third Lesson 3/15

I tried to think back to observations and how the teacher keeps the students on track. It seems that the child with Asperger's is often 'in his own world' and does come back to the group when asked a question. I spoke with the teacher about the two students in my group and the best way to keep them on track. She agreed with the questions for the one child, and suggested that I have him sit in a chair rather than on the floor with the group. This worked very well, and while I still lost his attention occasionally, he was much more on track. The other child apparently has a lot going on at home, and has been acting up. This was very good to know about the student! She suggested just letting her come sit near him if he is acting up. I still wonder if there was another way to handle this, but her presence very near him did help.
During the third lesson, we focused on the middle of stories, and in particular the actions that are necessary to keep the story moving and interesting. Again, we split into two groups and used a group interaction model. The students have been really engaged in the story since it is their own, however I still had some trouble attempting to combine the ideas of the boys and girls of the group. We came up with some compromises, but of course the attention of each side of the group was better when we were discussing and writing the part of the story they came up with (the girls wanted to write about a puppy; the boys about robots and spies). Somehow, we did come up with a story including both! The distractions were different during this lesson. The construction outside is very loud and often distracting to many of the students. In addition, I liked having two groups in the class, but I could see that the students in my group wanted to know what the other group was writing. When we were writing about the puppy, I could see one boy in particular trying to see what the other group was writing.
Overall, I think that this lesson went very well, and kept the students engaged. We were still able to focus in on the sequencing of the story and what has to come next. One student actually gave a suggestion for the story that did not make sense given prior sentences, so we were able to examine the sequence of the story to make sure it made sense in a smaller scope as well as throughout the entire story. This was a good addition to the lesson that came up during teaching.

Second lesson 3/14

I was much happier with the way our second lesson ran. After the first lesson, we actually made a few changes to our following plans to keep the lessons brief and streamlined. For this lesson, we focused in on only one part of stories: the beginning. While we had planned to focus in more on the book Corduroy again, we decided to dive right into our small group lessons. We taught group interactive models, so after starting as a class, the class was split into two groups.
I worked with my group to review Corduroy briefly and to review the information that is generally included in the beginning of a story. We made a list of the parts. Rather than simply discussing that the beginning comes first, we included a writing element to the lesson. My group began to brainstorm what we normally find out in the beginning of a story, including the characters, setting, and an introduction to a problem. We thought of ideas for our own story, and as a group, the students dictated sentences to the beginning of their group story while I was the scribe.
It was nice to work with a smaller group of students because we could ensure that all students were contributing to the group. I did, however, begin to wonder about the best ways to work with a couple of the students. I worked with a child with Asperger's Syndrome. It was very difficult to keep his attention, so I found myself calling on him quite often to keep him engaged. I wonder whether there is a better way to handle this to ensure that I don't spend too much time with him and not enough with the other students. I have a second student who is also difficult to keep on task. I will talk to the teacher to see how she works with them specifically.
I think that the questioning I did of the students was good during this lesson, and we were able to review what we did on Monday very well.
It seems that our story will be very interesting. The boys and girls seem to have very different ideas of the way the story should go. I am doing my best to compromise and include as many ideas as possible.

First lesson 3/12

Upon administering our pre-assessment, we decided to slightly change our plan for our unit lessons. We discovered that while some students do still have trouble with sequencing stories, much of the class can put events in the correct order. We decided that we should focus in on both comprehension from sequencing and detailed writing using the various parts of a story (characters, setting, problem/conflict, resolution). This new plan will allow us to stick with parts of our initial plan to aid comprehension, especially for those still having trouble, but will also allow us to expand on our lessons.
For our first lesson, we read the book Corduroy to the class. A few of the students had read the book before, but they had not read it as a class. We talked to the students about the order of the book and the sequencing of beginning, middle, and end. In addition, we decided to discuss the parts of the beginning, middle, and end. In the beginning, we discussed and created a list of the characters, settings, and initial problems introduced. In the middle, we discussed the development of the plot, the actions, and the fact that characters and new settings can be introduced. In the end, we talked briefly about conflict resolution.
We taught this lesson as an integrative lesson, using our lists from each part of the book to sequence the book and discuss the parts. I felt that this lesson went okay, but could have been done better. I think that parts of the presentation were too long, and we could have combined the second and third phases together to keep the students' attention. The activities seemed to become repetitive. I also think this may have been too much information to give at once. I do think that Corduroy was a good book choice and that the charts were a good way to show the information.

Week of 2/26

This week, we were able to observe a new math concept introduced to the class. The class has worked with word problems, but now is working on their answers to word problems. Their answers must include a picture, an equation, and a written explanation of how they reached their answers. This caused a few nervous reactions from some of the students, but most ofthem seemed to get the idea.
The class is also working on the money unit. Since they have been "feeding the piggy" all year during morning meeting, they do have some idea of the coins they are using, but are now gaining a better understanding of each coin and its value. The teacher has given each student a box that they keep plastic coins in. They can earn new coins by performing well and behaving throughout the day. When they gain new coins, they can change them with the teacher for a higher valued coin. This seems to be very motivating for the students to learn the values of their coins.
We administered our pre-assessment this week as well. We read Goldilocks and the Three Bears to the students, which they have heard many times before. They then filled out a sheet telling us what happened in the beginning, middle, and end of the story. The responses were very interesting. Some students drew pictures and others wrote quite a bit. Most students were able to think of something that happened in each part of the story, but there were a few exceptions. It is interesting to see the small details they picked out of the story or the pictures from the book to put on their charts. Most of the class came up with the same ending, which was the last page of the book, where in this version, Goldilocks jumps out of a window to run away. While many of the students had some idea of the three parts of the story, I think that we will be able to work well with the class teaching them new terms and details included in stories.