Identify and implement strategies that support individual learners’ growth and development, through research-based practices related to learning content knowledge and competencies, including content area literacy.

Learning outcomes Two and Five and Field Experience competencies C, D, E, and F.

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Course Learning Outcome Two, which is to “Identify and implement strategies that support literacy for all learners across the secondary content areas” and various Course Field Experience Competencies, C (Instructional Design), D (Professional Conduct), and E (Assessment), are fulfilled through my first Micro-Teaching Lesson I Lesson Plan and Analysis. Additionally, Course Learning Outcomes Four, “Develop inclusionary practices that respect differences and encourage students to work together to maximize their own and one another’s learning,” and Five, “Strategically tutor students whose assessments indicate need for additional instruction,” as well as Course Field Experience Competency F (Knowledge of Diverse Learners), are also fulfilled through my second Micro-Teaching Lesson II Lesson Plan and Analysis. The first lesson plan, Micro-Teaching Lesson I, was one of the first lesson plans I have had to write. For that reason, it was important to me that I orient the lesson to be inclusive of the students’ identities, with their cultures leading the lesson. Students were invited to make their cultures and knowledge of their cultures the motivation of the lesson. This aspect of the lesson allowed the students to demonstrate their pre-exposure and prior knowledge, as well. I was able to apply my own pre-exposure and prior knowledge of my students with the inventory of information on their cultures that they shared at the beginning of the lesson to specify otherwise premade general questions during the lesson. The research depended largely upon Larson and Keiper so that the students could speak and discuss the subject, as a student-centered lesson, with there being self-expression and discussion through active participation. While this Lesson Plan achieved these aspects of Learning Outcomes and Competencies, I believe that my second Micro-Lesson II Lesson Plan and Analysis are more exemplary. My second lesson plan worked to tutor a English-as-Second-Language student, N., who I met with two to three times a week from the beginning of October to the end of November. His lesson, because I was his tutor and he my only student during our sessions, applied Freire’s constructivist scaffolding so that N. would raise questions and answer them on his own through listening to my lecture-based teaching. As the lesson encompassed methods to contextualize location when reading, scaffolding the instructional design from basic definition to creating a Venn diagram was very important. It took hours of preparation that week. It also required services to support his language development. I implemented a greater number of definitions for verb-based processes of thinking, including “contextualizing,” “interpreting,” “symbolizing,” and “historicizing.” All information and instructions were written clearly and accessible on the PowerPoint and Google Document for his reference to support him when engaging with the lesson. I also transcribed each of the videos that we watched in the lesson so that he would be able to reference them when listening. These are only three aspects of scaffolding that I believe demonstrate Instructional Delivery, Professional Conduct, and Knowledge of Diverse Learners. His assessment was identified in the learning target, which was “to demonstrate their confidence in contextualizing how settings can influence the worldviews and beliefs of characters,” meaning his assessment would be confidence. Towards the end of the lesson when N. shared his Venn Diagram with me and briefly described it, he was able to clearly define and apply contextualization to setting, using the text as an example of its application. He noted the weather, the agriculture, the agricultural workers, and even the location’s proximity to water as influential factors of setting. They were those moments that allowed me to assess his confidence as mastery. It was also beneficial to be able to reference his written work on the Google Document for assessment purposes, as well, which was completed independently.This second lesson plan and its reception from N. were fantastic experiences in which I was able to cohesively implement strategies covered during this course.

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Micro-Teaching I Analysis and Reflection Essay

