As a Special Education major it is crucial that I equip myself with the right tools to help teach my students to learn in the best way possible. One of the most essential tools for any educator of any grade or subject is a “lesson plan”. For my lesson plan, “Meeting Our Nutritional Needs”, I used the Assure Lesson plan format to help organize my lesson plan activities, strategies, objectives etc. I have worked with the ASSURE lesson plan model before in my elementary reading methods course, but to be very honest I never knew how to write it correctly. I was never told that the ASSURE lesson plan had to be detailed, ready and comprehensible just in case a substitute teacher may need to follow it. Although, with a great explanation and direction from Dr. Cyrus about the ASSURE lesson plan model, I no longer felt like a chicken with no head. I do understand that every lesson plan should be comprehensible, but for many of the lesson plans I wrote in the past I was always scolded for being too detailed. I was always told to be “simple” and “to the point” and now that I think about it, I was usually bothered by those demands only because certain aspects of a lesson plan need to be detailed. Especially if your lesson plan is geared towards integrating technology into the classroom. If I were absent and required my substitute to carry out my lesson plan on teaching students how to read food nutrition labels and tie it into using spread sheets, I can imagine a substitute with no prior knowledge in spread sheets to be utterly confused. With that being said, I enjoyed creating an ASSURE lesson plan and utilizing Microsoft Excel. I have learned so much in the few hours of creating this type of lesson plan than I ever did in making lesson plans for my other classes.
In any lesson plan whether it is the ASSURE model or not, one of the most significant items are the content standards listed under the school system you are working for. For my lesson plan I had to research for GDOE’s 3rd grade Health Education Standards. Another set of standards I considered was the NETS*T standards (National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers). From these set of standards, I was aiming to fulfill Standard 1A: “demonstrate introductory knowledge, skills, and understanding of concepts related to technology” . In my lesson plan I am introducing the application Microsoft Excel, and in doing so I absolutely must be well acquainted with this software. Not only do I want my students to be able to utilize this type of technology, but I would also like them to be able to share and investigate their findings through excel.
I learned a great deal about writing lesson plan activities with the ASSURE model because it made me focus on creating step by step instructions which allowed me to see the pros and cons of my lesson plan. It was also quite reliable for integrating technology into my lesson plan. If I were to simplify my lesson plan I believe there would have been many flaws that could affect the learning of my students. For instance, if I were to just write in my lesson plan “Have students create a spreadsheet displaying their data about three canned meat products” it would leave others including myself clueless because I did not give detailed directions on how to teach students the steps of using Excel to create spread sheets. By creating the steps for activities in my lesson plan I not only learned the possibilities of writing the activities, but I feel quite confident in teaching my future students MS Excel because of how well I had to break down each activity.
Obviously, to complete my lesson plan assignment Microsoft Excel was the most prominent type of technology used. I will admit that I never really used Microsoft Excel for my Education Courses and I actually forgot how to use this software after learning how to in my “Intro to Computer” class. It was quite an exploration when playing with the different charts, inputting different data and discovering the different possibilities this type of technology had to offer. I feel that my students may gain a better understanding by seeing their data inputted into the spread sheets and come to life as it transforms into a bar graph or other various graphs MS Excel has to offer.
I honestly do not have any dislike for the ASSURE lesson plan model, but I do feel that in reality I do not think I will be able to make detailed lesson plans for every school day. Only because if I become an expert in some type of lesson activity I believe instructions and delivery may become natural. However, the one thing I love most about this assignment in using the ASSURE lesson plan model is that it would be an excellent tool to guide me through new lessons I have never taught, lesson plans involving new and updated technology, and creating lesson plans for a substitute that will need a guide for the day I am absent.
Overall, this assignment was a wonderful experience that has definitely changed the face of my future career. I had a confused and missing piece of myself as a future teacher and I found it by learning how to create an ASSURE LESSON PLAN. What I find most shocking is that I learned how to write a lesson plan with more confidence in my “Audio Visual Education” class than I did in my elementary methods courses which involves heavy reliance on lesson plans. I am really glad this assignment was given to me; it was an antidote for my confusion of writing lesson plans.
References
International Society for Technology in Education. (2008). NETS for Teacher 2008. Standard 1A. Retrieved February 18, 2010. From International Society for Technology in Education. Website: http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForTeachers/2008Standards/NETS_for_Teachers_2008.htm
OIT Information Technology. (2003). Assure Learning Through the Use of the ASSURE Model. Retrieved February 18, 2010, from http://www.valenciacc.edu/oit/articles/articles_detail.cfm? ID=45
Hi:
ReplyDeleteNicely written.
-j-