Digital Blog Post #I

Three Concepts to Reflect

As a new Pre-Kindergarten teacher, lesson planning has been something I am slowly learning to do. It is a very important aspect of VPK teaching. Chapter 4, "Designing Lessons and Developing Curriculum with Technology", discusses of how teachers plan and and teach lessons to keep students engaged. Lesson planning was the first term I found significant. Lesson planning organizes the three elements such as teachers' goals, methods, and procedures. It is broken up into two groups; student learning objectives and Understanding by Design (UBD) (Maloy, Verock-O'Laoghlin, Edwards, & Woolf, 2014). This includes the "who, what, when, how much/often, and how it will be measured" that some students are taught in school. I thought this was interesting because I remember being taught in school that statement when the teacher made us evaluate situations on the topic.

Assessing and evaluating students by personal experiences is the second term that caught my eye. I found this interesting because after I was remembering how I was taught as a child, there was a term to explain that. "Teachers tend to teach the way they were taught and assess the way they were assessed" (Maloy, Verock-O'Laoghlin, Edwards, & Woolf, 2014). I have had a few significant teachers in my history of schooling and I hope to incorporate the way they taught into the way I teach.

Last but not least, electronic grading software, a virtual recordkeeping system, "is a computer program enabling teachers to quickly calculate and record student grades on a computer" (Maloy, Verock-O'Laoghlin, Edwards, & Woolf, 2014). Although I do not do much grading in VPK, I think this would be an extremely helpful tool in the future. Older students like high and middle school students would be able to electronically check their grades throughout the semester. There can also be assigned values of assessments, just like FSW's online classes.

Chapter 4 was an eye-opener chapter for me as it explained the importance of lesson planning. I hope to look back and reflect on the chapter during my lesson planning days.

Here is a more creative approach to this chapter: https://tackk.com/vre9l6

References
Hunt, A. (2015, November 8). Chapter 4 - Tackk. Retrieved November 8, 2015.

Maloy, R., O'Loughlin, R., Edwards, S., & Woolf, B. (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education Inc.