         The learning target for my lesson plan was to better understand the relationship between the American dream, as a national literary ethos, and its representation in the text The Great Gatsby through the symbol of the green light. The lesson plan established this understanding through its slideshow and activities, which were an entrance ticket and a report card of the symbol. The lesson took place over Zoom, presented through a PowerPoint on screen-share. Its first activity, the entrance ticket, asked students to independently share their opinions on the American dream. Following the entrance ticket, their activity that was the report card of the symbol gave students the opportunity to express their understanding, explaining what the relationship is between the American dream and the symbol, and then evaluate their understanding by arguing whether the symbol is effective or not. The instruction was teacher-centered and provided students opportunities to work independently, which is the instructional method recommended by Freire in his Pedagogy of the Oppressed.
The instruction began with the entrance ticket that was shared over GoogleDocs. It asked the students, “Are the challenges to become wealthy and rise into upper-class society worth it? Yes or no? And why?” They independently wrote their answers and shared them. These opportunities to converse with the students on their individual opinions allowed the lesson plan to be teacher-centered while still providing opportunities for dialogue. Freire writes that these opportunities, that are both teacher-centered while still providing opportunities for dialogue, are significant because “[t]he teacher is no longer merely the-one-who-teaches, but one who is himself taught in a dialogue with the students, who in turn while being taught also teach” (80). For that reason, the instructor was able to learn more through the entrance ticket and those following opportunities when students’ voiced their thoughts. The instructor then continued the rest of the lesson. The lesson first defined the American dream so that students would be able to contextualize the American dream to the text of the lesson plan, The Great Gatsby. The lesson then described the symbol of the green light in the text, including reading quotations from the text that describe the green light. The students then briefly watched a video from a film adaptation to visualize it. They subsequently completed an activity to create report cards for the symbol to describe it and its relationship with the American dream. In this activity, the students had to select a quote that they found identified most with their descriptions and finally provide a grade, such as an A or an F-, to evaluate whether the symbol was effective or not. They then had to share their report cards to demonstrate their understanding. This lesson then concluded by summarizing the content and asking students to return to their entrance ticket to mark whether they felt their opinions had changed. This lesson plan went according to its lesson plan. However, the lesson plan had to be edited to be shorter because the original lesson plan covered multiple symbols from the text, The Great Gatsby, and the presentation would only be able to cover one, the green light, in its allotted fifteen to twenty minutes. The time constrain also changed the class’s opportunity to watch more of the video. Only some thirty seconds were available to watch the video but it still accomplished its goal of letting the students visualize the symbol. 

         There were multiple practices used to enhance the student learning. The first practice was using definition to establish understandings of information necessary to further learn its content. This practice of exposure was able to scaffold the information of the lesson. It first posed questions about and defined the American dream and then described the symbol of the green light in the text, The Great Gatsby. Students were able to, therein, scaffold this knowledge rather than depend upon prior knowledge they were or were not exposed to before the lesson. Students were also encouraged to apply their backgrounds into their answers, such as family stories, to provide students’ the space to share their cultures through culturally responsive pedagogy. These opportunities for students to apply their backgrounds to their answers, considering the universal nature of the subject the American dream in an American classroom, would invite students to build a relationship between their understandings of the world and their newly transmitted knowledge, which can differ when relationships between the two are not built, affecting aspects of the instruction’s practical theory like values, or what students know to be good and bad (Zeichner and Liston 30-33). Next, the students had the opportunity to listen to the instructor read quotations from the text rather than read for themselves, as an opportunity for auditory learning. The final practice was the video the instructor played at the end of the description of the text, The Great Gatsby, for students to visualize the information. Students demonstrated that they were successful in meeting the learning target and the objectives of the activities. Information, especially important information such as definition, was repeated multiple times and in different ways throughout the instruction, which would allow the information to be gained by students should they have missed it or misunderstood. The instructor was also able to identify explicit success from the students. This identification took place when listening and or conversing with them on their opinions and analyzing their responses on the symbol report card. The responses included students correctly describing the information, such as one summarizing, “The green light represents the American dream… symboliz[ing] how we are chasing that light, but it can sometimes be unattainable” (Maya, Symbol Report Card). Another student pointed out, following the activity, that he felt the activity was successful because he had previously read the text and was reminded of its content throughout the presentation (Griffin, 22:46). From these sources, the performances of the symbol report card and thoughts voiced by a student, the students demonstrated that they were successful in meeting the learning target of the whole lesson and the objectives of the activities.
          Personally, the effectiveness of the lesson planning seemed to work well. After editing the lesson plan to focus on just one symbol rather than multiple, there was enough time to complete the lesson plan, as well as hone in on the symbol so that it would be successfully understood. The lesson plan proved that teacher-centered instruction is able to strategically scaffold the information to the students, allowing them to be exposed to important information like definition first. The lesson plan also allowed me to purposefully delay the activity until the end of the lesson so that it could practice Wiggins and McTighe’s idea of understanding by design, which argues that activities should only take place when students understand the information, have proven that they understand it, and the activities themselves should be complex so that students can engage meaningfully (Larson and Keiper 74). For this reason, the instruction allowed students to prove that they understood the information by voicing their thoughts before the activity began. Additionally, the instructor believes that the activity of the symbol report card is also a complex activity to engage meaningfully because it allowed the students to opine whether or not the symbol works effectively in the text. Rather than only ask them to “[cover their ] textbook” information, the students were able to demonstrate their knowledge of the information and evaluate, or, as Larson and Keiper describe, “explain” and “interpret” it for themselves (74). The students then demonstrated that they successfully met its information. The delivery of the lesson was also effective. It prioritized diverse learning when the instructor purposefully chose to read the quotations aloud and provide a video. The only change that the instructor would make is in controlling the time management of the lesson more effectively so that the students would have been able to watch more of the video. While a good amount of the video was still able to be played to allow the students to watch and visualize, they would have been able to watch more had the instructor controlled the time management more effectively. The instructor can conclude that there are parts of the lesson that were effective and parts that will benefit from future practice.

