ch 6-7

progress. Ideas are best introduced when students see a need or a reason for their use—this helps them see relevant uses of knowledge to make sense of what they are learning.” pg139

This quote reminds me of every lesson I teach because I was taught to always find ways to hook the students or buy into the lesson I am teaching. The students are constantly assessed informally and in formal situations. The teacher uses her assessments to see where the students are at and what she needs to do to improve her instruction. In my lesson, I taught my students how to measure using connecting cubes. I constantly walked around giving them feedback. I remember that I made sure to make a connection with measuring and their lives so that they understood why it was important to learn how to measure. I told them that there are many ways to measure and that they can measure objects in order to see how big or small they are. At home their parents probably measure furniture in order to see if it fit in a certain location. I made sure that they were able to fully understand why they had to learn to measure. For this lesson, I think that I would try to have the students be involved in more knowledge-centered activities in order for them to fully go into depth of understanding. During my take over I think that I did not give them enough opportunities to do so. The readings expressed that introducing ideas and concepts in ways that promote deep understanding is really important for learning new skills.

“Opportunities for feedback should occur continuously, but not intrusively, as a part of instruction. Effective teachers continually attempt to learn about their students’ thinking and understanding.” pg 140

As I mentioned before, there were several occasions in which I was giving constant feedback to my students during my take over. There are different ways to give feedback to students, however, kindergarteners are not able to read comments fluently yet. As a result, I was unable to write feedback on their paper work. However, during the times I had the students work in small groups on measuring it was easy for me to walk around to each table group and give feedback orally. The reading also mentions that giving students opportunities to work collaboratively in groups can also increase the quality of the feedback available to students (140). I think that for the assessment part of my lesson I did a good job analyzing the work my students did. I was able to collect their work and evaluate their progress effectively and figure out next steps for those students that did not understand the concepts.