My First Back-to-Back Mini Lessons
----Each component of my back-to-back mini lessons is labeled in blue----
Lesson Plan:
Family
Grade/Course: 9th Grade/Spanish 1
Time: Two 20-minute lessons, Tuesday and Thursday
Rationale & Context: It is important for students to learn this unit because they will be able to see how important it is to appreciate every kind of family. Moreover, they will have the ability to converse with other Spanish-speakers about their family. This is a very special skill to have and will come in handy especially when traveling.
My class is very diverse in terms of grade, gender balance, needs, and interests. For example, one student in my class has trouble with organization/note-taking so I will provide the entire class with a Google Doc as a reference sheet. Other students in my class are dealing with challenges as well, so it is important for me to foster an open, safe environment where students can help their peers with their individual needs. I discuss the individual needs that I will address in the accommodations section below.
I made an interest inventory in Spanish because it encourages students to use new vocabulary and some basic sentence structures in their responses. This is effective because it helps meet the standard.
DESIRED RESULTS
Unit Essential Question: How is my family unique?
Focusing Questions: How can I use basic vocabulary and my knowledge of grammar to describe my family members in Spanish? How does my family compare to other families?
Standard: Vermont Global Citizen Proficiency Standard High School 6Ca: Participating in interdisciplinary activities (e.g., singing, dancing, painting, counting, creating visual art, playing musical instruments, participating in a play).
Content Objectives: Students will understand the importance of appreciating the uniqueness of their individual families. They will know Spanish family vocab and grammar concepts. They will be able to make a family tree with a few descriptive sentences to accompany it.
Literacy Objectives: Students will be able to translate English words, related to family, to Spanish and vice versa. They will know (look above). They will understand that they need to alter adjective’s spellings to match the noun that comes before it.
ASSESSMENT EVIDENCE
Describe the assessment used in the lesson and explain how it will be introduced and used throughout the lesson.
Exit card-On the first day, students will write down 5 sentences about their families so I can see that they understand the material.
Think and Draw-On the second day, students will draw and label a family tree. They will then explain their visual. I will have a checklist that ensures they have a minimum of 4 sentences using “es” or “son”, 4 sentences using “tener”, and new vocabulary.
ACCOMMODATIONS:
Student
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Objectives
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Assessment
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Resources
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Student needing extra time
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Same
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Different: I will let the student take their family tree home if they need more time on it, rather than grading it right at the end of the lesson.
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Same
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Student with language obstacles
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Same
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Same
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Different: I will give students vocabulary sheets and I also give them the option to use the internet for their word clouds.
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LEARNING PLAN
Introduction:
I will have have students make a word cloud of any family vocabulary they can find on their iPads.
Instruction:
Time
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Instructional Strategy
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Learning Opportunity
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5 minutes
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I will open with an agenda. I will them to make a word cloud of family vocab, specific to his or her family, using prior knowledge or internet. When making the word cloud, they can use a paper and pencil/pen.
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Students will use their prior knowledge and their iPads to create a word cloud.
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10 minutes
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I will provide students with a helpful Google Doc that has family vocabulary, and a reference list of “es”/”son” and noun/adjective agreement. To engage them, I will do fill-in-the-blank activities on the board where students can create their own sentences for the rest of the class to see. Furthermore, I will write several sentences on the board, some grammatically correct and some incorrect, so students can come up to the board and depict which ones are right/wrong. If they are wrong, they can fix them with help from the class if needed.
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Students will be able to complete sentences in Spanish and understand the difference between “es”/”son” and noun/adjective agreement.
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5 minutes
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Exit card with prompt:
Write down five sentences about your family using the vocab and grammar concepts you learned today. With the Google Doc I give my students, I am confident that all my students will be able to form original sentences.
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Student will be able to apply what they learned to their own family, by expressing themselves using basic sentence structures and vocabulary they learned in the lesson.
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Time
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Instructional Strategy
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Learning Opportunity
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2 minutes
(Add more time if needed)
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Review.
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Students will listen, answer questions, and ask questions in review.
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5 minutes
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I will do fill-in-the-blank activities on the board, similar to Tuesday’s lesson, to teach about age. This will be accompanied by a Google Doc to help students organize the information.
