amanda conrad post 4

I guess I should write about something positive my teacher does instead of always writing bad things. One good thing I have noticed is how quickly she provides feedback to her students. I think it’s a good thing when she has papers graded and ready to give back to her students the next day, and sometimes immediately. This way, the students know exactly how they stand in her classroom at any given time. Also, if they do poorly on an assignment they are allowed to have time to re-do it with her if they want. She gives them time to come in to her classroom during lunch or before school or after school so she can make sure they understand the assignment. This is good because Marzano says that the best feedback appears to involve an explanation as to what is accurate and what is inaccurate in terms of student responses. Marzano also says that asking student to keep working on a task until they succeed appears to enhance achievement. I like the fact that she will work one on one with a student until they know exactly what they are supposed to do on an assignment and I think it improves the students overall behavior in the classroom also because they know what they are doing. I’ve found that if students do not know how to do something they will just goof off during class and distract other students in the process.

amanda conrad post 3

I’ve noticed in my classroom that the students rarely get homework. If the students do get homework they complain about it, don’t bring it in the next day and then the teacher will sometimes give the students time to do it even though they were supposed to have finished it already. Homework is definitely not used as a tool in the classroom, and I do not think the teacher is letting it help students at all. She uses homework as a punishment often times and I think that it shouldn’t be that way. Marzano says that the more homework students do, the better their achievement. Studies have been done that show that when students do a little bit of homework every night their over all GPA goes up. Maybe the teacher I am with should be using homework to help her students instead of using it as a punishment tool when they are behaving badly during class. When I have my own classroom I will try to establish a homework schedule and policy and stick to it. I know that if I assign homework one night and the kids didn’t do it I will not give them more time to finish it like this teacher does. In order for these students to take homework seriously the teacher should tell them why they are doing the homework because the purpose of homework should always be identified and articulated. She should establish a homework policy and provide feed back as quickly as she can, and let students know that mastering a skill requires practice.

amanda conrad post 2

I don’t want this to be a bash session on the teacher I am working with but I can’t help but notice another problem I have with the way she runs her classroom. She has been doing a lot of group work and activities lately, and I have a huge problem with the way she puts her students into groups. First of all she has no seating arrangement, so the students they are doing awful academically sit in the back corner, the students who are doing well sit in the front, and there are a few special education students that sit somewhat in the middle. The special education students get made fun of a lot and I absolutely can not handle it. I feel so badly for them and I just want to yell at the kids who make them feel so badly on a daily basis. Anyway, the teacher announces that they are going to do some group work today and then she just says to get into groups of three. Obviously the cliques come out and it leaves about five outsiders looking around and wondering who is going to want to be their partners. I felt awful for these kids and so I suggested to the teacher that maybe she should put students into groups so the kids don’t feel so bad about themselves….well she said to me that that was too much work for right now and she didn’t have the time. I was appalled….there is no way that I would let those kids stare around the room and have their feelings hurt because no one wants to be their partners. It is not hard at all to have pre-made groups, and if anything…just say who you want in a group out loud, it doesn’t necessarily have to be on paper. Shoot, I was mad and I will never forget it. I’ll always put my students into groups for them. Not to mention, doesn’t it help with learning styles, study skills, and cooperation? Hello?? Is this lady clueless or what?

amanda conrad post 1

I saw for the first time a couple of days ago how the teacher I am working with likes to have her students take notes. I saw this before while I was in her class and it actually wasn’t that bad, but the second time she had her kids take notes was awful. I guess she does this all of the time too, which makes me feel sorry for the kids. At first I thought it was a joke, I didn’t know what to think about her process. To me, it is so off the wall and I know for a fact that none of the kids get anything from it. I’m telling you, this lady is a little crazy. From what I have observed she has not taught them how to properly take notes, so obviously they aren’t good at it and it is very clear that the students hate taking notes. They always groan and complain any time they have to take notes, and they are always concerned about how many pages it will be.
Okay so I walk into the classroom and sit down for some observation, and the teacher tells me that they will be taking notes today. Immediately the kids start asking how many pages it will be and the teacher assures them that it is short. Anyway, they all get out their notebooks and she simply turns on the overhead and puts a one page typed paper up and tells the kids to start copying! That’s it! Then she went to her desk and started doing something on the computer. Now, tell me if I’m crazy but is that not the worst possible way you can make your students take notes? I wanted to shove Marzano in her hands and make her read it, or tell her how I would like to do things. She gave no instruction, no explanation, no anything…just put the paper up and said start copying. Hopefully I can try to be a little more engaging when I have the students take notes, and hopefully I can teach them a little bit on how to properly take notes. Maybe the teacher will learn something from me?! Who knows…wish me luck!

