REflection:
By studying The 12 Touchstones of Good Teaching, exemplary teaching practices became evident to me both in my own practice and those of other highly effective teachers. It is not that anything the book outlined was revolutionary; the brilliance of the book lies in the direct alignment of solid teaching practices with increased student outcomes in a simple checklist that is easily remembered. As I worked to create my unit plan and lesson, being intentional about using the touchstones caused me to better understand why I wanted to do certain things. Before, I may have done some of the items, but probably not all of them in every lesson. I haphazardly wandered into good teaching in some cases, and floundered in others simple due to lack of intentionality. With this checklist, instead I am able to methodically go through each item to ensure it is in my lesson plans resulting in a much more intentional and effective learning experience for my students.
For the purpose of this reflection, I will focus on Item 10: Deep Knowledge. I really enjoyed The Six Essential C's as a way to ensure each lesson includes opportunities for students to learn and master content in such a way as to create enduring learning. During the lesson which I taught, I made sure that each of the C's was represented; interestingly, this approach really helped me break the lesson into small learning chunks and achieve the optimal 10-15 minutes of instruction. As I worked to move the students through each stage, I noticed student engagement at higher levels than usual. The lesson involved that students examine their own beliefs about justice, culture, and consequences in relation to the infamous Singapore caning of American student Michael Fay. We started by activating the students own feelings about punishments which immediately pulled them into the lesson. The Write to Learn blossomed into a full-blown discussion of appropriate consequences for acts of vandalism and then into a debate as to the authority of foreign governments over American citizens. By the time we transitioned into the written editorials, the kids were dying to read the pieces (not something that happens everyday). As they read through each article, I observed each group working together and diligently to identify the bias in the article and the types of evidence each author used to strengthen their argument.
I collected their marked text to determine if students understood the concepts and was pleased to find on the most part they were able to identify the types of evidence used. More importantly, I believe their level of engagement in the analysis was directly related to the structure of the lesson utilizing the Six C's. They persevered through what they typically consider a tedious task (close reading, marking the text, analyzing) and were excited as they did so. The attached chart shows the levels of achievement for my classes in completion of the task in the time allotted as well as correctness of the analysis. I cannot help, but believe the success of this assignment was tied to my understanding of Deep Knowledge as described in the textbook.
For the purpose of this reflection, I will focus on Item 10: Deep Knowledge. I really enjoyed The Six Essential C's as a way to ensure each lesson includes opportunities for students to learn and master content in such a way as to create enduring learning. During the lesson which I taught, I made sure that each of the C's was represented; interestingly, this approach really helped me break the lesson into small learning chunks and achieve the optimal 10-15 minutes of instruction. As I worked to move the students through each stage, I noticed student engagement at higher levels than usual. The lesson involved that students examine their own beliefs about justice, culture, and consequences in relation to the infamous Singapore caning of American student Michael Fay. We started by activating the students own feelings about punishments which immediately pulled them into the lesson. The Write to Learn blossomed into a full-blown discussion of appropriate consequences for acts of vandalism and then into a debate as to the authority of foreign governments over American citizens. By the time we transitioned into the written editorials, the kids were dying to read the pieces (not something that happens everyday). As they read through each article, I observed each group working together and diligently to identify the bias in the article and the types of evidence each author used to strengthen their argument.
I collected their marked text to determine if students understood the concepts and was pleased to find on the most part they were able to identify the types of evidence used. More importantly, I believe their level of engagement in the analysis was directly related to the structure of the lesson utilizing the Six C's. They persevered through what they typically consider a tedious task (close reading, marking the text, analyzing) and were excited as they did so. The attached chart shows the levels of achievement for my classes in completion of the task in the time allotted as well as correctness of the analysis. I cannot help, but believe the success of this assignment was tied to my understanding of Deep Knowledge as described in the textbook.