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Students will understand the difference between “ser” and “tener” and be able to form sentences describing the age of an individual.
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7 minutes
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Think and Draw: Students have to make a quick family tree sketch and write 8 sentences to accompany it. 4 should use adjectives and “es” or “son”. The other 4 should use numbers for certain family member’s ages and “tener”. This will be accompanied by a Google Doc to give students an example of an assessment that meets the standard. With the Google Doc I give my students, I am confident that all my students will be able to form original sentences.
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Students will participate in an interdisciplinary activity, while also expressing themselves using basic sentence structures, and vocabulary they learned.
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6 minutes
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Quick Share/Whip.
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Students will understand the importance of appreciating the uniqueness of their individual families.
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Closure and Connections:
For this section, I simply want to summarize all we have learned before the quick share.
RESOURCES/MATERIALS
-iPads or laptops for word cloud exploring/to view Google Doc I provide them with
-Google Doc of family, number vocab, and example of family tree with 8 sentences (4 with names and 4 with ages)
FOCUS FOR SUPERVISOR:
Performance Criterion 5.1: Candidates engage learners in applying perspectives from varied disciplines in authentic contexts (such as local and global issues).
Performance Criterion 5.2: Candidates integrate cross-disciplinary skills (such as critical thinking, creativity, and collaborative problem solving) to help learners demonstrate their learning in unique ways.
Performance Criterion 7.1: Candidates plan instruction by drawing upon knowledge of content areas to meet rigorous learning goals.
Performance Criterion 7.2: Candidates plan instruction by drawing upon knowledge of learners to meet rigorous learning goals.
Google Doc I gave to my students:
____ es la/lo___
____ son las/los ____
Ejemplos:
Sarah es la abuela.
Kevin y Jackie son los padres.
English
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Spanish
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ambitious
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ambicioso
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annoying
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pesado
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argumentative, quarrelsome
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discutidor
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bad-tempered
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malhumorado
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big-headed
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creído, engreído
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big-mouthed
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de mala leche, venenoso;
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brave
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valiente
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cantankerous
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cascarrabias
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carefree
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despreocupado
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careless
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descuidado, poco cuidadoso
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cautious
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prudente, cauteloso, cauto;
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conceited, full of oneself
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presumido
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conservative
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conservador
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conventional
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convencional
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cowardly
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cobarde
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crazy, nuts
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loco, chiflado
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cruel
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cruel
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charming
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encantador
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cheerful
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alegre, jovial;
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dull, boring
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soso, aburrido
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flirtatious
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coqueta
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friendly
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amigable, simpático, agradable
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generous
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generoso
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hard-working
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trabajador
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honest
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honesto
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kind
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amable
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laid-back
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tranquilo, relajado
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lazy
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perezoso, vago
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loyal
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fiel
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mean
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tacaño
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modest
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modesto
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moody
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de humor cambiante
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naive
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ingenuo, inocentón
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naughty (children)
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malo, travieso (niños)
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open-minded:
narrow-minded:
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de actitud abierta, sin prejuicios
de mentalidad cerrada, intolerante;
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polite
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cortés, educado
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proud
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orgulloso
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reliable: he’s a very reliable person
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fiable, confiable: es una persona en la que se puede confiar
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self-confident: to be self-confident
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seguro de sí mismo: tener confianza en sí mismo
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selfish
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egoísta
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sensible
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sensato, prudente;
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sensitive
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sensible
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shy - introverted
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tímido, vergonzoso - introvertido
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strict
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estricto, severo, riguroso
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stubborn
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terco, testarudo, tozudo
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sympathetic (understanding)
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comprensivo
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talkative
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conversador, hablador
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trustworthy
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digno de confianza
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two-faced
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Falso
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___ es ___
____ son ____
Ejemplos:
Sarah es sensible.
Mis padres son honestos.
___ tiene ___ años.
Ejemplo:
Sarah tiene doce años.
Assessment 1: Exit Card:
Assessment 2: Family Tree:
Alexander es mi abuelo.
Alexandra es mi abuela.
Kevin y Jill son honestos.
Athan y Eliza son amigables.
Mi hermana tiene trece años.
Mi hermano tiene veinte años.
Mi mamá tiene cuarenta años.
Mi primo tiene diez años.