Setting Objectives and Providing Feedback

I am almost done with my 20 hours of teaching and the most important thing I have learned while completing my clinical is this---the most important thing you can do for your students is provide feedback.

Marzano emphasizes the importance of feedback in chapter 8: Setting Objectives and Providing Feedback. He states that there are four main generalizations to understand about feedback:

1) Feedback should be "corrective" in nature.

2) Feedback should be timely.

3) Feedback should be specific to a criterion.

4) Students can effectively provide some of their own feedback.

I provide feedback on as much as I possibly can. I have them answer questions about the information and about how that information relates to their personal lives. I found out that one girl wanted to be an accountant, two boys wanted to be electricians, one student wanted to get a scholarship to play football, and another wanted to be a billionaire like Trump. I give a response to all of these things and it really helped me to better understand my students and they realize, in effect, that I really care about who they are and where they're going in life. I think that is so important. Once students realize you care, they will care about what you're trying to teach them. You invest in them and they'll return the favor. 

When I've giving feedback on "content material" I try to elaborate on what they've already discovered. If they give a correct answer, I'll respond by writing a question to further their critical thinking and cause them to consider the topic a little deeper than they had planned.

I also tried to get involved in the school environment while I was there. I bought candy for fund raisers, I helped with prom decorations and gifts, I attended the prom promenade, and I went to a few of the Chesapeake golf matches. I think these things can sometimes be just as important as anything we'll ever do in the classroom. Invest time and energy in the students and they'll return the favor.

April 1, 2009 Summarizing and Note Taking

April 1, 2009 was my worst teaching experience, by far, to date. 

Problem: I lost control of the class. Students did not stay on task well. Students disregarded most of what I was trying to discuss with them. Students did not pay attention to the PowerPoint during lecture. When I got to the "interactive" part of class where we did a spin-off of "four corners," they were lost. They finally started to interact and listen to what I was talking about. However, they got "too into it" and I had to separate two particular students and end the activity. 

Reflection: One thing I have to always consider is the make-up of my classroom. Yes, teachers usually love to have a computer for every student--not me. After this experience I would prefer having a computer-less classroom and taking my students to a lab when the lesson requires computer applications. I say this because every day I walk into class, whether we are doing an interactive activity, lecture, or discussion, it is a fight to get students to keep their monitors off and stay on task. 

As a solution to this problem, I hand out a worksheet that students must fill out as I go through the lecture material. I collect this worksheet at the end of class and it counts as their daily grade. This way students must pay attention and stay on task if they want points for the day.

I also decided PowerPoint should not be used again in this class. Having a PowerPoint presentation binds me to the front of the class so I can click "next" for each slide while allowing students in the back of the class to surf the internet during class. 

I made the title of this entry "Summarizing and Note Taking" because after realizing how important note taking is to the success of my class, I decided to review what Marzano had to say about the subject. Marzano says this about note taking:

1) Verbatim note taking is, perhaps, the least effective way to take notes.

2) Notes should be considered a work in progress.

3) Notes should be used as study guides for tests.

4) The more notes that are taken, the better.

I'm sincerely utilizing #'s three and four on a fairly consistent basis. I do need to be more conscious of number one. I find myself, at times, telling the students what I would like them to write under each subject in the notes or handout I give them. I do, however, feel that majority of the students in my class do not know how to properly take notes. If I had these students for a full term, I would start off the year by going over proper note-taking techniques and the benefits of taking notes. 

The notes I give to students are a mixture of teacher-made notes and student-made notes. I give them the general idea of what I want them to know but they must take that and elaborate on the ideas, give personal experiences, and look up answers in text and other notes they've taken in the past. 

All-in-all, this day was a great experience and, as I know very well, not every day will be sunshine and daisies. I think after I made these adjustments to the make-up of our daily class routine, they will be more responsive and on task.

