Christopher DeGonia
Daily News Lesson Plan
Subject: Language Arts Date: 01/06/03
Grade: Kindergarten
1. While children are sitting on the carpet have them (depending on their level) tell you the date.
2. Pick students to tell you how to write the date by using words from the morning calendar activities. Telling students that it is all right to use these sources. This is done in black marker.
3. Next the student will tell share the news with the class. (The student has the option of going up to the front of the class to write the words, or to try to spell the words on his own, or get help from another student.) This is completed with blue marker.
4. After the student is done with the daily news. Ask the students to see if there are any problems with the students writing. Corrections are made with a different colored marker.
5. Finally have lower students perform tasks at levels that they are capable of doing. (i.e. circling particular letters or words and saying them.)
6. Closure: Have all of the students read the daily news together.
I. Organizing and maintaining effective environment
1. I feel that I created a environment that engaged all students by having the students be active participants in the writing of the daily news. The student that was saying the daily news was able to ask anyone in the classroom for help if they needed it.
2. I feel that a climate of fairness and respect was created by allowing each student to have an opportunity to give a daily news. I feel that by allowing a environment of safety by praising the students for looking at the wall and telling them and asking for help, it created a safe environment where the children were not afraid to try.
3. The classroom procedures had been established before I taught the lesson. The students knew the procedures and I was told it if I did not complete the task in a certain order.
4. I feel that the procedures aided in the students learning of procedures of writing, letter spacing, and using words from around the room to assist them in their writing.
5. Establishment of student behavior was established. I found that the lessons had to be pretty short, trying to keep the children busy with the lesson to keep them from going off task. The children were pretty well behaved, but if there were a lag in the lesson they would start to fidget around. I always made sure that the lesson went along as quickly as I could with attention to students learning needs being first and foremost.
6. Other behavioral techniques that could be used was proximity control, giving a student a look that their actions were inappropriate.
7. I feel that I always tried to promote social development by having students help each other in the lessons. Developed responsibility by having the students ask another student for help when they needed it. When the students were helped the person was thanked, and then the student that asked for help would repeat what the other student helped them with, reinforcing the problem.
II. Planning and designing instruction
8. I felt that learning objectives were appropriate. With the various levels of student developmental needs, my lesson enabled me to engage students at all levels. By knowing the needs of the students everyone was able to succeed in the lesson.
9. The activities were sequenced appropriately, the materials that I used for the lesson were appropriate and the students were aware of the color-coding of the pens for the lesson.
10. I modified the activity so that every student could succeed. Students that were English language learners to the group of special day class inclusion students were able to succeed in the lesson. I did this by knowing the students capabilities and asking them to do things that they were capable of doing.
11. This lesson was part of my short-term plan in my student teaching assignment. I was able to start teaching this the second week of my student teaching and was to teach it for the remaining time in the classroom. So, it became part of my long-term plans.
III. Understanding and organizing subject matter
12. I demonstrated the content by having the students tell me the answers and I generally one or two students would know if it was wrong, or I would lead them to the correct response.
13. By using a big piece of paper and markers, and having the material at the children’s level it. This made it accessible to the students, but I engaged the students in the activity, which made it more accessible and fun.
14. I adapted the activity to any students level, if the student was at a higher level they could write their own daily news, if the student was low, they could ask for help to find words to spell, if they didn’t know the letter they could still ask for help and it was alright.
15. The instructional strategy of engaging the student was integral in the instruction of the lesson and I feel the most appropriate.
16. This was a short lesson and the purpose of the lesson was to see good writing and correct writing procedures.
VI. Engaging and supporting all students in learning
17. I believe that the lesson related well to the students, because the lesson was based on the student’s experience, and many times that reflected on to other students’ experiences.
18. I felt that I used various strategies to meet the needs of the students, mainly by asking them questions at their level, also encouraging the students to do higher-level skills.
19. Depending on the academic level of the child, I did try to put in higher level thinking skills to encourage the growth of others. If one child wrote a sentence, then another child would want to give it a try the next time. I would always try to raise the bar for all the students.
20. I tried to effectively reach all students by working at their academic levels including English language learners and special day class students, I did this by making the task appropriate for their level and praising them for a job well done.
21. The whole idea around the “Daily News” was to have students direct their own sentence, make choices of words that they would use for the sentences, and interact with each other by either correcting words or helping each other developing sentences.
V. Assessing student learning
22. I used observation techniques and kept the daily news with the student’s signature and date. This gave me a record of how the student progressed over the year and I would see if there was a progression to the task that the students could perform. Because if the task was too hard, they could always ask for help.
23. Students were involved with their own learning when we corrected our daily news. It generally was the students that saw the errors or if they did not I could go to the word wall to point it out.
24. I used the assessment of the daily news to help with the writer’s workshop. If the student could write a sentence, then they were expected to write sentences in their journals.