Micro Lesson 1 Reflections

PHASE I

Rationale:

To provide a student-centered, hands-on experience for second grade students to recognize and draw quadrilateral shapes through the integration of technology that both integrates resources for students to demonstrate their understanding of creating shapes and for assessing their knowledge. 

Grade Level: 2nd

Subject: Mathematics

Topic of Study: Geometry

Duration: 30 minutes

Standards: (2.G.A.1) Recognize and draw shapes having specific attribute, such as a given number of angles or a given number of equal faces. Identify triangles, quadrilaterals, pentagons, hexagons, and cubes. 

Objectives: 

• Students will be able to identify, describe, and compare six different types of quadrilaterals.
• Students will be able to construct quadrilaterals using Geoboards.

 Assessing Prior Knowledge and Planning Instruction:

Prior to giving this lesson, students need to have prior knowledge of basic shapes such as circles, triangles, rectangles, and squares. Students should also have ample opportunity to become familiar with learning about different kinds of triangles prior to introducing this lesson. Prior knowledge of shapes can then be expanded to four-sided shapes, quadrilaterals. Students' prior knowledge of shapes can be assessed through a whole-group discussion with a K-W-L chart to assess what students know, what students want to know, and what students learn about geometric shapes. This information can be applied to the planning process to determine whether the teacher wants to breakdown the standard more to focus solely quadrilaterals or to expand the lesson to include pentagons, hexagons, and cubes. 

The content of this lesson should be taught to this grade level of students not only because it is required by state and national standards, but because the concept of learning geometry can be applied to real, every day life because the world in which we live in is composed of shapes! Geometry is learned and applied through a progression of learning that students will be able to use in not only mathematics, but also in science. Students need opportunities to identify, describe, and construct geometric shapes before they can start measuring them. The objectives contained within this lesson grant students the opportunity to focus solely on working with quadrilaterals so that students do not become overwhelmed with learning about several different kinds of regular and irregular geometric shapes at one time. This lesson can be taught in the beginning of the school year since students are learning to reason with four-sided shapes and their attributes prior to moving on to data and measurement standards where students need to start measuring and calculating data of geometric shapes. 

Implementation:

Engagement: During whole group, inform students that they are going to learn about four-sided polygons that are called quadrilaterals, and watch Quadrilaterals Song.

Input- After watching Quadrilaterals Song, tell students that since we learned that a quadrilateral is a polygon that has four sides, that they are going to learn how to make six quadrilaterals on students’ tablets using Geoboard.  Create models of the quadrilaterals with labels on the Promethean/SMART Board so that students can refer imagery while working independently. While creating quadrilaterals remind students that:

• A square is a quadrilateral that has four equal sides.
• A rectangle is a quadrilateral that has four sides and two sets of equal sides.
• A parallelogram is a quadrilateral that has four sides and two sets of equal sides that are parallel to each other.
• A trapezoid is a quadrilateral that has four sides and one set of parallel sides.
• A rhombus is a quadrilateral that has four equal sides.
• A kite is a quadrilateral that has four sides and two sets of equal sides.

Using the Promethean/Smartboard, to model for students how to use the Geoboard Application on Google Chrome construct a square. 

Checking for Understanding-

• What is a quadrilateral?

• How many sides does a quadrilateral have?

• What other familiar shapes are not quadrilaterals?

• Can you explain why that shape is not a quadrilateral?

Questioning Strategies- How do you know a square is a square? How do you know a rectangle is a rectangle? How do you know a parallelogram is a parallelogram? How do you know a trapezoid is a trapezoid? How do you know a rhombus is a rhombus? How do you know a kite is a kite?

Observe students as they construct each shape and provide assistance to students who are having difficulty with constructing their shapes. 

Differentiated Instruction: 

Dependent on students’ ability, the teacher will provide worksheets that have concrete layouts of quadrilaterals and students will be able to use as a guide.  Students with fine-motor disabilities who are not able to assemble quadrilaterals will work with in a buddy-system and the teacher, paraprofessional, or classroom peer will help them assemble the shapes. Students with behavioral and emotional disorders who are easily overwhelmed from workload tasks will be given modified workload tasks.  The teacher will decide how many shapes students will be directed to make and assess students upon those shapes.  For example, if the student is only assigned to create three shapes during instruction such as a square, rectangle, and kite, then the student will only be assessed on squares, rectangles, and kites during the lesson, and the student will work on the other shapes at another time.  Gifted students and students who finish early will be given challenges so that students can continue to work quietly and independently at their desks.  The challenge for students is to write examples of the shapes they can find in the classroom.  