Blog 4

This post will be on providing affective and effective praise to students. Marzano points out in chapter 8 the importance of providing students with effective feedback. In everything I graded while doing my clinical I tried to provide feedback. It did not matter if it was something that I was collecting for a completion grade, I was going to make sure the students knew that I cared enough to at least read what they took the time to do when I am the one who asked them to do whatever it is they did. I don't really get mad when I get something back and I cannot tell if the teacher read it or not, however when I know the teacher took the time to read something and I can tell through their feedback, it makes me feel a little different about the teacher. It helps the students respect you, even if they are unaware they are doing so as a result of something that appears to be so simple.

I always hate getting back and paper that is covered in red ink with every single, possible mistake pointed out. When I graded my students' papers, there were times where I do beleive I was too easy on them. However, I was did not know beyond a shadow of a doubt the level they were being held to prior to me being their teach for just a few weeks. One thing I always made sure that I did was write something possitive on every single paper. Even if something was wrong, I was sure to word what I wrote in such a way as to not be negative. Another thing that I did to make it so my feedback would be positive was to not use a red pen. I bought a green one:) Red is associated with so much negative. It does stick out and you can see what you write and the studetns can too, however there are alot of colors out there that stick out just as well as red. Marzano points out it is important to provide effective feedback when improvement is shown. This is something else I tried to do. Even though I was only playing teacher for a relatively short time, I was still able to see improvement in some of the students' work. I was able to recognize when more effort was shown on an assignment than on a previous assignment.
The overall theme that I tried to stick to was making sure the majority of the feedback I provided was positive. If students begin to associate negative things with my class I feel as though I am losing the battle. Research shows that social studies classes in general are some of the classes students love to hate. If the feedback we give to students is affective, which it all should and could be, then what could possibly happen when much of the affective feedback we give is negative? If I am providing a student with affective feedback which is negative and that student is already struggling then it is my beleif that that student could continue to struggle as a result.
Everything is not roses and daises and every student assignment is not amazing. Incorrect answers need to me marked wrong and incorrect statements, grammer, etc. should be corrected in a paper. The point I am trying to make is that we should focus on positive feedback as opposed to feedback which could have an adverse effect.

Wes Neal Post #4: Cues and Questions

Perhaps the most powerful tools I saw my teacher use during lectures were those of providing cues and asking questions. Lectures in general seem to be boring for students, but I still think it is necessary in science to still do them every once in a while in order to provide the content the students are going to apply in the labs. The way my teacher engaged the students during his lectures was to cue them at certain times to think about how something relates to what they already learned. The students may have been stumped about a new concept, but as soon as he cued them about past knowledge, you could see it in their faces that they just gained a better understanding. This worked almost every time. He would also use cues to make especially important concepts stand out. For example he might say, "make sure you write this down in your notes, because you're going to see it again". Then when the subject reappeared later in the chapter, they seemed to remember it better. He also used questions during the lectures, especially those that applied the new content to things in their everyday life. For example when talking about disorders, he might ask if anyone knew someone who had been afflicted. This provided a jumping off point for a discussion that could last anywhere from 2 minutes to 20. Even though some teachers might think this would derail their lecture and take up precious time, it provided such a deep connection that it was absolutely worth it. This open discussion kept the lectures interesting, as well as meaningful, and kept the students engaged and on task.

Blog 3

For this blog I will talk about motivation and effort. In marzano ch. 4 they discuss the importance of students understanding of the difference effort can make in the classroom and in their acedemic performance. Marzano talks about how important it is to show student improvement when effeort is put forth by a student. My content area is social studies and for my clinical I taught a history class. The students in my class were, for the most part, amazing. They always put forth effort and tried in almost everything I asked of them. However, although it was a first teaching experience ever, I would like to take at least some of the credit.

I always tried to make the material as relevent to the students as possible. If we as teachers can find ways to make students care about the inside of a cell, what an adverb is, the elements of literature, or what the main parts of the policy of Containment were during the Cold War were, we can affect their level of effort. Regardless of content area, if you can make students relate to and like the material, they will be more likely to try and put forth effort. This is the say that we should never, ever teach for knowledge or facts' sake. We should always try our hardest to make sure there is a reason for learning what they are learning.

In a history class I can do this by simply relating material from the past to the present. That is what I attempted to do in one of my lessons. I related the fear and paranioa of the Cold War to the same feelings of today and our recent past as Americans. THere were things I could and probably should have done differently in the lesson, however for the most part it was a success. Studetns were engaged and interested and participated in debates and discussions. It helped give them a reason to care about what happened in the past.

