As a pre-assessment,  I decided to make it into a topic of vocabulary. Vocabulary knowledge is one of the aspects among students which is very various. Although these students may be at the same level, it is important to know that students’ abilities are always going to be vast. Despite passing the same level test that supposedly defines their language level, the level of vocabulary memorization and comprehension will always be various.

Stahl and Bravo list the three types of vocabulary assessments on this website. https://www.readingrockets.org/article/classroom-vocabulary-assessment-content-areas)

 

Preassessment: 

As a teacher, I will hand out a worksheet that consists of different words. The content will be based on the classroom topic. For instance, if the class topic was about traveling, teachers could list words like airplane, baggage, phone, Disneyland, temples, beaches, mountains, hotel, domestic, international, passport, money, hike, experience, frolic, explore, swim.
This type of vocabulary assessment is considered as a Vocabulary Recognition Task.

Here is a copy of a worksheet:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jxqdO9OS65aCrC4pvTY_c68Utq6SFy8xKncg28UtrUo/edit?usp=sharing

Differentiated Instruction
As teachers, it is important to know that not all students are diverse and have different abilities. In order to overcome this situation, differentiated instruction is key. Differentiated instruction is defined as teaching the same material using a variety of ways. Some examples include rewording instructional sentences for ELL students or enlarging texts for students with special needs.

Here are the differentiated instructions I would like to share.
 

1)The top 5 students (students who were able to do the worksheet almost perfectly) will add more vocabulary to the lists for extra material.
In addition, as a way to have students enhance their strong ability, I would have students create a travel blog by using the vocabulary they have brainstormed. 

2) 12 mid-range students: No major accommodations and adjustments. However, in order to be sure of their vocabulary knowledge, I will have them make sentences based on the listed verbs as an exit card. In addition to their exit ticket, they will do Think-Ink-Pair-Share. Students will show what they know by first getting into pairs or groups and show which vocabulary they already know. They will also share their knowledge with the whole group of mid-range students.

3)5 students with special needs: adjust the letter size. reading the words aloud, pictures/visual aid, and adding charades. In order to adjust the pre-assessment, I will have students use yes/no cards. The teacher will display a picture with a vocabulary card, and students would either display a ‘yes’ if it is correct and a ‘no’ if it isn't. 

Here is the coggle mind map I created!

Overall:
As I have mentioned earlier,  when creating this mind map as well as this blog, I went back to the lesson plans I made for my CELTA class back in 2016. Based on the lesson content, which I have somewhat borrowed from, I had to adjust the lesson content to a content that is rather appropriate for ELL students in elementary school.

The pre-assessment itself is pretty simple. Students will be asked to divide the words into separate categories. As simple as it is, this assessment would help students gain an opportunity to actually use and understand the core concepts of these vocabularies, instead of simply memorizing the translated words that are listed in their book. Keep in mind that this type of learning may work for some students.

Just like in every class, there will always be a student who is stronger than the average. For those students, I will have them enhance their ability by having them present their even further knowledge of any other vocabulary that is applicable to the context of ‘traveling’.
For students in the middle,  there will be no particular accommodations or adjustments, as they fulfill the general expectations of this lesson. However, in order to ensure their understanding, I will have them create sentences as exit tickets, and/or conduct a Think Ink Pair Share.  Students with special needs will have some modifications. Depending on the condition, I could always modify the lesson material by adjusting the letter size of the instructions. Other modifications would be to instead of simply filling out the worksheet, I could give them an option to either match the words with pictures and/or images, or use charades. As I am still not quite an expert in special education, there is still yet to explore on how to accommodate ELL students with special conditions.

 

Sources:
Stahl&Bravo (n.d), Classroom Vocabulary Assessment for Content Areas. Retrieved from: https://www.readingrockets.org/article/classroom-vocabulary-assessment-content-areas

Weselby, Cathy (Oct. 2014) What is Differentiated Instruction? Examples of How to Differentiate Instruction in the Classroom Retrieved from:
https://education.cu-portland.edu/blog/classroom-resources/examples-of-differentiated-instruction/

Differentiation and LR Information for SAS teachers. 5. Pre-assessment Ideas
https://sites.google.com/site/lrtsas/differentiation/5-preassessment-ideas

To address the issues of school bullying, students will be creating some type of presentation in order to raise awareness of the issues.  

 

Driving questions: 

How do you define being “mean to someone”?

