ELEC 340

 This week we reviews assessment techniques by looking at our math lesson plans. We also started class on Wednesday by reviewing the ABCD formula which was great because with so much going on it could be very easy to forget and to have a review at the beginning of the class so that we can remember before we start the class. We took our math lesson plan assessments and objectives and made them better :)

  Objectives are very important for the fact that it helps the students and other teachers to know what they students should be taking away from your lesson. They also help the teacher set up their lesson plans so that at the end of the lesson the kids will achieve the objective. The ABCD method is very helpful in making sure you have all the parts of the objective there. It really helps you focus in on making sure you have every part. The ABCD method is the really just making sure that you have all the parts you need. In the first picture I have attached it breaks the letters up nicely so that you can see exactly what all the letters stand for. and the second photo shows you an example of an objective with the letters broken up and color coded to show you how they are used.  

  Blooms Taxonomy and DOK     Blooms Taxonomy is what we learned first so it is what I got use to in the beginning. We learned that these are the verbs you use in your objectives for lesson plans. The Blooms Taxonomy is more straight forward I think since it is easily identifies by the verbs you use that go with the level of the triangle. DOK is more about what you know and how well you know it. I for sure plan on using the Blooms Taxonomy in my future instruction. I think it makes the objectives make more sense and I even understand them better. DOK is something I might use when asking children questions but as for my lesson plans I see myself more using the Blooms Taxonomy more.

 This week I learned about the different documentation, why we use documentation, and how we use them. Documentation is in many different forms such as, photographs, notes from the teacher, transcript of child's conversations, artwork, drawings, or graphs. There are so many things you can do with these documentations as well. You can put them into a portfolio, make a digital folder and make a bullion board. Where I work now we have to keep a portfolio of all the kids in our rooms so that when their IEP meetings come up we can bring them there with us and have some work to show the parents. I love having the documentation for when parents are getting the wrong information from their child and we can show them exactly what happened.

    What really stuck out to me this week was the activity we did where we had to match the type of rubric with the two examples because I thought that I was confident and knew all the different types and that really made me know that I really did not know the different types. I am glad that we did that activity though because it really opened my eyes and let me know that I really want to make sure I have analytic rubrics for all my assignments. When I have my own classroom I really want all my rubrics to be very clear so that the children and any other adult would be able to understand it and work from them. I also like that we talked more about the time sampling rubrics because I hope to be a special education teacher and I will be using the time sampling to keep track of the times they do things.

 During the first week of this class we focused a lot on the different types of assessments. I did not know there were different ones before this class. I thought all assessments were just the big tests like the PSSA and the Keystone. We not only focused on what the types were but why we use assessments. As I mentioned before I thought they were just those big tests but now I know they are much more and they are so important. They are very helpful for both the student and the teacher. The assessments help us be able to know where to place them on the curriculum or for the next grade. The kids get so much out of them since they will be getting the proper help they need since we would be able to get a good idea of what they needed by assessing them. My plan is to be a special education teacher and I will be using both the formal and informal assessments all the time to make sure I am giving the students everything they need from me to help them learn and get good grades. Also since I wan