Micro Lesson 2

Micro Lesson 2

I. RATIONALE:

            This lesson is being taught to meet an Arizona state learning standard for 1^st grade students.

II. OVERVIEW:

Grade Level: 1^st Grade

Subject(s): English

Topic of Study: Reading Standards for Literature (RL): Key Ideas and Details

Time Allotment: 30 Minutes

Standards: 1.RL.1: Ask and answer questions such as who, what, where, why, when, and how about key details in a text.

Objectives: The student will answer questions about important details from the story.

Reflection: Assessing Prior Knowledge and Planning Instruction

·         What do the students need to know prior to the lesson?

 The student will need to know what details are in a story and how to answer questions related to it.

·         How will prior knowledge and experience be assessed?

The student will be asked if they have a story they like. The teacher will ask the student who the story was about, what happened during the story, and how the story ended.

·         How will you use this information in the planning process?

If the student does not know what the details are or how to answer a specific question, then a brief minilesson can occur during the lesson when it becomes relevant. 

·         When will the lesson be taught in the course of the school year? Why?

For initial instruction of the skill, it should occur during the beginning of the school year. As the lesson includes a preassessment portion, it is to be assumed that no prior knowledge of the student’s skills in this domain exists. The identification of important information about a piece of literature is a crucial skill for the development of overall reading comprehension and its significance never goes away, so reteaching it is perfectly valid. As such, it can be taught at any point during the school year as the skill needs a significant amount of practice before acquiring a degree of automaticity. If it were taught later in the year, then the preassessment would not be needed.

III. IMPLEMENTATION:

Procedure: Prior to the lesson, the student will be asked if they have a favorite story. Based on the student’s response, the student will be asked questions related to details from the story. This conversation will double as the anticipatory set, and the modeling stage will be initiated by asking the student if they would like to watch a video being read to us while I explain how I find the details in a story. The student will be informed that all they need to do at this time is watch the story and pay attention to what I say when I pause it to talk about details that were found. The Mercer Mayer short story “I Was So Mad” will be played via YouTube. During the video, the teacher pauses to answer questions related to who the main characters are, what happened, and how the story ended. Next, the teacher will ask the student to join them in working together to answer those questions with a different story.

            The Mercer Mayer short story “Just Go to Bed” will be watched next. The student will be informed that they can pause or rewind the video at any time when they think they can say who the main characters are, what is happening in the story, and how it ends. The teacher will set up opportunities for the student to pause the video by posing a question relevant to what will be happening in the story. This includes prior to the introduction of the characters, as the story is about to climax, and before the ending begins. If the student struggles to identify a time to pause, then the teacher will help and rewind it to provide the student cues to look for. This process will be repeated as needed, going through the story multiple times if needed, until the student is consistently showing an understanding of what to look for to answer the questions.

            For independent practice, the Mercer Meyer story “Just Helping My Dad” will be played. Before starting the video, the student will be informed that they are to identify the main characters in the story, what happened during the story, and what happened at the end. The student is allowed to pause and rewind the video on their own as needed to help answer the questions. After the student is satisfied with their answers, independent practice will end. The closure of the lesson will involve asking the student to explain how they find out their answers and if they think they could do it again with other stories. Before leaving, the student will be asked to explain what they learned, and he will be praised for his response.

 

Technology Integration:

1.      YouTube audio reading of three short stories by Mercer Meyer:

·         “I Was So Mad”: I Was So Mad by Mercer Mayer - Little Critter - Read Aloud Books for Children - Storytime - YouTube

·         “Just Go to Bed”: Just Go to Bed by Mercer Mayer - Little Critter - Read Aloud Books for Children - Storytime - YouTube

·         “Just Helping My Dad”: Just Helping My Dad by Mercer Mayer - Little Critter - Read Aloud Books for Children - Storytime - YouTube

2.      Laptop with keyboard to play the videos and pause and rewind the videos using the space bar and left arrow key.

 

Differentiated Instruction: Cognitively Delayed Students: The lesson will focus on either one or two of the question prompts instead of all three to help emphasize the general skill instead of tying the student up in too many details. Gifted Students: The lesson is extended by asking if the student can identify where the story took place and why the events happened. English Language Learner Students: The student is allowed to pause the video to ask for an explanation of what words mean or to rewind the video to listen against to what was read.

