For this artifact, I created a lesson that corresponds with a specific unit that my Kindergarten class was working on short vowel sounds, and phonics. I decided to choose a book: The Very Busy Spider by Eric Carle, to hook the students in and create the theme of spiders. When I introduced the next step after the story, I asked students if they knew what the different vowels were, and the majority of them were able to say and identify them. Then I had students complete a spider art project where they had to sound out each short vowel word and match it to the correct picture, I also walked around and helped as needed and encouraged them to use their prior knowledge when sounding out specific vowel sounds. When connecting to the Maine Common Core Teaching Standards, I chose to reflect on Standard #6: Assessment. Although, my lesson plan was based around Standard #10 – Collaboration, I can further say that I used formative assessment throughout the teaching session to determine if I needed to change or adjust any instruction accordingly. After the lesson, I reflected a lot on what exactly I needed to change the next time I was going to teach, and I truly took in the feedback my corresponding teacher gave me, as well as my professors.
After completing the lesson plan and then reflecting on it, I was able to look back on what I wanted to change, but I also saw what I wanted to keep so I could use my strategies in the future. This lesson will help me in the future as I can adjust lessons based on strategies my students have: depending on how long they can stay focused, their different levels of learning, how they receive the information being presented to them, etc. I will use this artifact in the future when I’m creating different lessons as I can think about my student’s needs and what works or doesn’t work for each student. I’ll also be able to use formative assessment more effectively as I learned a valuable way of using it. To add, I can also further create differentiated materials as the feedback I received was again extremely valuable. This artifact has expanded my pedagogical knowledge and has improved my future practice as an effective educator, as I now understand how to use reflection on a daily basis to improve my teaching strategies.
