Being a student is one thing, but being a student pursuing a teaching career is another thing. We preview the life of a teacher, and from a student's point of view, it is not as simple as it seems. Just creating lesson plans to teach students takes time, critical thinking, and hard work to ensure that the lesson being prepared covers all the needs of the subject while catering to the diversity of students in a class. For this particular assignment, not only did we have to keep in mind these different aspects in creating a lesson plan, but we also had to figure out how to incorporate cereal boxes and technology tools. As a Secondary English Education major, I wasn't sure on how exactly I could do this.
As for this being my first time to create a lesson a plan, I was at a loss. I was not aware of the different forms, models and templates in creating a lesson plan. We were assigned to use the ASSURE model and I had no knowledge on. As I looked further to what this model was, I found that ASSURE is an acronym that stands for: Analyze learners, State Objectives, Select methods, media, and materials, Utilize methods, media, and materials, Require learner participation, and Evaluate and revise. According to Instructional Media and Technologies for Learning by Heinich, Molenda, Russell, Smaldino, 1999, "the ASSURE model is an ISD (Instructional Systems Design) process that was modified to be used by teachers in the regular classroom The ISD process is one in which teachers and trainers can use to design and develop the most appropriate learning environment for their students." It is used to help improve teaching and learning.
Now that I know how to use the ASSURE lesson, it was simple enough to incorporate what I needed with the template available online. My problem however was figuring out a creative way to use cereal into a secondary English class while being able to have students use an online tool. Eventually I came up with the idea of having students use cereal box characters by making an ebook using Joomag creating a story of the pros and cons of eating the specific cereals from the characters they derived from.
My lesson plan titled "Nutritional Stories" is geared towards the 6th grade level with a time span of up to 4 class sessions with an hour each. The students are assigned to groups and are to choose three boxes of cereals with characters. They use the nutritional labels of their chosen cereals for the information they will provide for their stories. They will use creativity in creating their stories while learning how to write proper dialogues and reading nutritional labels. Students will also be familiarized with ebook tools.
Though technology is a great turning point in education and greatly impacts learning positively, there are downsides to this, especially considering that the students I may be teaching lack experience with technology in general. School districts lack funding to have technology tools available for use, and students may not even be exposed to these things at home due to low social economic status. According to Top Hat Blog, the number 4 reason of technology being a con in classrooms is that students do not have equal access to technology resources. Even with the suggestions provided for free services or free tech tools in the community, future educators and educators alike need to consider this. If I were to change my lesson plan, I would have students make their books out of hands on materials such as magazines, the cereal box itself, markers, etc if majority of the students do not have access to technology tools. Though the students will be in groups and there is a possibility of having at least one member having access to technology, it defeats the purpose of the other students being exposed to the tech tools needed for this lesson.
For further instruction from this lesson, I would continue on having students read more stories and analyze certain themes and meanings using their experience from writing about nutritional facts. They will also use these skills on essay writing.
Incorporating technology into lesson plans will be difficult for teachers if their school districts do not have the funding and supplies to provide. Finding other alternatives to lesson plans will be a constant need. Creating my Nutritional Story lesson plan was simple in incorporating all the aspects of the ASSURE method, but looking at all other aspects and future lessons will be a challenge.
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ReplyDeleteOnce again your essay was very nicely written. Still, your multimedia BLOG could use more multimedia.
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