Back to Back Lessons

Back to Back Lesson Plan

Tuesday Exit Card Responses

Mystery Assignment 1

Mystery Assignment 2

The photo below is from Thursday's class. This class focused primarily on work time for the students
on their mystery assignment (explained below).

This photo is from Tuesday's class. In this photo we are reviewing the agenda, as well as terms that are important to the lesson.

  

Above, I have linked my lesson plan for the back to back lessons, the student responses for the exit card and their mystery assignment (unfortunately one assignment wouldn't scan), and photos from both Tuesday and Thursday's lessons. My unit is an introduction to research writing designed for an 8th grade English class. These specific lessons were focused around identifying a claim (thesis statement) and evidence in an article, as well as how to write a claim, back up the claim with evidence, and analyze the evidence in relationship to the claim. On Tuesday, we started out by reading an article about air pollution and I tasked the students with identifying the claim statement and evidence that is used throughout the article. In the overall unit, my students will be writing or creating a

research paper/project, so I believe that it is important for them to be able to first identify a claim in an existing article. Then I introduced the mystery assignment; I designed this assignment so students could get practice developing and writing a claim, identifying evidence, and analyzing that evidence. After some work time, I provided a short exit card to assess the understanding of the content we went over. Thursday's class was primarily dedicated to working on the mystery assignment, as well as sharing the results of that assignment.

These lessons were designed to provide practice identifying and writing claims, evidence, and analysis. I wanted to incorporate some elements of identifying claims and evidence because it is an important skill to have, not only in an academic context, but also a social one. By knowing how to identify a claim in a text (whether it be an article, book, etc.), students are better able to recognize sources of bias in the text. I also wanted to begin providing real life examples of claims in articles to my students, so they have an understanding of what a claim looks like in a published article before they start writing their own. The mystery assignment was designed to have students design a claim, select evidence, and analyze the evidence in an engaging and creative way. This activity was designed to show students that these elements

of writing don't have to be complicated, as well as providing an introduction to writing an outline. In my unit, this lesson would be followed by a class focusing on how to write an effective outline, and I would use the mystery assignment as a foundation for that concept.

PC 3.1 is closely tied to my back to back lessons, and the activities I designed for the lesson plan. PC 3.1 speaks to the importance of designing a "learning environment that support[s] individual learning marked by active engagement." I designed my back to back lessons with active student engagement in mind, because I wanted students to be actively engaging with the content material. My lessons were very much student-focused and student-led; specifically, the mystery assignment was designed with active student engagement in mind. I wanted to provide students with an activity that allowed students to engage with the content material in a fun, creative, and meaningful way. That being said, I think I could have made the brief content review and the reading at the beginning of Tuesday's class more engaging for students.

1- What did you learn from teaching the two lessons back to back?

I think this experience was a really valuable one because it gave me the first opportunity to teach two
lessons back to back. As simple as that sounds, I learned a lot about myself as a teacher, and teaching
overall with this experience. Overall, the most important thing that I was reminded of, both in teaching
and in watching my peers teach, is that students are much more engaged with the material when the
teacher is excited and passionate about what they’re teaching. Even during lessons that I had no prior
knowledge (or interest) in, I was excited to learn because my peers were excited to teach. This is
something that I’m going to carry forward to all of my future lesson plans, because I want to not only
create a lesson that engages students, but also a lesson that I am excited to implement in a classroom. 

2 - How did you modify your lesson for day II and why?

I didn’t make too many modifications for Thursday, because I had originally planned for that day
to be dedicated to working on the mystery assignment. That being said, Tuesday’s brief content
review and reading activity went a lot quicker than I was expecting, so my students had more time
to work on the assignment on Tuesday. Because of this, I asked my students how much time they
felt like they would need to complete the assignment and adjusted Thursday’s plan accordingly.
Because all of my students were really excited for the assignment, I ended up changing the
mystery assignment to become a personal communication assessment, so we could dedicate the
last 10 minutes of Thursday’s class to sharing the assignment. The personal communication
assessment worked really well, because it was a fun way to share each student’s differing claims,
as well as allowed me to assess a student’s work in their own voice. 

3- What do your assessments demonstrate about student learning of the standards and/or
objectives or answering of the focusing questions? 

These lessons were a basic introduction to key concepts that I will return to in my instruction
throughout the unit. I designed both of my assessments to be formative, as it is the first time they
will be assessed on information. Some of my objectives for this lesson based on the standards
centered around students being able to introduce claims, organize evidence logically, write
informative texts, examine a topic, and convey ideas through organization and analysis of relevant
content. All of these objectives are assessed in either Tuesday’s exit card or the mystery personal
communication assessment. The exit card was created so I could gauge the overall comprehension
of claim and the importance of analysis. Thursday’s mystery assignment was assessing students'
abilities to write and introduce a claim, organize the evidence in a logical manner, and analyze
relevant content, all of which connect directly to the objectives of the lessons. 

4- What did you learn about the teaching and learning strategies you employed?

I learned how much fun it is to implement activities that I myself am excited about!! I absolutely
adore the mystery assignment that I created, and it was so exciting to implement it with students. 

As I said above, students are much more willing to learn and engaged with the material when the
teacher is excited about the material too. I think this excitement and engagement is what made my
back to back lessons so successful, which is why I’m going to carry it through to the rest of the
lessons in my unit, and beyond.

5-What changes will you make as you revise the lessons for your final unit?

These two lessons will ultimately be squished together into one big lesson plan for my final unit.
In the revised lesson, I want to provide more accommodation and differentiation for my students,
especially in regards to the mystery assignment. Since the majority of this revised lesson will be
based around the mystery assignment, it is only fair that all students have equal opportunity to
complete the assignment. I am also going to eliminate the personal communication assessment,
and ask students to turn in the assignment to me for assessing. I will assess the mystery
assignment with a very similar checklist that I used for the personal communication, but with a
large class it would be difficult to share every assignment in a time effective manner. 

6-What did you specifically learn about accommodating and/or differentiating?

I think this lesson wasn’t super strong in terms of accommodations and differentiation. I accounted
for differentiation in the sense that the reading I provided for the first activity on Tuesday had
three different reading levels available for students. That being said, my mystery assignment was
not really differentiated. In the future, I’m going to adapt the mystery assignment to be more
differentiated so all students, regardless of ability or learning difference, can partake in this fun
and engaging activity. 

7- What did you learn about yourself as a teacher or the teaching process that you will 
strengthen during student teaching?

In my lesson plans I realized that I tend to allot too much time to small things, such as reviewing
the agenda. At the beginning of Tuesday’s lesson, my initial activities took half the time I had
anticipated them to, which made the rest of the lesson difficult, as I didn’t have a grasp on the
timing. I think in the future, I need to improve upon my lesson planning in the sense that I need to
allot a realistic amount of time to each activity. Additionally, I should plan a few activities or work
that students can complete when they are finished with the in class work. 

8- How did the instruction and teaching practice in both the literacy course and curriculum
course help you transfer learning to these mini-lessons?

The thing that helped me the most in these mini-lessons was the prior practice teaching in the
pre-reading mini lesson. That mini lesson established a low key and low pressure atmosphere
among my group, which made it much easier for me to push myself out of my comfort zone. I was
also able to build a level of self confidence through my mini lesson, which I was able to transfer over
to my back to back lessons.