Design and develop educational experiences and inclusionary practices that help students communicate and cooperate to maximize their own and one another’s learning.

Learning Outcomes Three and Four and Field Experience Competencies A., E., and F.

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Learning Outcome Three, "Design educational experiences that help students communicate using various tools and means, and gain, process, and use information in different contexts," and Learning Outcome Four, "Develop inclusionary practices that respect differences and encourage students to work together to maximize their own and one another’s learning," as well as Field Experience Competencies A. (Planning and Preparation), E. (Assessment), and F. (Knowledge of Diverse Learners), are all present in the work that I completed this semester. Namely, I identify these Outcomes and Competencies in my preparative work, including my group's Compass Point, Introduction to Planning and Assessment, and Planning and Assessment II with the Lesson Plan Workshop,. The Compass Points allowed my group to define and communicate our learning processes before moving forward in the semester. I wrote for my portions:

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"Compass Points

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Part 1

Patrick Mullin

 

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I would identify my direction as “South” or “Southeast.”

1.    I would identify the strengths of my style as my willingness for others to share their feelings when they are comfortable with it and my willingness to share my own, as well. For this reason, the strength of my style is often its ability to communicate. Feelings and experiences are to be communicated at all times.
2.    I would describe the greatest difficulty of this style as being its ability to move forward from only discussing feelings and doing something about how we feel, being constructive, especially if someone is hurt. Rather than commiserating, there needs to be action to inspire change-- not share feelings and expect sharing feelings to spark change alone. Feel and do something about how you feel.
3.    I find personality types that believe themselves to be instant leaders to be the most difficult to work with because they often replace getting to know others with simply getting something done. I believe that trust between groups needs to be achieved first for action to be produced efficiently.
4.    I would like the other styles to understand that I believe groups need to be safe places for communication where we can work collaboratively even when we disagree. I think that opposite opinions are fruitful opportunities for stimulating conversations and can often act as new chances to see a different perspective. As long as we all communicate respectfully, we can grow from each other by talking and empathizing.
5.    Each of the styles work together in a wonderful way to hold each other accountable. Collaboratively, we can all feed into each other’s work and produce great things because of our talents in learning. I feel this way about West-style learners compared to myself. West-styled learners will constantly lead the group towards its goals by making sure the lesson stays focused.

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Part 2
Debrief
 
First, go around the group, and allow each person to name their direction, and summarize their responses. At a minimum, each person should share their response to questions 1, 4, and 5. 
Then, as a group, discuss the following questions. If you are completing this activity in person, choose a recorder, who will submit notes as evidence this meeting occurred. 
 
A.    What did you learn from this activity? How might it help your group complete tasks this semester?
          ●    We will encourage Irma to share her thoughts 
          ●    We learned about our abilities and where our strengths are
          ●    How to complete our work 
B.    Note the distribution among the “directions” in your group. What might this distribution mean for you as you work together this semester?
          ●    Since having all directions 
                    ○    We have opportunity to be more accountable 
                    ○    Bring different elements to the way we work together
C.     What other “directions” do individuals in your group sometimes also embody? How might adopting the perspective of other directions support your group’s success this semester?
          ●    We kind of see all of the directions within ourselves so it will be interesting to work together and possibly bring to light those different sides of one another a bit more 
                    ○    We want to be each one of them to be well rounded 
D.    How might you use this activity with your future students? What modifications would you make? How might this activity negatively contribute to students’ stereotypes of one another, and how would you prevent that in your own classroom?
          ●    Scaffolding the activity 
                    ○    Giving them a situation and have them attempt to solve the solution and having a discussion on how they did and then to dive into those different areas
          ●    Dividing into groups and assigning certain roles and having them discuss those different roles 
          ●    They could think one way is better than others 
          ●    It could box them into one way of thinking 
          ●    Discuss what the different categories truly mean 
          ●    Have a trial run to show how different ways work for some but not others and that is OKAY ."

