CEP 800: Lesson Plan Reflection

Least Common Multiple

The objective of the lesson I did with my students was to find the least common multiple of 2 numbers less than or equal to 12. I focused my lesson on 6^th grade special education students. It was a small group setting of 2-3 students. In order for my students to be successful with this lesson they needed to understand what fractions were and their basic multiplication facts.

During this lesson I provided my students with physical representations of the fractions. We worked to find the least common multiple for each fraction so we could compare the value of the two fractions. Initially, I thought I would just use PowerPoint and my document camera with fraction sticks to help my student understand the concept. Upon starting this lesson, I decided I needed to use a multiplication chart as well as a program called MathWhizz to help my students understand this concept. Math Whizz is a math program in which I was able to allow my students to take over my computer screen and use the manipulative on the screen to split objects into equal pieces. Not only were my students able to control my screen, but they worked with other students to make sure they completed the work correctly and that it made sense. In this way they were demonstrating social constructivism to gain knowledge about the concept.

This lesson was created in response to my students failing to show academic progress on this content area. I created this lesson to reteach and reassess my student’s work. It was important that during this lesson I facilitated a safe environment in which all students felt save and valued. There are classroom rules for how to respond and work with one another during the lesson. After the lesson, my students were able to take a MasteryConnect quiz to show their knowledge of the material. It is an instant assessment that provides instant feedback for me on their progress.

Technology was a very important piece to my lesson. It provided my students with the initial instruction, the practical application, as well as the assessment. The technology does allow students to not only visually see the concept, but also to manipulate and physically work with the concept. Students are also able to collaborate through the technology platform of Adobe Connects. Students provided feedback to one another through chat pods and microphones.

My students have had lots of access to this technology so they did not seem to have questions about it. They were easily able to control my screen, respond to peers, and show their mastery through the assessments. I am very proud of how they completed this lesson. The only problems with the technologies seem to be the same as all technologies. There are times when it works well and time when it does not. I was very lucky with how it turned out this time. However, being a teacher means you have to be prepared. I always have a backup plan in case my initial lesson fails. Overall, this was a great experience. I look forward to using the technologies and concepts in the future and evolving as time goes on.

 

 

 

Lesson Plan

Lesson Plan

1.Content: What is the content you are teaching and what are the big ideas? What are the challenging concepts that students struggle with or are difficult to teach? Consider your state standards (GLCEs or HSCEs) as you develop the essential questions you are trying to address.

OBJ06CCMA07: Find the least common multiple of two whole numbers less than or equal to 12

2.Pedagogy: What pedagogical strategies are you using and why? What theories of learning inform your strategies? What learner characteristics did you take into consideration?

When teaching fractions, I like to use as many visuals and examples as possible. Students respond to be able to see a real life example of what they are suppose to do. It can be very challenging for them to understand the concept of fractions and finding the least common multiple to add and subtract. Cognitive constructivism and social constructivism play a part in my strategies. I want to utilize their prior knowledge, but it is more than just acquiring the knowledge. They are able to construct their knowledge through modeling with the different manipulatives. Students are also able to use each other to create and move objects to form the correct fractions.

  3.Content & Pedagogy: How do these particular strategies help you teach the content mentioned above? Why choose these strategies over other approaches? Are there any technical or physical constraints that figured significantly into your choices?

  I think by using these strategies students are more likely to learn the concept. The group of students I work with are very concrete thinkers. They struggle when they are having to learn an abstract concept. By using manipulatives and visuals I am able to provide my students with the concrete. They can manipulate and make meaning from the different visuals I am giving them. They are also able to use each other to form and reform fractions to add and subtract.

4.Technology: What technology will you be using and why? Is the use of this technology absolutely necessary to achieve your objective? That is, would be impossible to teach the lesson without it? Remember that content specific technology (e.g., probes, graphing calculators, Geometer’s Sketchpad, United Streaming videos) are used to teach a content-specific concepts, whereas content-general technologies (e.g., Flash animation, Web 2.0 technologies) may facilitate deeper understanding by allowing students to manipulate information, explore a “network of ideas,” and investigate multiple representations of material.

I will be using Adobe Presenter. This technology allows me the chance to give students the instruction, assess, and re-teach if necessary. This program operates through PowerPoint allowing me to provide visuals for my students, videos and other verbal explanations. I can also pre-assess what they know through imbedded quizzes and then assess what they have gained after the instruction. I will also use voice thread for students to create examples of how to change and manipulate fractions. They are able to comment on each other’s projects to help them improve the information.


5. Technology & Pedagogy: How does the technology you have chosen fit with your pedagogical strategies and theories about learning? What types of learning strategies are employed by the technology?

This technology provides my students with a chance to see visuals of how to find the least common multiple of fractions. They are also able to collaborate together to show what they know. This technology provides for my visual, auditory and kinesthetic learners. It is also helpful for my special education students who need visuals to help them understand the concepts. They need something to tie their knowledge to. My students will be able to review the material as many times as necessary.

6. Technology & Content: How does your choice of technology help you teach the "big ideas" and address the essential questions underlying the concept your lesson addresses?

  I am able to provide the answer to how to solve fractions with the least common multiple using visuals and having students recreate and post examples of their problems. The underlying questions of how to identify fractions and how to subtract or add fractions will also be addressed. This way I can see if there are concepts that my students did not get that will impact their ability to master finding common multiples.

7. Assessment: What do you want your students to know, and how will you know when they know it? How will you assess what students have learned? What role does technology play in these assessments?