Another thing mentioned in Marzano is that we make sure we make a distinction between acedemic outcomes when little effort is put forth and when a lot of effort is put forth by students. I planned a review game the day before my unit test. I told the students that it would be smart to get out a peice of paper and write down what the questions I ask in the game are becuase they may not be the only things on the test, however, if i took the time to include them in the game, the are important. In the first class I played the game in, the students were on task and wrote down nearly everything I said and their test scores were higher than the second class I played the game with. In the second class some students did not pay attention as much and were talking and wrote much less down on their paper. They did not put forth the effort the first class did and their test results showed it. I did not belittle them at all for this. I simply pointed out that the ones that wrote down the material covered in the game and put forth that effort, did generally better than those that did not. I congratulated those students who did put forth the time and effort as well.

Wes Neal Post # 3: Providing Feedback.

Providing feedback to students is essential for motivating students to want to learn. Not only does it allow the students to follow their progress, but it is also used to encourage them and guide them in their activities. If the teacher wants the student to reach the ultimate instructional goals in class, then they must be steered in the right direction. The teacher I worked with always makes it a point to provide feedback to the students instead of simply writing a grade at the top of their papers. This is especially true on anything that he assigned that required some thought put into it such as short answer questions on the tests, or conclusion questions at the end of a lab exercise. He still marks their answers right or wrong of course, but he adds comments to help the students too. For example, if a student has almost arrived at a correct response, the teacher tells them something like, "almost there, think about it in terms of.....). This way the student knows they were on the right track, and where to go from then. If the student just had it wrong altogether, the teacher fills in some information that would have gotten the to the right response. This way they at least knew where they were going wrong, and would be able to fix it in the future. Finally, he adds encouraging comments to the responses that were especially well thought out, such as a "Good job!" As simple as this may seem, the students loved getting praise, and it seems to be working because the same kids who tend to get these responses keep churning them out. When I first began grading the activities I had assigned for my unit, the first thing the teacher wanted to see was if I had been adding comments. He was happy to see that I had been, and told me how important it was to let the kids know when they were doing a good job, or to steer them in the right direction if they were getting a little off course.

Blog 4

In thinking of what to write about for my last blog, I began looking through my notes I kept during the entire clinical process.  It was my intent with all my lessons designed for my clinical placement, to incorporate aspects of every strategy we discussed throughout the Marzano text.  I figured I would briefly explain with a few examples, how I used each strategy.

Identifying Similarities and Differences – Chapter 2

I incorporated a written critique as the culmination of my entire unit, consisting of questions which continually called upon students to explain how all three of their projects related and how they differed.  It was important for students to see that each of their projects stemmed from ideas of artistic inspiration or influence.

Summarizing and Note Taking – Chapter 3

With the introduction to two of the three projects, students took part in a PowerPoint presentation.  They were given paper copy summaries of each and were asked to jot down important facts as we went along.  At first, I was unsure if this was too much (especially considering they probably weren’t used to such tactics in an art class), but it actually worked quite well and students did comply. 

I also used summarization in the final written critique, considering student had to explain how they created each project, step by step – as well as describe their ‘motivation’ or basis for their assignment.

Reinforcing Effort and Providing Recognition – Chapter 4

I feel I best addressed this strategy by continually circulating the room and adding input while the students were working.  I would sometimes cue them in if they were beginning to go in the wrong direction, but always reward them with praise for working and staying focused.  If I felt a student was doing well and creating above and beyond, I would hold up their work and describe how they were using tools effectively to the entire class.

Homework and Practice – Chapter 5

As for homework, the only assignment students actually were required to take home and finish was their critique if not finished in class.  Not surprisingly, those who had to take them home did not complete – more than likely because they forgot (as they are not used to having homework in Related Arts). No excuse, as I preached the day before, but nonetheless, not successful.

In terms of practice, when introducing a new technique, students always had the opportunity to test their skills before beginning on their actual project.  Through the use of worksheets, thumbnails and scratch paper, students were able to become familiar with the process before putting their knowledge to work.

Nonlinguistic Representations – Chapter 6

With each overarching project, I brought in numerous student created examples similar to the work they were going to be creating.  I also demonstrated techniques, used posters, diagrams and handouts.  Specifically, when students were creating large-scale butterfly wings, I brought in actual butterfly wings I had collected over time and magnifying glasses.  As mentioned above, in chapter 3, I gave students handouts with images so that students could add their own words to explain what we discussed.