 

Reflection: Designing Instruction (InTASC Standards 7 and 8)

·         How do the instructional methods align with what you know about best practices?

The lesson captures the student’s attention by asking them about something they like and allowing them to talk about it. The modeling portion includes thinking aloud, an effective strategy for teaching cognitive skills. The guided practice allowed for active student engagement, and the independent practice allowed them to demonstrate mastery of what they had learned. This is in keeping with the direct instruction model that is considered best practice. Finally, giving the lesson closure by having the student talk about what they learned makes it more likely that he will remember it.

 

·         How are you engaging students in creative and higher order thinking?

Giving the student the power to pause or rewind the video according to what they believe they need teaches them the strategy of rereading to search for additional information. This practice is demonstrative of higher order thinking, because the student must self-monitor to determine whether it is necessary. The student’s creativity is fostered by asking them to explain how they came up with the answers they did, because an explanation of how one did something a certain way requires a level of introspection that lends itself to creative responses.

 

IV. ASSESSMENT:

Procedure: The teacher will listen to the responses given by the student to the questions posed during the independent practice. These questions are related to who the main characters in the story are, what happened during the story, and how the story ended. These responses given by the student will be recorded by the teacher using pencil and paper. The orally given responses will be compared to the rubric that was developed and seen under Instruments. If the student successfully answers all three questions, then the student will have demonstrated evidence of learning related to the lesson objective. Incorrect answers to any of them would indicate a need for future reteaching on those points to clear up misunderstandings.

Instruments:

1.      Pencil and paper for the teacher to record student responses.

2.      Rubric:

Question	Correct Answer
Who were the main characters in the story?	Little Critter, Dad. Mom is acceptable but not necessary.
What happened during the story?	Little Critter kept trying to help Dad and causing problems.
How did the story end?	Dad thanks Little Critter for helping and tucks him into bed.

3.      Laptop with the YouTube video for “Just Helping My Dad” loaded.

4.      Laptop keyboard’s spacebar and left arrow key.

Reflection: Planning Assessment (InTASC Standard 6):

·         How do the instructional methods align with what you know about best practices?

The assessment and a rubric for grading it was developed after the identification of the learning standard being addressed in the lesson. Working backward in this manner is best practice as it ensures that assessments are both valid and reliable. Additionally, the guided practice and modeling portions of the video provided the student with ample opportunity to be prepared to demonstrate competence on the assessment.

 

·         How are you engaging students in creative and higher order thinking?

Should the student feel the need to pause or rewind to identify information he believes to be important, he is practicing the reading comprehension strategy of rereading. Being self-aware enough to engage in this is evidence of higher order thinking by itself, because self-monitoring and other metacognitive strategies possess unique complexity. The ensuing conversation after independent practice ends allows for the student to express what he has learned in his own words, and this requires the fashioning of language appropriate to the moment. Similarly, explaining the processes he used requires higher order cognitive thinking as using language to describe what one has done is a creative process.

 

·         How does the assessment demonstrate that the students have been successful in learning the content?

If done correctly, the assessment demonstrates that the student was able to use the skills taught to identify the appropriate information that was requested by the questions. If the skills were not taught correctly, then incorrect answers would have appeared on the assessment.

·         How does the assessment demonstrate that the individual student needs were met?

The assessment encompasses three of the six common types of questions asked about literature, and the learning standard was matched to the grade-level of the student. If the student did not know how to find the information prior to the lesson and can now find it and articulate it, then academic needs related to the state standard have been satisfied.

