Assignment #3

1. How does your unit contribute to the curriculum goals of your teaching assignment? Standards, content, student learning?
My unit contributes to the curriculum goals by following the school wide decision to do Dr. Seuss activities for the week. I set a goal to get to know the curriculum better and how to use it in various ways, this allowed me to take something taught in the curriculum and use it across different subjects. It was not something that was in the district curriculum, but it went along side with what was being taught within that curriculum. The students were learning about properties of water, with this lesson they were applying what they knew to something other than water. The concepts of properties such as surface tension are within the 4th grade standards set by the state of Minnesota. By using their prior knowledge to apply it to Oobleck, students were working at higher levels of learning as defined by Bloom's Taxonomy.

2. Describe the learning expectations that you had for your lessons. What aspects of the lesson were successful and why? What aspects of the lesson where not successful and why?
The skills that were intended for the students to learn and acquire during this unit was collaboration and making decisions as a group. In groups, students were expected to use prior knowledge to come up with properties and investigate Oobleck's surface tension and report their findings. With their findings, the students were then supposed to collectively, as a class come up with laws for Oobleck. They did this through a process of proving their group's law and then the class voted it in or out. The student were able to successfully complete these tasks and the discussion was very productive. The part that was unsuccessful was the time that it occurred in and at first the students were not really understanding what was expected of them. That was more something I needed to correct, which I did. I stopped, explained the process again, and continued with facilitating the discussion.


3. Analyze one of your instructional materials and discuss its effectiveness.
Oobleck. The Oobleck is in a way a tool for instruction in this unit. It is what the whole unit is based on, and is definitely needed to perform the activities in the unit. The Oobleck is very effective in that it brings the literature to life and allows for students to explore their imaginations. Not only are they using tools they have been equipped with to come up with ideas about the Oobleck, but they are also using imagination to create spacecrafts.


4. Analyze the student work you provided. Describe why one example is an illustration of quality work and why one is not. Discuss what steps you took to support the student that did not produce quality work.
The first student provided quality work because he followed all directions and produced a spacecraft that was colored, named, and labeled parts that were useful. Not only did he follow the directions, but he added an extra piece. Using his imagination, he incorporated a floor plan of what the inside of the spacecraft would look like. The student that did not produce quality work did not follow the directions given. She did color her spacecraft, but she did not label the parts that could be useful to the collecting and leaving the planet. She also did not name her spacecraft. After seeing her and others who did not follow directions, I restated the directions and put them on the board so all students could see what the expectations were. Later, those who did not follow instruction, I then had finish their project to the expectations.


5. Provide an argument for why the assessment instrument that you developed was the best strategy for determining student achievement. Include a discussion of how the instrument addressed the lesson objectives and provided concrete evidence of student achievement.
The assessment instrument was a rubric. This rubric was the best strategy because it wrapped all of the activities into one grade, and allowed for grading on each part of the unit. The rubric addressed the lesson objectives by including pieces like "consider participation, cooperation" in group work. It suggested what should be considered within each grade. This breaks down how the student was graded piece by piece. With this, you can look at each category and see what the student was lacking. Were they not collaborating with their peers? Were they not on task? This allows a justification to the grade given and gives the teacher and the student an opportunity to discuss what was lacking and why the grade is what it is.