Yes and No in My Lesson

For one of our assignments, we were required to create an ASSURE lesson plan and be able to teach a class using that process. I decided to teach a 6^th grade middle school class because by that time, they would have already have acquired the skills needed in order to complete the objectives that I have planned for the lesson. The two objectives of my lesson plan were to (1) Students will be able to solve the difference between the amount of sugar, salt, and fat from the cereals and the Recommended Daily Allowance and (2) students will be able to visually represent the difference between the 3 cereals using bar graphs. As I was creating this lesson plan, looking through the plans I have created for this assignment and thinking of the different things that would have occurred during the lesson in a classroom, there are a few things I would do differently and some things that I would do the same.

One thing that I would do the same is put my students into groups of 5. Doing this allows for them to work together. They also get to decide who is going to record their information, do the research, and input their information, which encourages collaboration and agreeing. According to the article Cooperative Learning: Assigning Individual Tasks to Group Members, this is called cooperative learning. It promotes friendships and support. Living on Guam, there are many diverse groups and cooperative learning would be a great way to get the different groups to work together. Not only is it just group work, but assigning the facilitator, recorder, and other positions in a group helps with also completing an individual task.

Another thing I would do the same is the use the materials. I believe that using technology is a great way for them to learn how to conduct research and input their research. In elementary school, they rarely have students do research and just give them handouts and direct them to where they need to go. In using the computers and the internet, this enhances their ability to gather liable research, of course with me assisting them when they have any questions or need help.

Though there are things that I would do the same, I would like to change one thing about my lesson plan, which is the activity. Though it was enough for students to get the concept of graph their research, I would have wanted my students to represent it kinetically. According to the article Three Learning Styles, there are three types of learning styles, which are visual, auditory, and kinetics. In my lesson, there are two that I use, visual and auditory. As a teacher, wanting all of my students to learn is something I want, but what I needed to add to my lesson is hands-on learning. I would have wanted my students to use sand to weigh the difference of the amount of salt, sugar, and fat in the three cereals compared to the Recommended Daily Allowance.

No lesson plan will be perfect. The most teachers can hope for is that each student has learned at least a little part of the objectives if not all. As an aspiring teacher creating a lesson plan before actually teaching, I believe that incorporating group work into my lesson plan creates more to the objective than just doing the research. I also believe that using materials such as computers and the internet will help further their ability to conduct other types of research. However, I would have wanted to do a more hands-on activity in this lesson plan to accommodate the three different types of learners in a classroom.

References:

Cooperative Learning: Assigning Individual Tasks to Group Members. (n.d.). Retrieved November 3, 2015. http://www.dailyteachingtools.com/cooperative-learning-tasks.html

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis IUPUI. (n.d.). Retrieved November 3, 2015. http://blc.uc.iupui.edu/Academic-Enrichment/Study-Skills/Learning-Styles/3-Learning-Styles