Backwards Mapping Design and Standard Lesson Planning Reflection
Reflection
In K5 Special Education, standards are an essential part of Teaching. There are academic standards for the school, state, and district, as well as IEP standards. Following these standards is am essential part of being a special education teacher. In this module, although I am halfway into teaching my first year of special education, this module was especially helpful in showing me how to write and develop lesson plans based on standards. I struggled with lesson planning as a new teacher considering I had zero experience teaching before I got hired. This module also had great timing, as I am now able to incorporate the lesson plans I developed in my classroom after winter break.
The importance of understanding standards and being able to identify student proficiencies, assessments, and learning activities that will help students learn and teachers know whether students are learning or not is essential no matter what grade level you are teaching at. Schools have standards that every teacher must follow. If those standards are not followed, the teacher can get in trouble because those school standards are based off of district and state standards, which schools are obligated to follow. The importance of backwards design is that unlike traditional lesson planning, with backwards design you start at the end, to develop goals to reach standards. This backwards design allows for lesson planning to get straight to the point, and allows for goals to be set that students can take in strides. It is really great for special education because I like to teach in steps or increments in the classroom, so that lessons do not become too overwhelming for the students.
These two processes helped me understand the standards by always checking to see if the students are actually learning what is being taught. A way that I can check that students are actually learning or not is by the MAP state testing. If my students scored poorly on a standard state test, or after the end of the lesson students reflections or exams are not in the passing score range, I know the students did not learn the lesson, and I did not do my job as a teacher to teach the lessons correctly. If what I am teaching is not benefiting the student, then it will not help that student pass standard level exams, nor reflect on me in a good way because I have not done my job. Backwards mapping helped me develop a lesson plan based on school standards by setting goals before choosing instructional methods to teach those goals. This was especially helpful in formulating new IEP goals for some students that I had. The backwards mapping to me was the best part of the module. It was simple and easy to follow since it only had three steps to it; identify the results desired, determine acceptable levels of evidence that support that the desired results have occurred, and design activities that will make results happen.
An example of backwards design in my lesson plan is reading for my K5 Special education class. The subject area is reading, and the objective is for my students to understand that characters in fiction can change internally throughout a chapter and the book. Currently, my students think once they are introduced to a character at the beginning of the book, that character will stay the same and have the same traits at the end of the book. So this backwards design is meant to show students conceptual movement. By the end of this backwards design lesson, students will see that a character is not the same as it was in the beginning of the book. Student’s will also use specific language to describe a character’s personality trait’s at the end of the text, as well as at the beginning of a text, and students will remember what a character is. By using backwards design, I was able to choose activities, teaching points, and materials to facilitate the movement of my students understandings and open their minds to understand the conceptual movement of fictional characters.
An example of a standards based lesson plan includes the learning objective, standards, activities, materials, and assessments. In my K5 Special education class, the standards that must be taught are reading, writing, and math. This example is a math lesson. My students currently know place value, so there objective of this lesson is for them to use what they know about place value, and their familiarity with longs and cubes to compare two 2 digit numbers using <,>, and =. The standards for this lesson include comparing two 2 digit numbers based on meanings of the tens and ones digits, recording the results of the comparisons with the symbols <,>,and =. Also in the standards are having the students understand that the two digits of the 2 digit number represent the amount of tens and ones. The last standard of this lesson is for students to use appropriate tools strategically. The next part of this lesson are the activities. I used the “I do it, we do it, you do it” teaching strategy by first showing the students what they already know about two digit numbers, then asking students which group of longs and cubes representing 2 digit numbers shows more, and once students have seen which shows more, students will be shown how to use <,>, and = symbols to represent 2 digit numbers. Then the students will practice creating and comparing using 2 digit longs and cubes, while I observe. The students will pair up and challenge each other using the longs and cubes. Lastly , as an exit slip, I will draw one last question for the students to answer following the lesson. This last question implemented in the lesson will serve as a cue to know what student has mastered the content in the lesson, as well as shows which students still need more understanding of the lesson content.
The strengths and weaknesses of unpacking standards and backwards mapping is that backwards mapping is from end to beginning. Depending on the class and grade level being taught, it may or may not be a good idea. Another weakness Is that the purpose of learning may be different with backwards mapping. A benefit of backwards mapping is that unlike traditional standards based lesson planning, backwards design usually simple and can be done by the course developer. Course design can also be done in a short amount of time with backwards mapping. With traditional standards lesson plans, it is a forward learning model. The profiles of beneficiaries is known meaning you know who you are catering the lesson to whether it be college level, second grade, etc.. With traditional standards lesson plans, the purpose of learning is the same for all, and course design can take a long time depending on feedback. All in all, lesson planning is essential for all teachers. It is imperative to follow standards in order to serve the students academic needs properly.
