Curriculum Portfolio/Planning Project (CPP)
Share your thoughts, your reactions to doing each step of the CPP, the value in doing this assignment, and what you learned from it. Be as specific as you can.
Post by Wednesday, July 8th
and respond by Friday, July 10th
The first step, for me, was very enjoyable. When I was in middle school had a teacher named Mrs. Yates. She did a bell ringer every single morning in her history class and I love them! I had he first thing every morning and the bell ringers would always get me interested and focused. Being able to gather my own bell ringers and activities of that sort was really fun. The literacy topic was a little more difficult. Finding something that would get the job done and work was a challenge. Being certified as a science teacher made this a little more difficult. Thinking back, though, I was thinking way too hard and made it a lot harder than what it should have been. When I began the performance expectations, I found them rather easy. It was nice to be able to create something that I wanted my students to KNOW. It was a cool way to make sure that students were actually learning and understanding the material, and I got to choose how to do that! The Planning portfolio was a very neat way to get things organized. It was nice to see it all laid out on one chart. While looking for misconceptions, I found a lot of things that I myself didn't even know. It was an eye opener finding things out that students have issues with, and a lot of those I wouldn't have even thought about. Finding the teaching resources was a cool thing to do because now I feel like I could use them in the future. These seem to be very helpful. Gathering the formative assessments is something that I have had to do with other classes, so it was nothing too new for me. This was still helpful and interesting because the formative assessments that had to be collected were for something different from what I have done before. The teacher reflection was great. This allowed me to go back and think about the work that was done and really make sure that it was done correctly. I am sure there is more to be done, but the reflection was a good way to end the assignment. Over all the assignment is something that provided a ton of practice for something we are all going to have to do a future educators. Its refreshing to gain more experience so that in the future I can be just that much more comfortable completing things like this even if it isn't exactly the same.
ReplyDeleteRyan,
DeleteI really enjoyed finding/creating my bellringers as well! I will always remember doing these in high school. They made class so much fun and really pulled the students attention. Unlike you, I did not think that finding a literacy topic was as hard. I did think that creating performance expectations was easy, just because we have had so much practice and many other assignments making us list our objectives/expectations in the lesson. Laying all the resources out by putting them all in a chart really helped with the organization of things. It made the information easy to gather and access. I really enjoy coming up with types of formative assessments for students to test their understanding as well as help them learn their material better. Overall, great response! :)
The Bellringers was my favorite part as well. I just think starting off a class and setting the tone is vital to success in the classroom. I thought it was beneficial to to have an opportunity to list my expectations because it let me choose my resources in an organized manner. Also, the chart was very helpful because it brought out organization in the project. I thought collecting formative assessments was pretty easy as well, but it was nice to look closer and find different forms of assessment than just making up my own. I also thought the resources will all be used in my future classes, because they have been well-planned and thought out. This project as a whole was a major tool and stepping stone for us to become real teachers.
DeleteI really enjoyed doing the CPP project. It was a lot of fun to gather the information as if I was creating it for my own classroom. I have to say that my favorite part of this project was the bellringers. As my high school teachers told the students, "Do your bellwork!" I will always remember my biology teacher in high school. She made bellringers so fun through videos, songs, poems, and just plain human body facts. With this, I was able to gather my bellringer ideas. I think that the hardest part for me in this CPP project was the CPP organization chart. I don't really think that it was too hard, it just requires so much time and work. And as a teacher, I am going to have to get used to that! I just don't really like looking up Missouri's core standards and abiding by them. I wish I could just teach my students information outlined in a textbook by many different content readings to help them gain their knowledge. With this, it was not hard for me to choose a literary topic or come up with three expectations. Teachers have to list their expectations/objections in each lesson that they teach anyways, so I am starting to get used to doing so. I did think that it was a little difficult to find common misconceptions that students have with my topic that I chose. I feel like a teacher does not really know the misconceptions that their students have until they are actually in their classroom and observe their students and how they respond to the learning material. It was not too hard to gather teaching resources for each of the three expectations. Also, it was not hard to come up with types of formative assessment for the expectations. Overall, I think that this project was a great experience, and I have learned much from it including organization itself! This assignment will greatly benefit me in my future classroom as I teach my future students.
