What a great group of lesson plans this evening! I absolutely loved Rebekah's idea of incorporating making smores with solar ovens in to her class for energy of the sun! What a fun way to learn about the sun's energy. Way to go Rebekah!
Karen's idea of using music to get the kiddos excited is a great one as well! It seems so easy to remember things when you are singing it and incorporating music! Awesome job Karen!
Marley I just watched the Deepwater Horizon movie today and then did a ton of research on it about the effect it had on the water. I love the water system and learning about it!! Great idea for 5th grade science!! Loved your lesson plan!
April I have never been one to love to read but after listen to your lesson plan I am sure the kiddos would really enjoy! I love the idea of taking breaks in between. I am sure this will be great for the students!
Kudos to all! Great job everyone!!
Happy Thanksgiving to all! Safe Travels!

After the Lesson plan presentations this evening I have learned quite a bit over what else I need to do to make my lesson plans better. As I was one that presented mine over first grade math for currency. I am very happy with the feedback that I received from Professor Steffes.
Jacob did a great job over 10th grade English Language Arts. I love Poe and your handout was great! I enjoyed seeing your Lesson plans for the higher grades since I am in elementary education.
Allison Haden's lesson plans over first grade English with retelling stories was great to listen to as I am doing my lesson plans over first grade as well but for math! Way to go! Great job!
Scott Hill did his lesson plans over Middle School American History for the Civil War on Amendments 13-15. I have always loved learning about the amendments and enjoyed seeing your lesson plans that go along with them! Great job and to be on lesson plan #10 already! Kudos to you man!
The last presentation was from Kim Groseclose about Language Arts and the importance of using punctuation at the end of a sentence. This is so very important!! I love the idea about a song over this! I always remember songs so much better and I am sure this will help the students tremendously!
Way to go class! Great work!!

After this evenings class I have learned even more about lessons plans. Seeing everyone's different style and going over each lesson plan is helping to get a better understanding. I enjoyed listening to each person and the topics that they chose.
Jessica I place values and math has always been one of my favorite subjects so I really enjoy seeing how others plan to teach it! I chose to do math for first grade currency so a little different and just one grade below but it was neat seeing yours and comparing it to mine a little so that I can see if there are things I can change to make mine better.
Andrew Social Studies has always been one of my least favorite subjects so to see how and what you chose to teach for 7th grade was a helper for sure!
Ali I agree that recycling is so very important. We try to recycle as much as we can including aluminum cans, cardboard, glass bottles, refilling water bottles and then recycling after several uses, etc. Great choice!
Tiffany I have been subbing in the pre-k and kindergarten classes a lot recently and the kiddos just LOVE doing the weather! I agree that the songs are so helpful. Even myself seem to remember things better when they're sung. Look at how easy it is to remember songs?! HAHA
Angela I LOVE to draw! Art and Math have always been my favorite subjects so I loved listening to your lesson plan! I am always doodling on paper!
Great job everyone on your lesson plans thus far! Way to go class!

When thinking about Backwards Design and looking in to the future of what I want to accomplish out of my Lesson plans I think about success, studentstudents fully understandingunderstanding, etc. For my Lesson plans for first grade mathematics currency I would want the students to be able to fully understand each coin, how much each coin is worth, and be able to add coins to "purchase" products to get the desired amount for the product.
In thinking about "testing" thethe students to make sure that they fully understand I would do a fun exercise of "store" time and have each student "buy" a product and get to the right amount and then also do a worksheet over the currency. The students would do the worksheet individually and then we could go over it together and make sure that everyone has the answers correct and has a full understanding. This way if any of the students do not then we could dig deeper.

Great job to all who presented their lesson plans tonight! I enjoyed seeing the examples. I haven't done any lessons plans yet so seeing these examples were very helpful! Way to step up and show us all how to do them. I was very very overwhelmed before seeing more examples and these helped ease my anxiety a little so I truly appreciate you all!! #patontheback

What is the difference between performance tasks and formative assessment? What is an example of each?

A formative assessment is am assessment of the students knowledge and understand along the way during a lesson plan. An example of this would be to ask the students to give you a thumbs up or thumbs down if they understand a certain topic that you have been discussing with them.

While a performance task is a task that you have your students complete at the end of the unit to make sire that they have a full understand of the whole over all "picturepicture/topic." An example of a performance task would be to have the students complete a poster board project over the topic and have them talk about certain areas to make sure that they have a complete understanding.

Yesterday in Education 300 we learned about thinking maps. I think that these are very important and will come in handy throughout school. I have attached a picture of the 8 types of thinking maps so that you can take a look at each one and what they are used mostly for. I am glad to have this to be able to reference back to. 

After learning about Madeline Hunter's lesson design it has helped to better understand how to write lesson plans. I think the hardest part for me to write would be the Bloom's Taxonomy. I think the main reason is because this information is so fresh and I had never heard of this part before this evening. 
This easiest part for writing a lesson plan for me I believe is the objective as I have really caught on to the ABCD way of thinking. I always go back and make sure that I have the Audience, Behavior, Condition, and Degree. This way of thinking of writing objectives has really helped. 
The most impactful part for the students would be the anticipatory set as this gets the students attention and helps to get them excited for the lesson plan. If we as teachers do not have the students attention and they are not wanting to learn then they are far less likely to catch on to the lesson. 
The parts that play a lesser part I would say would be the information at the very top: my name, class, duration, and then research based instructional strategies used. I think this information is not as important to the students as the rest of actually teaching the lesson and them getting a good understanding of what is being taught. This information is more to show the administration and other teachers. 

I believe that writing objectives are very important for us as teacher's so that we can stay on track and make sure that our student's are learning what they need to be learning to meet all of the standards that need to be met. If we do not write our objectives then we will have a harder time keeping track to whether students are stacking on track to be successful. 

An example writing objective would be:
Given the disaster that my house currently is, during the week, with working full time and going to college full time, my family and I need to work together each weekend to clean the house and get caught up on laundry so that we will organized and cleaned up for another week. 

Side note: I am an organized neat freak and Sundays are my favorite day as the house is cleaned and organized and laundry is caught up.