Resources:
Marzano, R. J. (2010). The art and science of teaching: a comprehensive framework for effective instruction. Alexandria, Va: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Culatta, R. (2013). Backwards Design. Retrieved December 22, 2017, from http://www.instructionaldesign.org/models/backward_design.html
Mcdaniel, R. (1970, June 10). Understanding by Design. Retrieved December 22, 2017, from https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/understanding-by-design/
In K5 Special Education, standards are an essential part of Teaching. There are academic standards for the school, state, and district, as well as IEP standards. Following these standards is am essential part of being a special education teacher. In this module, although I am halfway into teaching my first year of special education, this module was especially helpful in showing me how to write and develop lesson plans based on standards. I struggled with lesson planning as a new teacher considering I had zero experience teaching before I got hired. This module also had great timing, as I am now able to incorporate the lesson plans I developed in my classroom after winter break.
The importance of understanding standards and being able to identify student proficiencies, assessments, and learning activities that will help students learn and teachers know whether students are learning or not is essential no matter what grade level you are teaching at. Schools have standards that every teacher must follow. If those standards are not followed, the teacher can get in trouble because those school standards are based off of district and state standards, which schools are obligated to follow. The importance of backwards design is that unlike traditional lesson planning, with backwards design you start at the end, to develop goals to reach standards. This backwards design allows for lesson planning to get straight to the point, and allows for goals to be set that students can take in strides. It is really great for special education because I like to teach in steps or increments in the classroom, so that lessons do not become too overwhelming for the students.
These two processes helped me understand the standards by always checking to see if the students are actually learning what is being taught. A way that I can check that students are actually learning or not is by the MAP state testing. If my students scored poorly on a standard state test, or after the end of the lesson students reflections or exams are not in the passing score range, I know the students did not learn the lesson, and I did not do my job as a teacher to teach the lessons correctly. If what I am teaching is not benefiting the student, then it will not help that student pass standard level exams, nor reflect on me in a good way because I have not done my job. Backwards mapping helped me develop a lesson plan based on school standards by setting goals before choosing instructional methods to teach those goals. This was especially helpful in formulating new IEP goals for some students that I had. The backwards mapping to me was the best part of the module. It was simple and easy to follow since it only had three steps to it; identify the results desired, determine acceptable levels of evidence that support that the desired results have occurred, and design activities that will make results happen.
An example of backwards design in my lesson plan is reading for my K5 Special education class. The subject area is reading, and the objective is for my students to understand that characters in fiction can change internally throughout a chapter and the book. Currently, my students think once they are introduced to a character at the beginning of the book, that character will stay the same and have the same traits at the end of the book. So this backwards design is meant to show students conceptual movement. By the end of this backwards design lesson, students will see that a character is not the same as it was in the beginning of the book. Student’s will also use specific language to describe a character’s personality trait’s at the end of the text, as well as at the beginning of a text, and students will remember what a character is. By using backwards design, I was able to choose activities, teaching points, and materials to facilitate the movement of my students understandings and open their minds to understand the conceptual movement of fictional characters.
An example of a standards based lesson plan includes the learning objective, standards, activities, materials, and assessments. In my K5 Special education class, the standards that must be taught are reading, writing, and math. This example is a math lesson. My students currently know place value, so there objective of this lesson is for them to use what they know about place value, and their familiarity with longs and cubes to compare two 2 digit numbers using <,>, and =. The standards for this lesson include comparing two 2 digit numbers based on meanings of the tens and ones digits, recording the results of the comparisons with the symbols <,>,and =. Also in the standards are having the students understand that the two digits of the 2 digit number represent the amount of tens and ones. The last standard of this lesson is for students to use appropriate tools strategically. The next part of this lesson are the activities. I used the “I do it, we do it, you do it” teaching strategy by first showing the students what they already know about two digit numbers, then asking students which group of longs and cubes representing 2 digit numbers shows more, and once students have seen which shows more, students will be shown how to use <,>, and = symbols to represent 2 digit numbers. Then the students will practice creating and comparing using 2 digit longs and cubes, while I observe. The students will pair up and challenge each other using the longs and cubes. Lastly , as an exit slip, I will draw one last question for the students to answer following the lesson. This last question implemented in the lesson will serve as a cue to know what student has mastered the content in the lesson, as well as shows which students still need more understanding of the lesson content.
The strengths and weaknesses of unpacking standards and backwards mapping is that backwards mapping is from end to beginning. Depending on the class and grade level being taught, it may or may not be a good idea. Another weakness Is that the purpose of learning may be different with backwards mapping. A benefit of backwards mapping is that unlike traditional standards based lesson planning, backwards design usually simple and can be done by the course developer. Course design can also be done in a short amount of time with backwards mapping. With traditional standards lesson plans, it is a forward learning model. The profiles of beneficiaries is known meaning you know who you are catering the lesson to whether it be college level, second grade, etc.. With traditional standards lesson plans, the purpose of learning is the same for all, and course design can take a long time depending on feedback. All in all, lesson planning is essential for all teachers. It is imperative to follow standards in order to serve the students academic needs properly.
Resources:
Marzano, R. J. (2010). The art and science of teaching: a comprehensive framework for effective instruction. Alexandria, Va: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Culatta, R. (2013). Backwards Design. Retrieved December 22, 2017, from http://www.instructionaldesign.org/models/backward_design.html
Mcdaniel, R. (1970, June 10). Understanding by Design. Retrieved December 22, 2017, from https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/understanding-by-design/
Comments
Post a Comment