Journal #3

Chapter 3 Focus Question and and Tech Tool

For chapter 3 I chose Focus Question #2

What are the “student learning objectives” and “understanding by design” (backward design) models of lesson planning?

I am going to break this question into two parts to answer it. So let’s start with “student learning objectives”.

Student learning objectives are the intended or planned outcomes of instructional activities. Not the activities themselves. There are five objectives:

1)   Tell who

2)   Is going to do what

3)   When

4)   How much or How often

5)   How it will be measured or evaluated

What will the students be able to do after the lesson? By using the above objectives we will be able to determine that and begin to identify the teaching methods, write out the lesson procedure and state what forms of assessment will be used to measure the students performance.

Now let’s discuss Understanding by design (UBD) also called backward design. This is an approach to curricular development with three main components or stages if you will.

Stage 1)  Identify desired results (enduring understandings and essential questions)

a)                    To provide a frame for student exploration of a topic, we identify the lesson’s questions.

b)                     These questions are the big ideas or relevant information that the students will remember long after the lesson is over.

Stage 2) Determine acceptable evidence (assessment strategies).

a)                    Decide what kind of evidence will show that students have learned the material.

b)                   Articulate information and ideas about the enduring and essential questions.

c)                    Evidence includes performance, other products that the students create with the new knowledge learned from the lesson.

d)                   Decisions about assessment that precede the writing of objectives and procedures for the lesson.

Stage 3) Plan learning experiences and instruction (objectives and methods)

a)    Choose learning objectives

b)   Identifies teaching methods

c)    Crafts a plan of how a lesson will be conducted.

Now that we have discussed the stages of UBD, lets now discuss using Technology in Lesson Planning. The internet provides teachers with a great gift. Free templates and lesson plans that we can build on. Ideas for lessons and opportunities to use technology in the classroom each day.  PBSkids, Thinkfinity, and Discovery school are just a few of these great resources for us.

For a great example of a backward design template on digitalliteracy.mwg.org along with other helpful and useful templates. Great source to have as a teacher.

Now lets discuss Tech Tool 3.3

         Rubrics are being used more and more in classrooms. IF you are a college student the word rubric is something that is familiar to you. Using this tool in classrooms everywhere is a great source. By creating an exact guideline on the assignment it leaves little room for questions about what is required and needed for the assignment.

         Rubistar is a great  tool to great rubrics electronically. It offers six different areas, multimedia, products, experiments, oral prjects, research and writing and work skills. A neat item. Each rubric is made with it's own URL so we can access it anytime. I love this site.
        QuizStar is software that allows you to create quizzes in multiple choice, true-false and short quiz forms. We are able to evaluate the quizes and data on the program.
4teachers.org


Great tools and websites are available for all teachers and of course my favorite FREE! With so many teachers having to use their own financial resources to do things in their classrooms these are great sites to go to, access and use for the classrooms. Enjoy!