Cooperative Learning – Chapter 7

Again, with the Magnifying Life butterfly wings, students were required to work in pairs to create symmetrical butterfly wings – therefore the process was as much about completing an aesthetically pleasing finished product as it was about working together well and making choices in agreement.  In the first project Lending An Ear, students used watercolors – and they could choose if they wanted to create with warm or cool colors.  By making this decision, students were segregated and worked in the subsequent groups.  They then did everything else throughout the assignment together and under that label (i.e. complete worksheets, etc.)  Students knew if they needed anything, to first ask those in their ‘group.’

Setting Objectives and Providing Feedback – Chapter 8

Students completed exit slips every other day and began to pick up on the practice.  They knew on the “off” days, that we would discuss their responses.  I feel that this was an innovative way to practice using feedback.  As mentioned above, I would also frequently circulate the room and input my professional opinion.  Students knew what was expected of them, though I suppose I could have either written those expectations on the board or distribute the rubric ahead of time. 

Cues, Questions, and Advance Organizers – Chapter 10

Students received prompts either by means of a bellringer or Exit Slip daily. They also made use of graphic organizers and worksheets throughout each lesson. Also, through the written response and critique at the end of the unit, they made use of critical thinking skills by answering various open-ended questions.

 

I feel I was successful for the most part, at incorporating these strategies, techniques and practices.  The only one I left out was Generating and Testing Hypotheses, which I could have incorporated though we hadn’t discussed by the time I concluded my placement.  Excitingly though, Marzano included an example from an art class, where students predict what happens when you mix certain colors – so I feel it can be done!

Overall, I enjoyed my placement – it was only a drudgery in terms of the time it sucked up out of my already busy life! I can’t wait to have my own classroom where IT is my sole focus! 

Jordan

Zack Frame - Post #4 - Cues & Questioning

I am a big fan of classroom discussion. But if classroom discussion does not have a motivating and driving force behind it, then the whole basis of classroom discussion flops. To get students to discuss the subjects, I will give students cues and questions (a strategy suggested by Marzano) to help guide them in the classroom discussion. In my experience in my clinical, I’ve noticed a few things about the strategy. I was able to make note of a few good things, but I was also able to make note of some less than desirable effects.

First of all, the first period theatre class appeared to be the most disengaged group of students I have ever worked with—well, at least in a theatre classroom. We were beginning to discuss play analysis—and of course, as I mentioned, I enjoy teaching through class discussion. As it turns out, class discussion does not work if students are not engaged. I asked them a very broad question trying to get the ball rolling. I received blank stares all the way across the classroom. I explain to them that for class discussion to work they have to open their mouths, allow sounds to come out to form coherent sentences. This got a few laughs, but it really didn’t do anything as far as making them talk more.

I figured my question was too broad, and students were afraid to answer for fear of being incorrect, so I tried using some cues to get them thinking about where I wanted them to go with this question. At this point, I was able to get a few more students involved with the class discussion. Then I notice many of the same people were getting into the conversation—so I would ask other students (quiet ones; not contributing much to the discussion) a specific question that pertained to what we were talking about.

Basically, through Marzano‘s strategy of cues and questioning, I have found that this strategy is easier to use and students are willing to participate. While I believe this particular type of strategy feeds best into my classroom philosophy (the fact that learning is a three way process, student: teacher, teacher: student, student: student), I believe that for this strategy to work I need to give students more incentive to participate. Maybe if I accompanied the discussion with some sort of visual aid (or non linguistic representation—maybe even an advance organizer), students would have been more interested in participating, thus, making the lesson go more desirably.

Zack Frame - Post #3 - Nonlinguistic Representations and Advance Organizers

Another strategy that I would like to use (and have used) and my level II clinical, is the use of the strategy of non linguistic representations. When I began teaching my first unit to the theatre I class—I used non linguistic representation in order to help students organize ideas of what they were planning to do with their character mask. For this unit, we were going to take the characters from a play the school is doing, then make and design a plaster mask that reflects the character’s personality, physical traits, and anything else that could be demonstrated through the making of a plaster mask.

The point of this activity is to help students learn the importance of script analysis and character analysis. By asking students the types of questions on their handout (or non linguistic representation), students are able to see the importance of script and character analysis through the making of their plaster masks. This strategy is especially important when we are giving students a baseline from which to work for the rest of the unit. Students can jot down their initial ideas and refer to them as they move along in the unit—all the while changing things up… getting rid of bad ideas coming up with a new and better ideas.