  I want my students to be able to find the least common multiple. I will know that they know it through the embedded quizzes in the Adobe Presenter technology as well as the VoiceThread assignment. I can see the progress throughout as my students create a visual to explain to me how to find the least common multiple and solve the addition or subtraction problems. The assessment is through VoiceThread and Adobe Presenter. The technology is the assessment.

CEP 800: Digital Story Telling Project

This is my digital story telling project on addition and subtraction. I have a student who struggled with adding and subtracting. He does have some understanding, but struggles to show his understanding with 100% accuracy. He required a toll to help him effectively solve problems with more accuracy.

Podcast

CEP 800 - Audio Production

 My audio production is based on the general understanding of a virtual school setting. Before I started working at Michigan Connections Academy I did not know a virtual setting outside of college was possible. Many people who have learned that I am working in a virtual setting are curious about how it works. There are many misconceptions that follow virtual school setting. This podcast is designed to identify these common misconceptions and to explain what the reality is inside of the classrooms at Michigan Connections Academy.

Podcast

CEP 812 WPP Final

Jing Project

My Wicked Problem Project was dealing with finding the time to re-teach fractions. After much thought and trial and error, I realized I needed to focus my problem into 3 separate re-teaching sections:

1. identifying fractions
2. adding/subtracting fractions with common denominators
3. adding/subtracting fractions without common denominators

My solution was to use Adobe Presenter to accomplish this. Adobe Presenter allows me to create individualized instructional sessions for my students. They can take a pre-test and pos-test quiz that I embed to provide me with data to see where my students started and how they finished. This also allows me to tweak my instruction with them if this did not work the first time.

This technology supports the following teaching strategies and methods:

1. visual - through pictures I can place in the program to provide students with concrete information
2. auditory - I will read questions and create some verbal instruction in the program
3. drill and practice - students will be able to practice the concepts
4. scaffolding- Students will start with adding and subtracting fractions with common denominators and move towards adding and subtracting without common denominators.
5. Chunking - this program will allow me to chunk instruction into smaller pieces for my students.

I am able to break information down, provide repeated instruction, and pinpoint the areas of deficits that my students have.

 

This process made my content more intellectually accessible because all of my students could access it. It is a tool that promotes independence. This is vital for special education students as they are often the ones that become dependent. This allows them to complete the content at their own pace. There is no fear of being wrong in a group because it is individualized. They are able to pause, rewind or fast forward at any moment if they need clarification of the content. I can also reach more levels of students with this. I could create a gifted and talented lessons as well as a general session. This would help me with workshop time as I would more effectively be able to access student's deficient areas.

 

This process utilized my pedagogical choices to make the content more accessible providing my students with additional instruction in a new way. My students are given additional visuals to support their understanding of the concept. The are able to use visual manipulatives to solve the simple addition and subtraction problems. It will scaffolds their instruction from identifying fractions to  adding and subtracting with common denominators to adding and subtracting without common denominators. It gives my students who struggle to read an opportunity to participate independently in the learning. Students will also be able to show their knowledge through assessments embedded into the assignment.

Overall, this process was very useful. It provided me with a new tool to use with my students, as well as a deeper understanding of what my students need. I am exited to utilize all of the things Adobe Presenter has to offer. The data is already starting to be used inside of my school with school improvement goals.

CEP 812: Personal Learning Plan

VoiceThread
 - I am sorry this is so quiet. I was sick at the time and unable to project my voice any louder.

This is a voicethread of my personal learning plan. In 810, my goals dealt with attending more conferences and utilizing my new technology inside of the classroom. I have been able to utilize some of it inside of the classroom. It is challenging to utilize all of it because with copyright we are only able to use certain things inside of the virtual setting. I am working to find new resources that I can utilize, but I am also learning everything that we have.

As far as attending more conferences, my company has trainings every week to introduce new technologies that we can use in our program. I attend as many as I can. Many of them are programs that students can be signed up for as an intervention to weak areas they have in reading and math. I am learning to analyze the data and provide new learning paths for them.

I am very excited to utilize all the things I learned in this class. I am especially excited to use WatchKnowLearn. It will help me with my flipped classroom. I will be bale to provide even focused assistance for my students for areas they are struggling with. This has been a great experience, and I really appreciate all the application we are expected to do in this class. It really helped me to master the content.

CEP 812: Group Leadership Project

For this PD tutorial our group used Adobe Presenter to present our findings on WatchKnowLearn. We used this program because it incorporates PowerPoint with a presentation component. Users are able to fast forward and rewind the presentation to go at their own speed. If animation is present, the program allows the narrator to record sections for each animation. This way users do not have to press a sounds button for the presentation, but instead it is all encompassing.  It is a fairly easy program to create and watch.

Through this process I learned about several technological programs. I did not know what a storyboard was or how to use it. Popplet it an awesome site to use for this purpose. I can see it as something that my students could easily manipulate and use for projects. I also loved using Google docs for our script writing. I think this is another program that I do not utilize as much as I could with my students. It is was very hard to keep this project to the 10 minute guideline. There is always so much that you can share about things you are researching and programs you are utilizing. WatchKnowLearn is one of those programs that is full of useful tools that could take hours to present.


Overall, this presentation went well. I enjoyed working with my group members. Heidi did a great job of keeping us on task, while Sam was the driving force behind the design of the presentation. I added my own zing with the new technology of Adobe Presenter. If I had to do something differently in this process I would make the script shorter. It was so hard to cram all of the information into the presentation. Otherwise, I am pleased with the final product and my group members. They were amazing and really worked to build each other up. They were a true model of a PLC.




 Group4Project