You are on page 1of 6

Reflection and Three Assessment

Styles

Submitted by:
Alexa Hale
Reflection and Three Assessment Styles

The lesson I choose to teach to my class was an introductory session that identified the

topic, topic sentence, main idea and supporting details within Informational Text. This lesson

also served the purpose of teaching predictions and using context clues in order to determine the

meaning of unknown words. The learning goals that were assessed from this lesson focused my

students ability to speak, listen, read, and write about these ideas as well as understand how these

ideas add meaning to a text.

According to Echevarria, Vogt, and Short, (2017) “We know that written objectives

guide student learning and help them stay on task. SIOP teachers who attend to their lesson

objectives make sure there are times during the lesson when some explicit instruction takes place

that targets the objectives and other times when students have the opportunity to practice and

make progress toward meeting those objectives” (p. 206). Since I had many language objectives

for this lesson, I wanted to provide ample opportunities for my learners to demonstrate those

objectives throughout the lesson. SIOP strategies that I used to target the objectives and teach

content included teacher modeling, repetition, partner work, and visuals. Through informal and

formal assessments, I was able to assess students’ practice and whether or not they met their

learning objectives throughout the lesson.

The first informal assessment within the lesson revolved around discussion.

Conversations were available through whole class discussions and pair-share. This helps English

Learners because it is a method that allows them to practice listening and speaking skills.

Throughout the lesson, I asked students to predict orally the meanings of the words such as topic,

main idea, topic sentence, and supporting details to the class. Before students answered the
question, I modeled the sentence structure using sentence stems, and then asked the students to

volunteer their prediction using the sentence stem I provided (e.g.- “I predict that the topic

means…”). I was able to not only listen to how they communicated their response, but also I

could listen to their prior knowledge of the content. As the lesson went on, I focused on how they

used their knowledge of these key terms and applied them within their pair-share discussions. I

listened to what they thought the topic, main idea, and supporting details were from their favorite

books or movies. I also asked them within the lesson to have pair-share discussions about why

they agreed or disagreed with classmates’ predictions about the main idea and supporting details

from the video we watched together,​ Introduction to Reading Skills: Identify main idea and

supporting details.​ By using discussions as a form of informal assessment, I was able to address

the language objectives ​I can predict the topic, main idea, topic sentence, and supporting details

of a text orally​ and​ I can identify details from the text to determine the main idea of a piece of

informational text.

Another informal assessment I focused on revolved around thumbs up and thumbs down.

This helps English Learners because thumbs up and thumbs down is a non-threatening way to

see if students agree or disagree with answers shared with the class. I used this many times

throughout my lesson to listen their thoughts regarding the topic, main idea, topic sentence, and

supporting details within the ​Introduction to Reading Skills: Finding Multiple Main Ideas in the

Same Passage ​Video. What did not work very well, though, was when the student did agree or

disagree, I wasn’t able to hear why they agreed or disagreed. I couldn’t tell if it was something

they truly understood or if it was a guess. This was something I thought would be important
within the lesson, so I decided to add more pair-share discussions during these times. I wanted to

be able to listen to their thoughts with their peers.

The final assessment was done formally. This assignment was completed in pairs where

they had to take text from the ​Introduction to Reading Skills: Finding Multiple Main Ideas in the

Same Passage ​video and read it to a partner (each person in the pair had a turn to read the

passage out loud). Then, on their own assignment, they circled the topic orange, typed the main

idea in blue, underlined supporting details in green, and underlined the topic sentence in purple.

This helps English Learners because color coding helps them dissect text and organize meaning.

These colors were consistently modeled and used throughout this lesson, so they practiced what

we did as a class and apply it to their own assignment. This was the final assessment for the

lesson so I could see if they understood these ideas within Informational Text. The understanding

of main ideas and supporting details is key in moving forward in Informational Text because it

helps students understand how Informational Text is organized, and (in turn) they will have a

better understanding on how to organize their own writing. This assessment met the language

goals from my lesson, ​I can read a passage out loud accurately, with proper expression and

speed​ and ​I can identify part of a text by circling the topic in orange and underlining the main

idea in blue, underlining the topic sentence in purple, and underlining supporting detail(s) in

green.

Overall, this lesson was fun and it worked! The students enjoyed it (especially the videos)

and I enjoyed teaching it. I especially loved hearing their connections they made in their own

lives with their favorite movies and books. I found that to be a way for them to find meaning in

this lesson and connect to what they were learning. If I could do anything differently, next time I
wouldn’t have so many language objectives. Some of the learning objectives (such as ​I can

explain the meanings of words and phrases in a text by thinking about how they are used orally

and ​I can think and talk about how specific parts of a sentence or paragraph fit into a text and

add to the meaning and ideas in the text​) I want to assess at a later time. I feel that having so

many learning objectives made it difficult to assess them all accurately and in depth. I want to be

sure that I follow what Echevarria, Vogt, and Short suggested. I want to explicitly teach the

language objective using SIOP strategies and allow them the time to practice their objective. If I

have too many language objectives, it is not only overwhelming as a teacher, but it is

overwhelming for the students. Overall, I am excited to be using SIOP strategies and I look

forward to incorporating more effective methods of assessment that provide deeper learning for

all my students.
Reference Page

Echevarriá, J., Vogt, M., & Short, D. (2017). Chapter 8: Lesson Delivery. In Making content

comprehensible for English learners: the SIOP model​(Fifth ed., p. 206). Boston, MA: Pearson.

You might also like