General Inquiry, Teaching and Assessment Methods Course Reflection

So far, my experience here in the Masters of Arts in Teaching Program at SPU has consisted of broad knowledge.  What I mean to say is that the knowledge has been mostly abstract, theoretical or grounded in history.  This quarter marks the beginning of more specific instruction concerning the everyday practices I will be using as a teacher.  This is exemplified by my general inquiry course with its emphasis on lesson planning and classroom management.  My education is going from the general to the specific, which mirrors that of a well-designed lesson plan.  The lesson plan starts with the Central Focus, narrows to the learning targets and then gets into the specific activities.  It makes sense then, that my biggest takeaway from the course involves lesson plan terms and the design process.

I am a person that thrives when given clearly defined paths in education, so it comes as no surprise that the most useful tool this quarter was the Glossary and Hierarchy of Terms for Organizing lessons that we were presented with in our second week of instruction(https://canvas.spu.edu/courses/18045/files/536146?module_item_id=137016).  The definitions that were provided were good for reference throughout the quarter, but I found the chart shown below to be extremely helpful:

It is very general, yet it helped me to organize my thoughts as I was creating my lesson plan submission for the quarter.  Aside from being a valuable resource the chart helps me to realize the importance of setting clearly outlined learning targets as well as illustrating and modeling strategies for my future students.  I myself am a student, and the examples this reference showed me were so helpful that it really drove home the point that I need to provide materials as comprehensive and clear as this for my own class.

This class also impressed upon me the importance of the backwards design process.  It seems counterintuitive at first, designing assessment before activities, but I learned firsthand while planning my own lesson plan this quarter just how difficult it is to design assessments and make a fun activity fit some standard.  An activity that I had previously thought had value turned out to be more of a distraction when I realized that I had no standards to align it to or assessments to determine its effectiveness.  It really forced me to think a little harder about what it is I wanted to accomplish, and given the small amount of time we have to teach everything in the class, I feel that backwards design is an invaluable skill for a teacher to possess.

Overall I am excited to be leaving the theoretical and entering the practical side of my teacher education.