Here’s where the idea of advance organizers also plays a role! By giving the students this handout prior to teaching the unit, I’m giving students an advance opportunity before the lecture to give them an idea of what we will be covering in this unit. Much like essential questions, it allows them to begin with the goal in mind, allows them to pre-organize their thoughts, and as mentioned previously, gives them a baseline of where the unit is going to go from there.

My experience with this unit was pretty positive; I believe the strategies that are used in the classroom for this unit worked well with the students and the students reacted well to the strategies. I felt like the students were actually getting an idea of what character analysis is—which was the point of the entire unit. The only thing that I would have done differently, is I would have created a rubric to offer more structure to the assignment. My assessment of their character mask was not very good because of a lack of structure. If or when I teach this lesson again, I will be sure to have created the rubric to give students a goal to work for when developing their character masks. Go graphic organizers!

Blog #4 Cooperative Learning

Chapter seven of Marzano speaks of Cooperative learning. I feel that cooperative learning is a great strategy, because you are allowing students to work together to get the best out of their learning process. In blog four for me, I will discuss how cooperative learning during my unit helped students throughout the lessons. After every lesson that I taught, I generated an activity with groups. These groups would be on teams where they would cooperatively complete the activities that they were provided. It was really great watching them work together trying to solve problems and come up with answers. I was really glad to see students helping the students in the classroom with special needs. But, the cooperatively learning groups worked great. The first activity was difficult for the students because I don’t think that they had worked in groups very much and were shy about sharing answers or giving answer. As the unit progressed and we worked in groups almost daily, the students started to get comfortable with the other students in the class and by the end of the unit, students were sharing their answers in front of the entire book. I wouldn’t let students group themselves in their cooperative learning groups, because I could just see the friends being in groups and then those students who didn’t have many friends were left out. I grouped the students in various ways. One way was numbering, the other was folding a line. One way that I grouped students was by M&M’s. I passed out the candy with the right number of M&M’s of colors so that every group would have the same number of students. This worked great, because they got to eat their M&M after I grouped them. But all in all, cooperative learning worked great for me and I feel that the students really enjoyed it. Almost every day, students were asking if it was time to get into groups or not. The activities that I gave them were fun, but difficult for sixth graders. One activity I gave them was, they were immigrants moving to the United States from Europe and they were given situation cards where they had to complete answers and answer short answer questions to see the details about the people that they drew from the card deck. Cooperative learning worked very well with me and I will use it as many times as I can in my unit and throughout my teaching career.

Blog #4

So, here is my final blog for this class. I have enjoyed my Clinical so much. I think ecverything has really started to connect the last couple of weeks. I want to talk about Cooperative Learning as my last strategy. I have been fortunate enough to be in an Honors class. These kids are really motivated and driven to do well. While doing my unit, I put them in groups every day for an activity. I know that Marzano says it isn't a good idea to use Coop groups every day, but I wanted to try my activities to see how well they worked. In my own classroom, I would use the activities once or twice a week. Anyway, the kids loved it! They were so competitive with the other groups. My activities were game oriented. The kids would be given a criteria for writing a poem or lines of a poem and then the other groups would have to guess what their criteria was. They would try so hard to follow the directions but disguise it enough so the other groups would not be able to guess right away. I can see how coop groups wouldn't work in some classroom situations, but for mine it was great! Everyone participated equally. After I did group with the kids, my teacher has started using them also. She put them in groups when they did riddles. She has also put them in groups for peer evaluation.
I have gotten so much out of this class. It has been challenging but, so much fun. I had a wonderful clinical experience so incorporating the strategies was easy. I think I have grown as a teacher from my first day until now. I also know that I will incoroporate these strategies throughout my teaching career. Backward design makes sense to me. To have a goal and then outline the steps to get there is not only a way to teach, but it's a way to live your life. As a teacher, I hope that I can pass along not only content material but also life lessons. I said in one of the reading relflections that once we change the way we think about teaching we can change the way students think about learning. When you look at the big picture, UbD makes sense. I have other lesson plan formats but, I think this one will be the format I choose. Starting with the goal and then planning how to get there works for me. The class has been awesome. Good luck to everyone in their future teaching experiences.