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TitleReflection for Curriculum Development
SourceCASLS Activity of the Week
Body

Stephanie Knight is the Language Technology Specialist for CASLS at the University of Oregon. Given busy teacher realities, this activity was developed to help teachers reflect quickly before, during, and after a unit of study.

Time is our most precious resource as educators. We want desperately to give students meaningful feedback, develop differentiated lesson plans that reach all learning styles, and have our students love our content as much as we do. Unfortunately, given the reality facing most teachers of four or more preps, close to 200 students on their respective loads, and district initiatives commanding some of the time that teachers can set aside for planning, it can be difficult to execute the craft of teaching with as much care and focus as would be desired.

This week, our hope is that the 10 following questions can be used as you plan individually or collaboratively in order to expedite important thinking, keep you involved in a continual cycle of improvement, and to work with intention.

Procedure:

  1. Answer the following questions before undertaking a unit of study:
  • How do I define success for my students during this unit? Is it more appropriate to measure the growth of the students or the ultimate acquisition of the students?
  • How will I know that students have succeeded? What data do I need to keep track of?
  • What are my strengths as a teacher that I want to make sure to utilize during this unit (http://www.rutherfordlg.com/the-23-artisan-themes/)?

       2)  Answer the following questions during a unit of study:

  • What manageable mechanisms will I use to provide feedback to my students?
  • How will I know when students struggle?
  • How can I make the students’ voices heard regarding intervention and differentiation needs? Will I use exit tickets, short writing and recording samples, and/or self-reflection sheets?
  • Did I give the students enough opportunities to interact with the material at hand in a meaningful way so that they would commit it to memory? Did I obey the 10/24/7 rule (http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/classroom_solutions/2010/12/the-10-24-7-review)?

3)  Answer the following questions after a unit of study:

  • Did my students succeed? How do I know?
  • What did I do well? How can I continue to use those strengths?
  • What did not go well? What are 1-2 things that I want to change for next time?

It is recommended that you consider these questions as you teach all units of study. Thank you for your hard work and commitment to your students!

Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.

-Theodore Roosevelt

Publishdate2015-08-24 02:15:01