V. MATERIALS AND RESOURCES:

1.      I Was So Mad by Mercer Mayer - Little Critter - Read Aloud Books for Children - Storytime - YouTube

2.      Just Go to Bed by Mercer Mayer - Little Critter - Read Aloud Books for Children - Storytime - YouTube

3.      Just Helping My Dad by Mercer Mayer - Little Critter - Read Aloud Books for Children - Storytime - YouTube

 

Reflection: How does your lesson meet ISTE Standards?

·         ISTE Standards for Educators

The lesson is adapted according to the ISTE Standard for Educators referred to as “2.6: Facilitator.” By giving the student control over the use of the technology in finding the answers to the questions, the student’s interaction with the technology was facilitated, and he became an empowered learner. More specifically, this means the student was able to take ownership of the pursuit of his learning goal. Moving forward, this should help the student to feel more comfortable with his usage of the technology for other academic pursuits.

·         ISTE Standards for Students

The lesson satisfies the ISTE Standard for Students referred to as “1.1: Empowered Learner.” The student took an active role in using technology to assist his attempt to meet the learning goal during guided and independent practice. By using technology in this manner, the student can better understand how the use of technology can assist him in demonstrating competency at something being learned. As the student gets older and more familiar with technology, this should eventually allow him to become the knowledge constructor associated with students able to use a variety of digital tools to accomplish a purpose.

Reflection: What occurred during the lesson?

            Prior to the lesson, a conversation was had about the student’s favorite story. Rather than a book, the student elected to talk about the story from a video game, Borderlands 3, that he played with his father. When asked about who the main characters were, he said the characters you could play as. When asked about what the story was about, he said killing a lot of people. When asked how the story ended, he said that you save the world. This indicated he had some awareness of questions related to the details or a story and how to answer them. I asked him if he would like to learn how to understand stories that you read by watching some videos with me. The student consented.

            During the modeling stage, the student did not like me pausing the first story to explain to him how to find out who the story is about, what was happening, or how it ended. He liked the times I rewound it to find information even less. In retrospect, I should have explained that he would be joining me to practice this after the first video. As it was, he just wanted to listen to the story without interruption. Moving forward, a teacher should not assume that a student knows the direct instruction model is what is being used. During the guided practice, the student wanted to play around with the pause and rewind functions during the second story, and this was taking away from the focus of the lesson. After being redirected, the student started to use the functions to answer the three questions that were put to them. Eventually, the student could easily do it to show the main characters, examples of what happened during the story, and the ending.

            By the time independent practice occurred, the student was used to the three questions. He was able to listen to the third story and easily identify the main characters, what was happening, and how it ended. He said “Little Critter and Dad are the people in the story” in response to the first question. He replied “Little Critter was messing up and Dad had to help him” to the second question. For the last question, he stated, “They went to bed.” Afterward, I asked him to explain how he found the answers. He indicated that he used the pictures and what he heard. When asked if he could do this again with a different story, he said, “Yep.” Finally, he was asked what he learned, and he said, “To go backward to find stuff if you need to.” I praised him for being smart and excused myself despite the student’s insistence that we watch more videos but without having to answer questions.

            The lesson had a rough start, but the student demonstrated competence at the learning objective by the end. Early on, a better job could have been done maintaining his focus and sense of purpose, and this underscores the importance of communicating to the student what is going to be done as a whole. It is easier to get them to stay on task when they understand the purpose of what is happening and understand it is as meaningful to them. Aside from wanting to play with pause and rewind for amusement during guided practice, the student did well after the redirection. The videos were indispensable for instructing a skill that would otherwise be harder to teach, because rereading and knowing when to do so does not have such a natural demonstration of the pause and rewind function. The inclusion of technology makes the instruction of some cognitive strategies so much easier than what they would be otherwise. Overall, the lesson was a valuable learning experience as it concerns the importance of technology when working with a student, and it is likely to carry over into working with an entire classroom.