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Micro-Teaching I Analysis and Reflection Essay

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          The learning target for my lesson plan was for my student, N. who is an international student and first-year student at Moravian taking WRIT 105 with Professor Schaefer to improve his English language skills, was to identify the differential qualities of pre-twentieth-century settings so that their characters and those characters’ worldviews and beliefs may be contextualized for their special qualities. This work specifically contextualized the setting of Steinbeck’s novella The Pearl, which encompasses a single town and four main characters with substantially two different worldviews and beliefs due to the characters’ ethnicities and classes. This lesson’s learning target was written on its lesson plan using the method outlined by Larson and Keiper (72), writing: 
           The student identifies qualities in pre-twenty-first century setting, as a literary element, and the experiences of people from that setting (AB) after exploring them through questions of definition (C) to demonstrate their confidence in contextualizing how settings can influence the worldviews and beliefs of characters (D) will close-read Steinbeck’s The Pearl to create a Venn Diagram that identifies similarities and differences.
Continuing, the instructor presented a Google Slides PowerPoint that was shared with N. The lesson began with an introductory slide that labeled the lesson Contextualizing Setting and Characters in The Pearl and was immediately followed by a slide with the learning target and essential questions for N. to be mindful of both before beginning the lesson and to have on hand, for reference, throughout the lesson. The lesson then had ten slides of different visuals that presented life in the setting of the text, The Pearl, which is La Paz, Baja California Sur, Mexico-- a real town in Mexico. N. was given five minutes to look through the images to create and, relative to his pre-exposure, remember the knowledge of La Paz. He took this time to share with the instructor his observations and ask questions, which were both really fruitful opportunities for conversation. He was then given an anticipation guide that asked two questions: Different ideas come to mind when you think of Mexican peoples. Yes or No? Why? and There is a relationship between setting and characters’ beliefs. Yes or No? Why? He was instructed to answer these questions on a Google Document that was shared with him, labeled Contextualizing Setting and Characters in The Pearl. After this part, N. had a discussion with the instructor about his answers. They were closely aligned with the point of this introduction and the greater aspects of the lesson, as he demonstrated his prior knowledge with the lesson so that the instructor knew of what he would be building off. 
          The instructor went into a description of how analyzing La Paz, rather than its country as a whole, at the time of the novel is the process of contextualization. N. was then given three definitions of literary contextualization, from Merriam-Webster, the University of Cambridge, and the assistive educational website and provider FluentU. The instructor chose several definitions, including one from a specifically educational site, to provide a more diverse selection of definitions that represent the term. The instructor read these definitions allowed and asked N. to take five minutes to observe them and organized-ly list his likes and dislikes of the three definitions, which he completed and then shared aloud. Continuing, he was then directed to create his own definition of contextualization, drawing from the three previous definitions and his likes and dislikes of them, so that could be applied to his lesson on The Pearl. They then completed the first close-reading together, identifying places of contextualization, where identity was expressed to setting, characters, and worldviews and beliefs: the instructor read aloud the epigraph of  The Pearl while N. close-read. All of N.’s close-readings were typed into the Contextualizing Setting and Characters in The Pearl Google Document, which allowed him to mark observations as he came across them. He was asked to highlight places of information on setting, such as descriptions of the time, place, and La Paz in blue and places of information on characters in green. Additionally, he was asked to highlight places of information on worldviews and beliefs. The instructor showed N. slides on the PowerPoint on the colonization and Hispanicization of La Paz. N. was given time to discuss this information following these slides. The instruction throughout the slides was teacher-centered to provide N. the opportunities to independently note-take, which he completed on the Google Doc answering specific questions about the slides, as this instructional method is recommended by Freire in his Pedagogy of the Oppressed.
    When they were covered, the instructor played two brief videos for N., the first being “The Sea of Cortez Pearl Video” by McLaurin-Moreno and the second “Another Log from the Sea Cortez” by Vande Wege. N. is an international student who is still improving his English language skills. For this reason, the instructor transcribed both videos onto Google Documents attached to the PowerPoint and Google Document for him to reference when watching. When these both ended, they returned to have a final conversation about all the information that was observed to, therein, identify aspects of life in La Paz that must be contextualized as historical special to La Paz-- largely, being the ethnic and class-based. Both the instructor and N. returned to the close-readings to continue the close-readings, identifying different contexts in places of information on setting, characters, and worldviews and beliefs. The instructor read the close-reading aloud and then N. went ahead to identify relevant places, then sharing his results with the instructor. They discussed each finding after he presented them, explaining how readers should contextualize Kino for not only simply living in La Paz, but for the facts that he owns a home in a poorer grove of Native and Indigenous peoples, how he is a farmer of his property and tends his animals as an animal-owner, and how he is a husband and father. These aspects of Kino are examples from the discussion that the instructor and N. had.
