INTASC+Principle+7

**__ Portfolio Reflection Artifact #7: Lesson Plan __**



** Description of Artifact: ** This artifact is a 50 minute lesson plan created for a high school Computer Science course for the spring 2011 period. It was created with the intent to encourage students to use technology as a tool for creating storyboards. The storyboard is very important process in the development of websites. At storyboard provide students with an organized visual display of what content a particular website will offer. It’s the early phase in the web site planning and design process.

** ITASC Principle #1: ** The teacher understands the central concepts, tools of inquiry, and structure of the disciplines he or she teaches and can create learning experiences that make these aspects of the subject matter meaningful to the students.

** Explanation of How Artifact Demonstrates Achievement of Principles: ** My goal was to teach students how to gather and organize information to create a visual appealing storyboard, which demonstrate the framework of a website. Most important, I wanted to students to utilize technology as a tool to create their storyboards. Students were allowed to choose the technology that best fit the needs, such as Microsoft PowerPoint, Excel, and Word. The lesson plan begins with a warm up for students so they can go over prior skills that will benefit them for the next learning objective. The task in developing the storyboard accommodated students with special needs and gives them the opportunity to work in groups with other peers. At the end of the lesson, the students conduct a final group presentation to display their collaboration efforts. Students also participate in self-assessments with emphasis of Metacognition feedback (Snowman. P. 315). Last, the lesson plan assists help motivate students with different learning styles and abilities to be academically and socially invested in their assignment.

** Description of how the completion of this artifact has affected your understanding of teaching and learning, and/or how it may contribute to your effective teaching/learning in the future. **

Prior to completing this lesson, I had not taken into consideration all the theories that should be considered when developing a plan that is effective. The goal is to provide students with the best opportunities to succeed. To accomplish this, multiple strategies must be implemented to makes sure all students have the proper tools to reach their learning goals. This lesson also brought to my attention the constant need to adjust instruction for to fit my student’s needs.

** Strengths: ** My strengths are my content knowledge, my creativity and my hunger to grow as a teacher. I feel that computer science can be a fun and exciting subject to learn, however I’ve noticed the lack of enthusiasm with student and some teachers. Because I have an art background, I feel my creative ideas will help students embrace concepts in computer science that has typically been seen as boring. I feel I can the ability to use my creativity to relate concepts to real life situations and utilize students’ interests to motivate them to work harder and use their critical thinking skills.

** Areas for Improvement: ** I think my lack of experience in developing and actually implementing this lesson plan is a concern. I think my lack of teaching experience will be a factor in how fast I can make adjustments to the needs of my students. I also think there are more tools that I have not identified as of yet, to help students create storyboards.