Back to Back Lessons

First Lesson Plan
First Lesson Presentation
Second Lesson Plan
Second Lesson Presentation


As part of my teaching development, I had to create two 20 minutes lessons which were to be taught two class periods in a row (a Tuesday and a Thursday). The evidence linked above are the lesson plans and visual presentations shown during the lessons. The evidence can be connected to PC 1.1 as it shows my understanding of learning and my ability to build experiences from this knowledge. The evidence can also be connected to PC 4.1 and 5.1 as I am able to teach my content topic effectively and discuss both national and international aspects of the subject, giving a varied perspective.

This experienced allowed me to learn how teaching lessons back to back can changes to previously made plans for lesson based on how the first lesson progresses. For example, because I understood I lacked a full activity for my students to use, I added an activity to my second lesson to create better chances for learning and interaction. The assessments I created, which were a brainstorm for a reflective journal and the reflective journal entry itself, were able to create a way for students to draw what they learned from the lessons directly with the Unit Essential Question, which in turn connected with the standards and focusing questions of the lessons. The biggest outcome from these lessons was the feedback I received from the lessons regarding me as an educator. Although I had time limitations, there were aspects of my lesson planning I could have changed to create more engaged learning opportunities. I ultimately either need to learn how to create engaging and intriguing lecture style discussions periodically, or find a way to remove this kind of teaching from my personal strategies in order to create effective learning. The literacy knowledge I have learned especially helped with implementing journal writing and using writing on paper as a means to rethink the information that was processed in order to reteach yourself as a student the information in your own wording. I find this effective and feel it can be used in a positive way when used well.

Adobe Spark Page and Literacy

https://spark.adobe.com/page/mphmlGF5VtkID/

The link above is part of an in class assignment, in which I created a presentation using Adobe Spark Page in order to show the information that I have gathered based around literacy since the beginning of that class. I had to present what forms of literacy are most important in terms of my content area (social studies) and what skills students need to learn in order to be literate in these areas.

The presentation gave me an opportunity to express multiple performance criterion, namely those in 4.1, 4.2, 5.1, and 5.2. The presentation allowed me to demonstrate my knowledge of literacy and its various forms, such as digital, media, and visual literacy, as well as knowledge of what skills need to be taught to students in order for them to get the most out of interpreting information in a variety of forms. Along with this, the presentation was a platform to share how educators be effective in teaching literacy skills by working against misconceptions of media and knowledge of interpretation. Since part of the presentation was focused on my subject area of social studies, I was able to discuss how these skills fall into my subject area, such as the importance of media literacy to interpret modern day politics, and visual literacy to understand context and meaning behind primary resources. Finally, since literacy is based around critical thinking and interpretation, some of the best ways to teach skills in literacy is by having students work together and think beyond the face value of information being shown.

My perceptions of literacy have changed through going through the information for this project. Although I knew the importance of literacy, I never thought about how I would use it effectively in my classroom to help open students up to more content that I am teaching as well. My hope is to continue to create new ways to teach both literacy skills and content information within the same classroom setting in interesting and unique ways.