What are some vocabulary words that describe bullying?

What are some types of bullying?

How would you differentiate “joking” and “bullying”, and what are the boundaries?

(aka. What is “funny” and “not funny”)

What are the effects of bullying, and what should we do to stop it?

How do you talk about a person humorously without being harmful? 


Project Goals:

The nature of bullying is extremely common among people from any place or any age-group from around the world. While This lesson will be focused on bullying in a school context, my goal for this project is to have students raise awareness of the cause, the characteristics, and the impacts it creates. In addition, I would also like to conduct this PBL as an opportunity to differentiate between creating humor out of someone and harming someone.

Step one: 

The lead-in: Have them watch a video clip from a movie:

Suggested video annotation questions after watching the clip: 

1)What was the main culprit of the problem? 

2)How did the “book” create problems? 

3)How do you think Regina and Cady felt when Janise confessed her plans and mistakes?
4)Why was everyone cheering for Janise?

 5)What are some parts which you thought was “funny” and “not funny”.

After the video, I will have students in small groups discuss and share their answers in class. While the students discuss, I will be sure to monitor them as I go through. 

 
As a conclusion to step 1, I will have students to type annotations on the video. This would be a type of a formative assessment, as it can help students to make sure if they understand the idea of differentiating “humor” and “bullying”. 

In addition to annotations, I will have them write a small reflection for this assignment. In the reflection, I expect students to write their overall thoughts about this assessment. They could start their sentences by adding, "In this assignment...I have learned that..." 

Data Collecting: I will be collecting this type of data from Video Ant.
1)Make sure students have access to computers.
2)Have students create their account
3)One Student will create their own group
4)Students will share their video annotations either in class or for homework.

I will be able to monitor and see what students wrote in their video annotations, as this website has a particular tool that could help the teacher do so.
https://ant.umn.edu/documentation##section-user-groups

Step 2:

Implementation: 

After annotating a video from a movie scene, they will find answers to the driving questions. While students look through the driving questions, I will make sure they discuss, perhaps interview friends, or present their work that would answer the question, “What is bullying, and how is it different from joking?”.

Here is an example of a wonderful PBL video assignment

Data/Formative Assessments:
I will be sure to add in a quick formative assessment before they start presenting their findings, by having them write an exit ticket. On their exit ticket, I will expect to have students write their findings. Since not all exit tickets have to be a literal small sheet of paper, I will definitely send in an email with a link from google forms.

Sample:


https://forms.gle/1S1qLUcmd3pTddoz6


In groups, students will answer their driving questions, by providing specific examples. The main purpose of this assignment is to find the major difference between “joshing” and “bullying”, I will not specifically say what format they must use, but I would suggest them to create a youtube video, a powerpoint presentation, or any other format they wish to present.  

Rubrics!
 
In order to make the assignment legitimate for both the teacher and the student, I will present a rubric for students, as the image below. Creating and providing rubrics are beneficial to students as it would give them exactly what they need to get the grade, by finding out what exactly the teacher demands. It is also beneficial for teachers as it helps them envision what real-life, practical problem-solving skills young learners could obtain and flourish in the classroom.


Quick Rubric URL: http://www.quickrubric.com/r#/qr/---79529/bullying-pbl5


 

That is the end of my assignment, and if you have any comments or suggestions, please comment below!

 

Suggested discussion questions: 
1)What was the main culprit of the problem? 
2)How did the “book” create problems? 
3)How do you think Regina and Cady felt when Janise confessed her plans and mistakes? 4)Why was everyone cheering for Janise?



2) If students  still seem to have trouble understanding the concept of the issue, I would provide them a Worksheet activity as a quick warmup: 


Next, students will, in groups, fill in a worksheet which would help them further brainstorm why bullying occurs and what to do in order to prevent them.

The best way to reflect and elicit student’s responses would be to have them speak in pairs, or in groups. Later, the teacher will ask them to present their findings among their groups. 

The worksheets can be derived from:
http://www.thenedshow.com/assets/a4-bullying-prevention-activity.pdf

Next, I will have them, in groups, brainstorm the driving questions mentioned previously. 


Step 2:
Implementation: 
After brainstorming ideas, they will present their work that would answer the question, “What is bullying, and how is it different from joking?”. In groups, students will differentiate “joshing” and “bullying”, by making a youtube video, a powerpoint presentation, or any other format they wish to present.  

