EDM 351: Rotation 3 – New Lesson Plan & Post-Lesson Reflective Log (Spring, 2018)

This semester in Rotation 3, I designed and implemented a new lesson plan and post-lesson reflection which was based on the Association for Middle Level Educators’ (AMLE) standards. I used this lesson plan as a test to see how our middle school teacher candidates would fare when using a more complex lesson plan (and to see if it would help or hinder the ways in which they would teach a single lesson based on their mentor teacher’s content request). To set up the lesson planning prior to their field work, we had two practice sessions. In the first session (and since our interns were placed in a school with only 6th and 7th grades), I directed the interns to begin by researching what content 6th and 7th grade students would be learning in science, math, social studies and English language arts. Using the new lesson plan, we created several cross-disciplinary lessons as a whole group – focusing on how to integrate common core standards and frame the lesson with three theoretical constructs: Ladson-Billings’ Culturally Relevant Pedagogy, Bloom’s Taxonomy and Gardner’s Multiple Capacities (or the integration of Bloom & Gardner). Before they went into the field, they created one single lesson on their own and their field partner critiqued it (and vice versa). Students were asked to volunteer to share their lesson plan with the whole class as well. As a result of practicing lesson planning multiple times prior to going to the field, I knew most of our interns were well prepared to create and teach their single lesson. I offered to help with tutorials while the students were in the field as well (and several students asked for help). By the end of term (or the beginning of Summer, 2018) I will have completed the dissemination of all teacher candidates’ post-lesson reflections and final class “survey,” where they critique the lesson plan and tell us if it worked for them or not. NOTE: I am attaching a copy of the lesson plan and a copy of the Post-Lesson Reflection to show my ongoing work as a teaching scholar in the field.