Checklist:
Family tree? :)
4 sentences using grammar and vocabulary from first lesson? :)
4 sentences using grammar and numbers from second lesson? :)
Noun and adjective agreement? :)
Correct form of "ser"? :)
Correct form of "tener"? :)
Professor Wigglesworth's Feedback: Lesson 1:
Professor Bedell's Feedback: Lesson 2:
Students' Feedback: Lesson 1:
Students' Feedback: Lesson 2:
My first piece of evidence is my lesson plan. For the assignment, we were required to fill out an outline of a lesson plan for two back-to-back mini lessons. I tagged this to P.C. 7.2-Candidates plan instruction by drawing upon knowledge of learners to meet rigorous learning goals. In my lesson plan that appears above, one can see that I have two minutes of review designated for the second part of my mini lesson. However, after receiving the exit cards from my students, which was my assessment at the end of my first lesson, I noticed that some of my students were confused about the difference between masculine and feminine adjectives. In the first exit card pictured above, one of my student's example sentences says, "El padre es digno de confianzo" when it should say "confianza" because the adjective is only masculine in the adjective that directly follows the noun. Thus, I decided to allot more time reviewing the difference between masculine and feminine adjectives during my second lesson because it was clear my students needed more time with that grammar concept. Moreover, it was clear I needed to spend more time giving them example sentences because one of my students was not able to come up with five sentences in her exit card. I believe my evidence shows I am proficient to a high extent in P.C. 7.2 because I altered my lesson plan and my agenda for my second lesson after drawing upon knowledge of my learners in order to meet their learning goals. To become even more proficient in this P.C., I can more frequently ask my students individually if they have any specific questions about the material so I can constantly adjust my lesson plan to fit their individual needs.
I also tagged this to P.C. 6.1-Candidates implement multiple methods of assessment to monitor learning progress to inform instructional practice. In the schedule of my lesson plan, there are multiple times in which I assess my students and in dissimilar ways. First, I have a word cloud as a pre-assessment to show me which level of Spanish each of my students was at. After each student shared their word cloud, I was able to see that all of my students had a basic understanding of Spanish and had clearly taken it in the past. Thus, I knew where to teach from there. Moreover, I did numerous fill-in-the-blank examples on the board and had each student come up to to complete them. After teaching the material, it was helpful for me to see what each individual student needed to work on. Also, after each student completed a fill-in-the-blank sentence, I had them explain why they did what they did to further explain it to other students if some of them were confused. Finally, I had an exit card planned for the end of my second lesson to give myself an idea of all the information each student accumulated from the lesson. During my second lesson, I assessed them by doing multiple whips to hear from every student and I also ended the day with a family tree which I will further discuss towards the end of this blog post. Overall, I believe I was very proficient in fulfilling this P.C. because I assessed my students multiple times in multiple ways. I have a selected response assessment, performance assessment, personal communication, and an essay-type assessment with their written work. In terms of my next steps with this P.C., I want to emulate what I did in my mini-lessons in the future.
My second piece of evidence is the Google Doc I provided for my students, which is included above. I tagged this to P.C. 7.1-Candidates plan instruction by drawing upon knowledge of content areas to meet rigorous learning goals. I tagged this because when I was planning my lessons, I had to think about the most essential grammar concepts that are necessary when teaching students how to describe family members. From my knowledge of Spanish, I decided to include the difference between "es" and "son", noun/adjective agreement, the difference between masculine and feminine in Spanish, and "tener" in the Google Doc; I knew they were definitely the most important grammar concepts to teach them. Moreover, I chose the best vocabulary list of family member titles, adjectives, and numbers that would assist my students in describing their families as best as possible. I believe this evidence demonstrates my proficiency in this P.C. to a high extent because if I was not very familiar with my content area, I would not have known the best grammar concepts or vocabulary to provide them with in the Google Doc. In terms of improvement in this area, I could include even more examples in the Google Doc to further show my proficiency in this P.C. Also, for future reference, I could have had my students add any helpful notes to the Google Doc because certain notes that are helpful for one student are bound to assist another. In teaching my back-to-back lessons, I have learned that it is important to allow students to contribute to the lesson as much as possible. Overall, I believe the Google Doc was a good choice to include in my lesson because it organized the information I taught from the board and helped students to complete each assessment, while also maintaining focus during my lessons.
