Lesson Plan Reflection-CEP800

Neringa Tuyilingire

CEP 800
Fall 2011
Lesson Plan Reflection

My lesson plan was designed for a group of Pre-K students (3-4 years olds).  Through various meaningful materials students were able learn to understand written language, retell a few important events they heard from a story and enlarge their vocabularies. Various books were chosen to read (hard copy, on iPad, computer, or on audio CD). We discussed who wrote and illustrated the book and asked children questions about the events in the story. Children were able to create their own book. I did make a change to my lesson plan. Instead of using a www.storybird.com to create a story, children used paper, stickers, glue and various cutouts from newspapers and magazines to create their story.  Teacher acted as facilitator and students were expressing   their opinions, ideas and answering and/or asking questions about a story.

Since I am not a teacher, I applied this lesson plan on two three year olds (my son and my niece).  One day, I picked a hard cover book about “Clifford’s Manners” written by Norman Bridwell. Students were told Norman Bridwell was the author of the book is and that he wrote this book. As I read the book, we were discussing what manners meant and how one must behave to have good manners. Students were great participators during the discussion and it seemed they understood the story very well.

Another day, we used www.magickeys.com/books website to pick a few stories to read. Online stories made students more involved in story discussion. Students were asking questions about the pictures they saw on a computer screen. One of the stories was too long and the pictures were just black and white. Students were disinterested in the story after a couple of pages.
We listed to another story on my iPhone about a unicorn who got lost in the woods. I think the story was a little too complex for the age and there were some sounds that scared one of the students.

We also tried www.storybird.com to create their stories. That did not go well as planned. Students were disinterested. I helped them to come up with an idea for the story but then the students asked why pictures did not move and why there was no voice.  Instead we used a piece of paper, glue, and stickers and cut outs from a magazine to create a story.

Students learned that the author is a person who writes a book and illustrator is a person who draws pictures in the book.  One of the student said that the illustrator is the person who paints a book. The learning goal was for students to be able to understand the events in the book and relate some of them to their personal experiences. The goal was for students to learn to be effective listeners.

The lesson plan was intended to enhance the learning of something that is already central to the curriculum. Students read books everyday but not all the time the book is discussed. Teacher does not know if the student understood the book. This lesson plan encourages the teacher to ask questions, encourage them to be active listeners and explain unfamiliar words to students.  

One must be very creative when working with PreK students. What needs to be taken into consideration is their attention span. I had to make the environment less distractive as possible. I had to make learning as interesting as possible. When reading a story, I had to read in various tones to keep their attention. I had to pick stories that have colorful pictures are short and not too complex for their age. The technology that I originally picked was too complex for their age so I had to choose something that is more appropriate for their age. The learning had to be enjoyable.

Students were assessed by the way they participated in the discussion of a particular book. They were also assessed on how they were creating their own stories and telling me what they created. Both students were able to participate in the discussions of the book and relate some of the events to their personal experiences. They also created their own story and told me what the story was about (only in a few sentences).

The technology that I originally picked was too complex for their age. Instead I picked something that was more simple. They were able to listen to short stories on www.magickeys.com/books and www.starfall.com, which was fun and interactive. The teacher had help them choose a story. One of the students even acted the story out. The technology was supplemental to the lesson plan.

Students were very excited to listen to stories on the computer, they were excited to see and hear what will happen next in the story. Some students asked why something happened in the story.  Some of them wanted to go back and listen to the same story again.

I think technology made learning more interesting and interactive. I think it would have been more interactive if there were questions at the end of the story (on website). Students could be tested if they understood the story.

I think technology would be more appropriate for letter and sound learning for this age rather than for language and literature (story understanding). I think social constructivism approach is more appropriate for this type of lesson plan when there is interaction between teacher and students or student and student.