How is backwards design new and/ or different from your current lesson planning process?
Backwards designed was a very interesting strategy to learn about because it changes the whole view I had about planning.
In my school, we usually plan taking into account the objectives, contents and assessment criteria that we want our students to achieve.
Backwards design is about setting the goals we want our students to achieve.
In a nutshell, I would like to set the goals first and then analize the different parts of the planning to specify all the elements.
How can we integrate backwards design in planning with your teachers?
I would like to sit down together with my colleagues and plan following the steps we have seen today, because I think it can be very helpful and we can all learn from each other.
I would start by asking everyone about the goals of every grade and then agreeing on a few points that we can all use throughout the whole primary school.
CRITICAL REFLECTIVE PRACTICE
Reflection and Critical Reflection: Capturing Opening Thoughts Your initial thinking - - -
What does reflection/reflective practice mean to you as an educator? I think it means that all teachers and educators in general must do a daily reflection about our own teaching practice. We naturally do it, without even being aware, but we must stop and think about it for a while, because I am sure that it will improve our teaching strategies. What does critical reflective practice mean to you? I think critical refers to analyze our teaching practice in terms of engaging a self assessment that can help us see our positive and negative aspects. The most important thing is to be able to learn how to point out our mistakes and do something about them. With a colleague, please explore the questions:
What do we identify as similarities and differences between reflection and critical reflection? Similarities: self assessment and self improvement (I am open to change) Differences: the first one refers to observe our teaching in general, while the second one is more about the unhelpful aspects of our teaching. How can reflection/critical reflection be used to influence teaching practice, impact on student learning? We always have to ask ourselves : “Was that activity appropriate?”, “Have my students learnt with it?”, “Have my students enjoyed the lesson?” Afterwards, we have to come up with better ideas and improved activities.
DUAL LANGUAGE PROGRAM VISIT
- What do you think worked well for student learning?
1. I loved the learning centres!! The students listened to the instructions from the teacher and they moved from one centre to the other one every 8 minutes.
All the students knew what to do, they worked autonomously and enjoyed the activities.
They knew exactly how long they had left because the timer with the countdown was on the smart board, where we could all see it.
2. I liked the doc camera, I found it very helpful to show students things in a big smart board (assignments, art projects, basic instructions...)
3. The brainstorming idea was good because it helps the students remember all the information they have been learning about throughout the whole day. A great idea is to write down the most important keywords so the students know where to start their description from.
- What teaching practices did you observe?
1. English lesson in 3rd grade: they were learning about Peru and the teacher had them sitting down on the carpet writing some information down about cultural aspects such as the flag, the main landscapes, the capital, the population...
After that, the students went back to their tables, where the teacher explained that they were going to work in the learning centres:
1. Listening centre: listen to the story "Where the wild things are"
2. Word station: Write and draw a zoo that you would like to open (using the animals from Peru)
3. Art centre: finish the animals puppets (Peru animals)
4. Library centre: read books about Peru in the reading corner
5. Writing centre: write about the typical food from Peru
2. Spanish lesson in 3rd grade: they were making straw flutes and all the instructions from the teacher were in Spanish.
The teacher showed what to do using a doc camera and all the students coulod perfectly see what to do in every step.
3. English lesson in 5th grade: the class was learning about Spain and they asked us lots of questions.
I showed them my blog, where they could see pictures of my students and watch a video of our school festival. I think they really enjoyed that, because they all started dancing and singing along.
4. English lesson in grade 3: they were all sitting down on the carpet and the teacher asked them to talked about what they have been learning about. She wrote some brainstorming ideas on the board and afterwards the students wrote a little description about Peru using their own words.