11/4/08

With the end of the semester near, today's class period began with a discussion over upcoming assingments. After establishing the due dates of these assignments, we went on to finish our midterm presentations. The first group presented their lesson over the changing of seasons. They provided a very child friendly video to demonstrate the changing of the seasons. The last group to go was a continuation from last week. They had already given their lesson. However, we still had to finish the activity. This group was the bottle rocket group. They set everything up outside in a large open space where no one was around. After putting on the appropriate safety gear, different groups took turns shooting of home made bottle rockets. I was pretty need. Some of the rockets went about 2-5 feet off the ground and other shot 12 feet off the ground. It was a very cool activity. The class period ended with a discussion over the new text book that we will be focusing on for class. This text has to do with assessment in the classroom. Our discussion consisted of the most common forms of traditional assessment including pen and paper, recall, and problem-solving. We then learned that as a teacher it is important to have flexibility in addressing different learning styles and the ability to probe different levels of understanding at different times during instruction. This in turn goes along with providing your student with many ways to show you what they have learned. Other important pieces of information pertaining to assessment state that, "For assessment to be fair, it must be consistent, each component must assess what has been studies and talked about, not what SHOULD have been studied. The final piece of information that I feel was of importance within today's discussion stated that assessment should be appropriately modified to accommodate the needs of students with physical disabilities, learning disabilities, or limited English proficiency. Overall I felt that we accomplished a lot within our class period today. The information introduced is very important to have an understanding of as future educators.