          Following his close-readings, the instructor returned to the definition that N. created and asked if he felt his work contextualizing was still applicable to his definition. He expressed that he still felt it was, so they continued onto his larger assessment to demonstrate his mastery of contextualization. N. was instructed to create a Venn diagram of aspects of La Paz and the characters of the text to identify where they both intersect to determine worldviews and beliefs. The instructor provided one example of answers in each circle of the Venn diagram to support N. who then moved on to complete the assessment. He took fifteen to twenty minutes to create his Venn diagram. He then presented his findings, including two quotations from the text that he felt reflected evidence regarding how setting and characters both work to produce worldviews and beliefs, specifically those that were ethnic and class-based. To close the lesson, the instructor returned to the anticipation guide and asked how N.’s thoughts grew, which he answered and described how he now knew both the definition of contextualization and how to apply contextualization to setting, through his reading of  The Pearl.
          There were multiple practices implemented in this lesson, especially those to enhance N.’s comprehension of the lesson and support his process of identifying relevant information. Generally, the instructor made sure to speak clearly and repeat instructions multiple times throughout the lesson, with instructions written out on the PowerPoint and again in the Google Doc Contextualizing Setting and Characters in The Pearl. The learning target and essential questions were also shown at the beginning of the lesson. The next practice, to begin the lesson, was showing pictures for discussion and posing two anticipation guide questions to assess N.’s pre-exposure. The level of N.’s pre-exposure could be used by the instructor to evaluate, at the end of the lesson, N.’s development, as well as mastery. This work was ultimately accomplished through the anticipation guide. Continuing, the knowledge had to be scaffolded by exploring various definitions. Rather than determining how the definitions applied to the text, The Pearl, the instructor directed N. to create his own definition that summarized essential information in one definition that he found applied. This activity, early into the lesson, allowed the process of definition to be independent but interactive rather than lecture-based. It also allowed N. to evaluate what within the definition was valuable information, compared to the lesser information he came across in the process of defining. It was an important part of the lesson, offering him the autonomy to determine how he finds contextualization should be defined and thereafter accomplished, described by the practical theory of values by Zeichner and Liston (30-33). Continuing, the instructor worked to read aloud the longer passages of the lesson to support N.’s comprehension, rather than ask that he read alone, offering definitions throughout the passages for words that were more challenging. The decisions to read aloud also served to provide N. opportunities for auditory learning and watch videos provided those for visual learning. Additionally, the instructor wrote transcriptions for the two videos of the lesson, which also incorporated definitions when there were more challenging words, so that he could reference them when necessary. While N. did not share whether he used the transcripts while watching the videos, he did tell the instructor that the definitions throughout the passages and videos were helpful. This was demonstrated throughout the lesson, as he used his new inventory of vocabulary, like conflate and successfully described the application of the word with the instructor. 
          At both places in the lesson when N. completed his close-readings and Venn diagrams, he demonstrated his success in mastering contextualization, identifying places where differences are significant and influence worldviews and beliefs, and his own success in producing work that could identify such places. His close-readings highlighted and underlined information that was significant in identifying qualities in the setting of La Paz and its characters that are special to themselves. Continuing, was able to contextualize how those qualities intersect to develop characters’ worldviews and beliefs through his Venn Diagram. His Venn diagram listed that the setting is “the old days (1800s)” and does “not have any technology.” To describe characters, he wrote that “they wake up early in the morning to work” like when “Juana worked [sic] the corn for the morning cakes.” He then intersected these two contexts by writing that they influence the worldview and belief that these characters-- Kino, Juana, and Coyotito-- in La Paz “have nothing to depend on except for their physical abilities” (Contextualizing Setting and Characters in The Pearl). Personally, this lesson proved to be effective and work well for N. It challenged him to think critically and expand his inventory of vocabulary, defining contextualization, while also providing services that would assist his comprehension throughout the learning process. It is for that reason, and the success of his close-readings and Venn diagram, that it can be determined N. mastered confidence in achieving such work. The learning target sought for confidence-- it can be determined he achieved it. It certainly could have been enriched were there more students to identify places of contextualization, as N. seemed to only be able to identify similar ones to those that were the examples and needed to be encouraged a few times to think about other qualities in setting and characters. However, the lesson was still successful and demonstrated mastery in contextualization from its one student.

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