(InTask Standards 7 and 8)

The design of this lesson was developed to incorporate and utilize instructional methods that align with my personal teaching philosophy. Throughout this lesson, the students are able to learn by doing and can be assessed upon their performance. While I have not observed other seasoned instructors implement the technological resources for teaching similar lessons on geometric shapes, I have seen instructors teach shapes and assess students as students draw shapes on other materials: white boards, paper, and various kinds of manipulatives. Through utilizing technology that students already have access to and implementing technological resources. the method in which the content is being taught to the students not only aligns with other instructional methods, but also serves to engage students in creative and higher order thinking. Operating the graphics on the geopboard also provides a visual on how taking an oval shaped rubber band and stretching it around the pegs in different directions can create numerous kinds of shapes by manipulating the digital rubber band with the surrounding space around it; thus, stimulating creative and higher order thinking of students.

Assessment: 

Formal Assessment: Students will be directed to check with their partner on each quadrilateral on the their student devices for peer-assessment. Students will then hold up their tablets to be informally assessed on their understanding and progress for each quadrilateral by the instructor. 

• Accommodations and Modifications: The teacher will provide extra time for any ELL students and students with special needs that are struggling so that students can have extra wait time during whole group instruction. Working with a partner will also serve as a "buddy system" for any of these students.

Summative Assessment: During whole group, students will use Quadrilateral Deck Flashcards by NKO that the teacher can use to summatively assess each individual students' progress on identifying the images of quadrilaterals by properly matching them to the corresponding text.

• Accommodations and Modifications: While using Flashcards by NKO Application,  the teacher can enable the Text-to-Speech option and students can wear headphones during use.  

(InTask Standard 6)

The assessments, both formal and summative, align with the standards and objectives of this lesson because students will be assessed upon their performance. Student performance takes place during the section of the lesson that integrates the geoboards, and it is the students' artifacts that will be assessed to evaluate their learning progress by creating the six different kinds of quadrilaterals. When students check with their peers to see their work and then hold up their devices for the teacher to assess their work, the instructor is able to verify whether or not their students have been successful in learning the content. Students within in this age group still tend to be very egocentric and are often eager to "show" their work to their teacher, so by asking the entire class to show their work to a partner and then to the teacher, the assessment maintains student engagement throughout the duration of this part of the lesson. Observing the kinds of work that their peers' create can stimulate higher order of thinking because the instructor is not directing exactly how to create the quadrilaterals, thus permitting some freedom for the students to be creative and their peers to think of other ways to manipulate the application to create their own work. Integrating the flashcards application to summatively assess students' learning of the content stimulates higher order of thinking because the images start out as design of shapes that are familiar to students: simple colored shapes. The flashcards then progress to show congruent sides, parallel sides, congruent angles, and right angles that correlates to the learning standard. The final stage of the flashcards ends with real world images of quadrilaterals that students can make connections to. The assessment progress while using the flashcards is engaging to students because it is administered as a matching game. As students properly match their cards, they receive achievements through badges that the teacher can use to guide the duration of time spent while using the application. The teacher has access to assess all students' progress while "playing." Student engagement can be further enhanced by friendly competition by the teacher sharing the leader board with the class. 

Materials:

• Promethean/Smartboard
• Quadrilaterals Song 
• Student Tablets/Chromebooks/Laptops
• Geoboard Application or Geoboard Website
• Flashcards by NKO Applicaton 

(ISTE NETs Standards)

Lesson facilitates and inspire student learning and creativity by: promoting, supporting, and modeling creative and innovative thinking, engages students in solving authentic problems using Geoboards and Flashcards by NKO, promotes student reflection using collaborative tools to reveal and clarify students’ conceptual understanding and thinking, planning, and creative processes through peer-assessment.