ReplyDeleteI am just like you in my experience with bellringers in high school. I had a teacher everyday play his favorite 90's music as we entered class and then we followed with trivia questions for five minutes and it made the start of class so fun. I also will agree that the chart was alot of work. I had trouble at first really knowing where I was going with the chart, and then formulating resources around it, but it made me realize the time and effort that goes into lesson planning. The misconceptions was a tad hard as well because I could not find concrete evidence, but rather what fellow teachers thought the misconceptions were on a topic. I think over time we will see what students misconceive after we teach them. I struggled a little bit with the resources, but it was fulfilling to finally have it done for each section. Again, I agree this will be a tool used in the future.
DeleteI too agree that the chart was very time consuming. I also agree that we will have to get used to it! As teachers we will have a lot of things that preoccupy our time in the classroom and even outside of it. This entire project was pretty time consuming and, at times, difficult but in the end it proved it was worth it just like our careers will be in the future.
DeleteI really enjoyed this project! It was truly a culmination of everything that we have done for this class. The bellringer part was great because it allowed me to think about how I can break the ice and set the tone for my class everyday. For high school english there is so much for the warmups and bellringers. I agree that an effective way to become a better teacher is to borrow from other teachers. I found a high school website that listed numerous warmups. There were warmups that taught grammar, reading comprehension, and vocabulary. Also, finding warm up journal prompts was easy because I had done this in my field experience last year.
ReplyDeleteMoving on with the CPP chart, I agree it was a tad more difficult. I had trouble determining my topic and then applying the common core standards. However, it made me really think like a high school english teacher. I chose reading comprehension, and as I read the common core standard for reading more, I saw the performance expectations, and how the anchor standards and common practices all meshed together so well. I also saw how I could make reading comprehension applicable to student's lives by finding content that they could relate too.
Moving on to collecting the resources, I focused on how we put the text set together. I grabbed multiple sources, and having the performance expectations helped organize my thinking in what to collect. I think all teachers should have objectives and a vision for the class before selecting material. Furthermore with the assessment strategies, we had done this so much in creating a lesson plan that I did not have trouble so much either with finding ideas for that row of the chart.
The reflection helped me as well because it allowed me to assess myself on the material I chose, and realize thew impact it could have on my students. I think the overall theme I found was that I drew a lot of my resources from my prior experiences I have had in old classes, and then branched off of these projects and realized how helpful they were and how I could find more ideas.
Overall, the project took time and effort, but it showed how much work, resources, and thought go into effective lesson planning, and just an overall agenda for a class. I really enjoyed the process and the organization it taught me.
Tyler,
DeleteI really like your idea of in order to become a better teacher, one has to borrow from other teachers. It is really neat that you were able to find a website that listed tons of warmups. For me, it took a lot more time because I had to go to multiple different websites.
I agree with you stting that the CPP chart was difficult. The performance expectations really did help in guiding the rest of the chart and organization. Great reflection!
I agree with your statement about the CPP chart. It was most definitely a little more difficult and time consuming but it wouldn't have made everything fit together as well as they did if it didn't require us to enter the things it wanted us to enter. It really brought the whole project together and made everything a little more clear. The chart was a great idea and now will be a great resource down the road!
DeleteI usually don't comment so this is your space, but I LOVE hearing how you all did see this as a step to preparing for your classroom. Because that is EXACTLY what I want it to be... So many of my first students at WC have said they use their CPP a lot and they're still adding to it just to have all of their materials in one place. Theirs was a physical binder, so I think doing it only forces you to use digital resources, but that is the direction schools are pushing teachers toward. So you all will have a leg up in that regard. Love reading your responses! :-)
ReplyDelete