Students will be expected to fulfill the requirements by answering all the driving questions. 


21st Century skills students will display: 
Collaboration: brainstorming definitions and perspectives on bullying and joshing. 
Communication: discuss with the teacher and classmates.
Critical thinking: think about why and how bullying occurs
Creativity: thinking of ways to present the issue by showing the differences between joking and bullying are and what we should do to stop it. Creating a slogan. 
 
Any comments? Suggestions?


 

It has been literally a few days since I have heard the word, Formative Assessments.

As we all know, we Millenials have all lived in a generation where the classroom was all about the grades you get and the number of numbers you earn. In the classroom,  we were solely assessed by our teachers only to be ranked, judged and numbered based on the scores we get on a sheet of paper. After many years since I left school, I still recall how assessments were generally based on some logical science and math problems, along with mindless memorization-based questions, which the content is based on the material we looked at a few months ago. It is questionable whether or not I have actually utilized them in real life after memorizing them.  The point is, I sometimes wonder whether these materials and content actually have given me the opportunity to actually “think” or use “logic”.

Thanks to the rise of the new, innovative ways of teaching, students in the new generation are now to be assessed practically based on their level of understanding. Unlike how we were tested for the sake of our cumulative grades, instead, nowadays the main purpose of education has shifted towards measuring the students’ actual understanding of the content and material.

We are now in a generation where teachers are to hold a strong responsibility to make sure every student is up to date to the content of their classroom material.

An example would be “Fist to Five”. It is not only a way to assess student’s understanding, but also a way of communicating with them when they feel uncomfortable or have a lack of confidence in speaking,  or even feel hesitant to show their misunderstanding. Because it is such a new and different concept to many students living in this area, the most difficult part is to make sure that students are actually understanding the concept overall. It is, in fact, safe to say that these results provide immediate feedback to students in a way to make sure teachers are doing their classes effectively. As Lydia mentioned in my comments, “...it can be used as an open discussion for all to gain clarification and further understanding.”

Exit-Entry Tickets is a good way to provide a student a way to think about ‘what’ exactly they want to learn, and ‘what’ exactly they have become proficient in. It is also a way to find out if they have grasped the material well enough to use them practically in their daily lives.  Depending on the level, the questions would have to be adjusted to the level they are teaching. For instance, if they were teaching a beginner level, you cannot expect students would automatically write a complete sentence or two without adding any fragments or words.

Tech-based formative assessments are still a big new world to me. First, there are times when I think it is unnecessary and extra. For instance, some may even question the extra effort to create some account online and uploading them on a website the majority are new to, instead of simply emailing them to the teacher. To be fair, apps like classdojo and Seesaw has its own function of giving students an opportunity to share and display their work.

If you think twice, sometimes we tend to forget the fact that most of us learn important things through our peers. It is safe to say that teachers’ lectures aren’t the only aspects which help us learn. For example, when you learn a language, not only do learners learn a new language only because the teacher is good, but learners acquire a new language through outside resources: friends who are native speakers.

Fact that we can see how peers play a vital role in any learning process, it is no exaggeration to say that peer reflection plays an important role in a student’s learning. Some may criticize sharing each other’s work as creating competition or psychologically damaging to such young students. However, there is a strong belief in me that there is an extent believe that our learning achievements would be limited if there were no other ones to compare themselves to. As a matter of fact, students and young learners cannot be expected to survive in the real world without a comrade.

As much as it is proven that formative assessments are beneficial and less overwhelming to students, I still believe that summative assessments are in some ways important in the learning process. For instance, when learning a language, we learn particular grammar forms, key expressions, and lexis. Although to a certain extent these factors are highly dependable on the teacher’s way of teaching, factors such as numbers and lexis cannot be learned without mechanically learning them. It is important to know that to some extent, sometimes simply memorizing is a shortcut to acquiring the lexis of a new language.
Not only limited to languages but also, when learning subjects such as math, it is questionable to think how students can be easily expected to take a step forward in exploring the real world of mathematics if they don’t get summatively tested on their ability to solve basic equations. That being said, I still have a belief that although summative assessments should not be heavily weighed, there should be some type of summative assessment to some point. 

In all, I would like to share my thoughts with my colleagues as well as my students to find ways to further explore the true meanings of learning and education.




 

 Q1.ニックネームは？

あやぱん

 Q2.最近のマイブームは？

韓国語~

 Q1.好きな食べ物は？

甘い物