EDFD 472 – Section 3, lesson plan modification for online learning.

*The annotations will be marked on the lesson plan in red and numbered, each annotation will correspond with its number below.

This lesson plan was for my year 7 class at Maronite college, in this lesson my class was conducting a film study of Dreamwork’s animated film How to Train Your Dragon. The overall goal for this lesson was to teach the class how to create a film review which was an activity that was included in their end of term project. In each annotation, you will find how this specific task would be adapted to teach in an online environment effectively. It’s important to me to keep the constructivism approach to this lesson as I find students tend to engage more when they get to physically test the skills they have been learning. For this lesson, I am assuming each student would be signed into Zoom or an equivalent program. All materials used within this lesson would also be placed into their google classroom page so they can have 24/7 access to the materials.

1.  Section One was a mandatory part of all lessons taught at Maronite College, to adapt this section for online each student would be asked to type their name into the chat as they sign into the meeting along with sending me an invitation to the google doc which they would be doing their writing in for that lesson, this lets me monitor the students work in real-time.
The prayers would then be read by a student as required by the college.
I would then share screens with the students which would contain either a word doc or a PowerPoint slide which would contain the lessons learning intentions and success criteria. This would be read out loud to the students followed by a minute or two in which they can ask questions about the lesson.
This section-time would also be cut down from 20 minutes to 15, allowing an extra 5 minutes for their writing in section 4.

2. A few adaptions would be made for this section:
   Firstly, The students would receive a link for a YouTube video of a short animation rather than doing this activity with an entire film. I have chosen to approach the task this way as students may not own a copy of the film.
   Secondly, students would be different slides, the student reading the slide could be picked at random. After each slide, a question could be asked revolving around what they have just learnt. For example, “What is the setting for the short animation?”, Students would then write their answers down in their google docs which I can view in real-time to see how they are interacting with the work. Some of these questions may lead to a discussion which would also be encouraged.
3. Students will be given a link to a film review which will be read out by selected students. This will allow students to see what a professional film review looks like. Again, a discussion is encouraged with this section.

4. This is the section where the constructivism mainly comes into play as students will now engage in creating their review.
For this section, the time limit would be changed to 20 minutes to allow students time to type as I have found through teaching online that student output is slower when typing at this age.
Students would be given 20 minutes to write their review on the provided short animation, this would be completed in their google doc. The reason for students reviewing the animation instead of the movie itself is because some students may not own the movie, whereas if the class is online they would have access to Youtube which the small animation would be hosted on.
Students would be encouraged in this section to ask any questions they may have about the process of reviewing and they will also have access to the slideshow via their google classroom.

EDFD 472 – Section 2, Artefact 2 reflection – Storyboard.

The second artefact Is an example of a storyboard I created for my year 7 class to help aid them with their end of term assessment which included:

1. Creating a Short storyboard of a “deleted” scene from How to Train Your Dragon.
2. A short speech, reviewing the film.

Looking back at this artefact I can understand why showing the class a storyboard like this may have made the task more overwhelming. Their storyboard was only expected to be six panels long and was supposed to include small details such as camera movements and a brief description of what is happening in the scene. The example I have presented them is a much more detailed version of their task as I drew too heavily from experience working as an animator.
While I don’t think this was a terrible storyboard to give to the students as it does show what a professional storyboard could look like, I do believe it may have set up unrealistic expectations for how their work had to look which in turn may of discouraged students who believed they couldn’t draw.

If I were to teach this class again I would use this knowledge to tone back my example and would have created an example that better reflected their task. To do this I would:

1. Create the storyboard to be based on the same text they are studying.
2. Constrict myself to the same expectations they had, e.g. Only using six panels and colouring it in.
3. The example would be much neater.
4. I would use the same sheet that they were expected to use.

 

EDFD 472 – Section 2, Artefact 1 reflection – Lesson Plan.

The following lesson plan was taken from a Year 7 class I taught during my GTPA, while the lesson wasn’t a disaster, in hindsight it did not meet my personal goal of being a constructionism style lesson as a constructionism style lesson is achieved by building knowledge through means that are tangible and shareable (Ackerman, 2009).
The lesson aimed to do the following:

1. Be a scaffold that students can use within their final assessment which they had to include a small review of the film How to Train Your Dragon.
2. Teach students what a film review is, and why they are created.
3. To give a real-life example of a written film review.
4. To have students create a written review.

In this context, this would be creating a piece of work that the students could share with their peers.
If I were to reteach this lesson, I would make some distinct changes to how the activity would have been approached, these include:

1. Students would be given a smaller animation to use for this task instead of trying to create a review for an entire film. The reason for this was that I found students struggled to remember certain aspects of the film, and when given such a limited time it proved to be difficult for them.
2. The task would be changed into creating a group video, with each member contributing to a script and filming.
3. Students needed more time for the creation aspect, time would also have to be made in a follow-up lesson for them to present their report.

 

EDFD 472 – Assessment 2 Section 1 – Statement of teaching philosophy.

When it comes to learning I believe everyone has their own way in which they prefer to learn, some people prefer to listen to a lecture while taking notes, some like to have a more hands-on, constructionist approach where they are physically engaging with an activity, and others like more Socratic method approach, in which ideas between both Teacher and students are exchanged calmly and respectfully. I find that I learn best through a combination of interacting with a physical activity and discussion around that specific topic. Because this how I learn I have also aimed my teaching practices to mainly revolve around a combination of Constructivism and the Socratic method, this is done through a series of steps:

1. Find out what the students know about a topic before engaging them in the study. This allows the teacher to see their students strengths and weaknesses on the topic, which in turn helps the teacher create a robust and meaningful learning environment for the students varying needs. (Halpenny, 2013)
2.  Student’s are taught theory on the subject to broaden their understanding of the topic.
3. An activity is given to the students in which they need to produce a piece of work.
4.  Students engage in an open discussion about the task they have completed, asking probing questions to gain a deeper understanding of the topic and reflecting on how the theory affected their work.

I would like to show you this method of teaching in action, while it may be anecdotal I have included images of student work to show the procedure and outcome of such teaching methods.

 

1. This artefact shows step one, in which students would complete a weekly quiz. This quiz was designed to see what students knew about the upcoming topic.
2. Artefact 2 shows students engaging In theory work, in this case students were looking at the role of a Hero. This work worked as a scaffold to lead into the physical activity. This is also when students would be given example work (see the artifact in Part 2 of the storyboard)

3. After learning the theory of storyboards students worked independently to create their storyboards based on a missing scene from How to Train Your Dragon.

4. Student’s would then share their storyboards with the class. This was done so students could give feedback on each other’s work as well as giving them time to ask any questions about storyboards.
Student’s were encouraged to be honest and reflect on what aspects of their work they liked and what they thought they could improve on.

While this may be anecdotal the results of this teaching practice show for themselves. Each week student quiz results were tracked (See the image below, sir names have been removed for the students privacy) and a class average was recorded. While this may have only taken place over 4 weeks the class average did rise by nearly 3 marks, going from an average of 5/10 to 7/10.