Lesson's design and development is of 21st Century digital age learning experiences and assessments because it integrates relevant learning experiences by incorporating Geoboards and Flashcards that promotes student learning and creativity. Lesson plan stimulates a technology-enriched learning environment for diverse learners where students are held accountable for their own learning and assessment. Implementation of the resources address diverse student learning styles and accommodations that are available through the resources and devices address diverse students' abilities. Formative and summative assessments align with content and provide student data that can be utilized to inform students' learning progress and provide the instructor with data on lesson's effectiveness.

Lesson exhibits instructors knowledge, skill, and work processes that utilizes 21st Century digital age work and learning for students through the integration of Geoboards and Flashcards by NKO.

Lesson promotes and models digital citizenship and responsibility by addressing diverse needs of all students in student-centered activities, and provides equitable access to learning resources and digital tools for all students.

PHASE II

Instructional Decisions/Teaching (InTask Standard 9)

The first step in this lesson was to download the flashcards so that all learners could have access to the classroom deck. Prior to the implementation of this lesson, I sent out an email that included instructions to all adult learners, and even after directing them to the email and instructions, students were confused on how to be prepared with downloading the Flashcards by NKO application. This was due to many of the students waiting for my direct instructions on how to download the app, resulting in mass confusion. This portion of the lesson took longer than anticipated. Not all adult learners were able to download the app due to not having devices that allow applications or not having enough storage on their device to download another application. Modifications were created for students to work with a partner who had a device, with enough storage, to view the NKO application. Once this hiccup was rectified, adult learners were directed to go to the Geoboard website. Most students were able to either download the Google application, Geoboard, to their Google Chrome, others were able to simply use the link in the email, and one student needed to borrow a device in order to have access.

The objectives in the lesson aligned well with the standard, and adult learners maintained engaged in using both technology resources even after the lesson ended.

Mechanics

The technologies that were implemented into this lesson were student devices (smartphones, tablets, laptops, etc.), an introductory video on YouTube, digital geoboards and digital flashcards that adult learners used to demonstrate their understanding of the learning content. As previously stated, the lesson took longer than anticipated due to technology problems, but was designed to be a thirty-minute activity. Prior to beginning the lesson, I invited students to my previously created classroom deck of flashcards. Once everyone had access, I played the introductory music video that explained in detail the different kinds of quadrilaterals that were included in the lesson to engage all learners. Students were then directed to open their digital geoboards as I modeled how to create a square. I then directed students to create a square and show their work with their peers. Students were then directed to create the five other kinds of shapes and challenged in the end to see how many they could fit on their board. Afterwards, I informed students that they would be assessed on their knowledge of quadrilaterals using the digital flashcards. Students were to use the matching game through the application, but even though the application was available for all devices, the matching game wasn't as engaging on Android devices as it was on Apple. Through Apple, users were able to receive glorified badges and confetti graphics when they reached certain levels; Android users were not so lucky. 

Assessment of Learning (InTask Standard 6)

Digital artifacts are included in the lesson plan blog post. During this lesson, students were able to demonstrate their mastery of the content as set by the standards and objectives. Once the adult learners were able to successfully use the integrated resources, my peers were laughing and having fun! That alone led me to believe that my lesson was successful since adult learners enjoyed using the educational resources that I included into my 2nd Grade lesson plan. Students comments on the complications they encountered enlightened me to ensure that if I were to use the digital flashcards in the classroom with my future students, that the application is as fun and engaging on their student devices opposed to what I solely see on my end of the technology. This alone was an imperative and influential lesson when it comes to integrating technology into the classroom.

Other Personal Learning Experiences

It came to my attention, while the adult learners were attempting to download the flashcards app, that it would be in my and my students' best interest to have any new learning applications previously downloaded to their student devices prior to any lesson. That thought led to thinking about having to download an application on 25 or more student devices for my class. Performing such a task for the benefit of my students would be extremely time consuming! However, if I were to use a technology resource that required prepping all of my students' devices for a lesson, I would ensure that it would be a resource that would be implemented into my lesson planning more than once. Such is the case with integrating the flashcards application because their are so many creative and unique ways that students can use it to learn other subjects and content. Plus, students can create their own decks, too! I also believe that once the initial learning procedures of how to properly access and use the application become familiar with students, that accessing and using the application will not be so difficult for future times.