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Additionally, there was preparative work made in Introduction to Planning and Assessment and Planning and Assessment II. Introduction to Planning and Assessment and Planning and Assessment II allowed me to imagine and design a lesson plan that I would be interested in implementing and then finally create, to put into practice through a small group. My first lesson plan, Introduction to Planning and Assessment, is larger than the lesson plan I subsequently chose to produce. It is larger, less refined, and perhaps a raw demonstration of my thinking. For that reason, it is interesting to compare it to the subsequent, second lesson plan that was more focused. It articulates one idea within one text, rather than using intertextual analysis, through multiple texts, to encompass several ideas and questions. This example is Introduction to Planning and Assesment:

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This next example is, comparatively, Planning and Assessment II with the Lesson Plan Workshop:

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"Lesson Plan Workshop

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Patrick’s Answers:
1. What specifically have you learned about designing teacher-centered, lecture-based lesson plans? How will you incorporate this learning into your planning in the future?
          I learned through this process of writing and preparing a lesson plan that there should be a really strong awareness of the text. I found myself returning to the actual text of my lesson, The Great Gatsby, so that I knew most accurately where students should look for information. For this reason, I can identify that I specifically learned to prepare my knowledge with important passages and pages, as well as what the text is about in those passages and pages, when designing teacher-centered, lecture-based lesson plans. Only from that place of awareness will students grasp essential information regarding their literature, as well as be able to creatively approach its big questions.
In returning to the text, so that I knew where students should look for information, I was able to shape the sequence of events. I knew where I wanted to implement universally designed strategies, such as incorporating an audiobook for auditory learners. I will make sure to incorporate this knowledge by committing myself to first reread and identify the specific relevant passages of my classes’ lessons before moving on to write my lesson plans. It is, frankly, the necessary first step.
2. What parts of designing a teacher-centered, lecture-based lesson are you comfortable with? What parts of designing a teacher-centered, lecture-based lesson are challenging?
        There were not many parts that I considered too challenging when designing the teacher-centered, lecture-based lesson plan. No less, I love the literature of the movement I chose, allowing me to enjoy the time spent relearning the history of the modernist movement and The Great Gatsby. These thoughts do not mean, however, that it was all unchallenged. I, personally, considered it a difficult task to identify an activity to incorporate into the lesson plan. I spent time online, researching numerous activities other English educators recommended for teaching The Great Gatsby. Through doing this research online, I was able to more accurately identify an activity that fit into the lesson plan and allow students to work both in groups and creatively.
        As we discussed in class, it is important that educators do not shape their lessons around activities. I agree with that thought. It is, perhaps, a better sign that I felt challenged to identify the perfect one because it allowed me to consider a greater number of options, as well as apply the greatest amount of work to teaching the text. I was most comfortable doing that work-- teaching the text. Again, I love relearning the history of the modernist movement and The Great Gatsby. I am greatly interested by both, so I am comfortable with the work involved in designing the instructional guide and PowerPoint on the setting, as well as the terminology, themes, and symbols. It is all something I am very comfortable with. Additionally, I know that my passion would make it more engaging for students. I would present it interestingly so that they may be interested in it, as well.
3. What questions do you still have about designing and delivering lecture-based lessons in your content area?
        After having received feedback from you, I will be working this week to shorten the teacher-centered, lecture-based lesson so that it can be completed in fifteen to twenty minutes. I would be interested in asking you, Professor, how you determine what information to remove when your lesson plan is too long? Of course, I can go first to the most extraneous details of the lesson. However, I am overall interested in your advice should this event occur in the future. It is certainly unique to my current situation.
4. Reflect on the lesson plan workshop format. What parts of the self-assessment and consultation protocol were helpful? How could this lesson plan workshop be improved in the future?
        The lesson plan workshop format works to be useful for preparing for student-teaching and future teaching because it will ultimately allow me to be comfortable when going through the motions, as well as become comfortable when presented with niche or sophisticated questions posed by students. Additionally, the workshops may invite me to incorporate methods of culturally responsive pedagogy from my workshop peers. It would be useful for those methods to take place in the workshop, such as another peer being Arab or a peer being Black, because each peer in the workshop will contextualize the text of the lesson plan similarly to the  students when I am student-teaching and teaching in the future. I may be able to incorporate knowledge obtained from Nieto and Goldstein’s texts.
        The ultimate goal of the self-assessment and consultation protocol will be to understand how students observe the text. Through my peers’ observations, as well as their reviews at the end, I will know where to perfect my teaching strategies. They will be able to share with me where I worked most effectively and where my teaching needs strengthening. Self-assessment will then allow me to criticize my own work from my own observations. I will need to think critically about my own work so that I am able to reinforce actual changes where changes should take place."