My third piece of evidence are the assessments that I gave to my students. The assessment at the end of my first lesson was an exit card where students were required to write down five sentences about their families using the vocabulary and grammar concepts they learned that day. The assessment at the end of my second lesson was a family tree where students were required to write down four sentences using what they learned from the first lesson and four sentences about each family member's age that they learned from my second lesson. I also included a checklist below the assessment to show what I made sure students had in their family trees. I tagged this to P.C. 5.2-Candidates integrate cross-disciplinary skills (such as critical thinking, creativity, and collaborative problem-solving) to help learners demonstrate their learning in unique ways. I tagged this because in both assessments, students had to be creative and each of their assessments was inevitably unique. I wrote focusing questions on the board, above the agenda, on both days and students were able to answer these questions after completing both assessments. The questions were: How is my family unique? How does my family compare to other families? I wanted to stress to my students that every family is special in their own way and there is not one kind of family that is better than another. In each student's exit card, they could write any sentence they wanted about their family; I wanted them to be as creative as possible with it. I mentioned to students that they could include names or not, so no one felt required to do anything they did not want to do. Moreover, in the family tree, students could be as creative as they wanted when drawing pictures of each of their family members or they could find one online (pictured above). Rather than giving students a copious amount of written quizzes, I wanted them to demonstrate their learning in a creative way by writing sentences about their families that were unique to each student. After all of my students shared his or her family tree assessment with the class, every student could answer my focusing questions and see the similarities and differences between their family and other families. In order to become even more proficient in this P.C, I could give students even more options besides a family tree and an exit card. Thus, they can be even more creative with how they demonstrate their learning and even give me suggestions for how I can assess their learning.
Finally, my fourth piece of evidence is the feedback I received from my professors and my students. Professor Wigglesworth gave me feedback for the second half of my first lesson and Professor Bedell gave me feedback for the first half of my second lesson (pictured above). Also pictured above are the students' feedback from both lessons. I tagged this to P.C. 3.2-Candidates design learning environments that support collaborative learning marked by positive social interaction. Professor Wigglesworth noted that I am very calm and relaxed. In my experience, when the teacher is calm and relaxed, it sets the tone of the learning environment and makes me feel comfortable as a student. Moreover, Professor Bedell liked that I connected the election to my lesson plan. I stressed to my students that my classroom is like a family and we should be comfortable to share anything we want to in class. When students feel safe in an environment and can expect positive social interaction, they are more likely to learn. A student also backed this up when she stated in my feedback that she appreciated the "safe, accepting environment" I fostered in my classroom and enjoyed the music, "La Bamba" that I played while she was completing her performance assessment. In my next steps forward, I want to have the same kind of environment in my classroom I student teach in because my students cannot learn to the best of their abilities if they feel unsafe in a classroom. I want to have more low-stakes assessments and not be too strict with my students because my classroom should inspire students and not discourage them or stress them out.
Overall, my first teaching experience was a fantastic one and I am very excited about my future job. I have learned a lot in these back-to-back mini lessons. First of all, I have learned that a whip is a very good strategy to use in the classroom because everyone's voice is heard. Also, I have learned the importance of pre-assessment because if I had not assessed them at the beginning of my back-to-back mini lessons, I would have taught them at a much lower Spanish level than was appropriate for them. Moreover, I have learned that I need to remember to go over my agenda with my students at the start of every class. I was nervous during my second lesson and was focusing more on the short amount of time I had than the agenda. In my future classroom, I want to go through the agenda with my students at the beginning of every class so they know exactly what to expect each day.
Finally, in Professor Wigglesworth's feedback, she commented on the fact that I need to be aware of my hesitant language in class. Since I have a timid personality, I often have a hard time in authoritative positions. In my first lesson, I was not very strict with my directions because I tend to stray away from demanding language. In my second lesson, I believe I improved with this and did not say things like, "You can pass that in if you want" or "I can also take your word cloud". Instead, I changed these statements to, "I want you to do this". If I have more concrete directions with my students and improve my "teacher language", there will be less room for confusion when I student teach. I cannot wait to take all the lessons I have learned about my teaching and the most effective strategies, and apply them to my future classroom.
