Ojasoo Blog Post 2/18/20 1

Journal Entry for February 5th, 2020

Today I worked with a small group of students during writing. I provided them with a reteach of

a mini-lesson on how to write chapter titles for our nonfiction teaching books. The students in this group

consisted of 4 of our resource students (low kids) and 1 student who was out the previous week due to

illness. The rest of the class had already completed their chapter titles the week before and were moving

on to writing each of their chapters. These students needed a little more support to get their chapter titles

written so they could move on to the next step. After working with these students for 30 minutes only 2

of them had completed their chapter titles. The other 3 struggled. I noticed that the two-step process of

1.) thinking about what you want to say and 2.) thinking of a title that fit was challenging for this group.

That was when I had the idea of recording each of their chapter titles on the iPad one at a time. Since we

have writing first thing in the morning I closed the lesson letting the other three students know that I want

them to continue to think about their topic throughout the day. Over the day I checked in with them to see

how they were doing. With support, most were able to say what they wanted their chapters to be about so

at the end of the day I recorded them on the iPad. The next day at writing, they each listened to their

chapters one at a time and then came up with a matching title. The students loved seeing and hearing

themselves! Using the iPad to record their chapters motivated these students to persevere a challenging

task and also broke the task down into two parts to support their success.

Analysis:

This lesson did not start off strong. This was a small group reteach support lesson for our “low” students

who were struggling to get their nonfiction teaching book started. The objective of this lesson was to

have students think of a topic for their nonfiction book and then state 5 facts that they wanted to write

about. Once they were able to name their topic and the 5 facts (one for each chapter) students needed to

come up with a title for each chapter. A lesson on writing chapter titles was given the day before.

Knowing that these students were struggling I planned on pulled them to the back table to work with me

during independent work time. This demonstrates domain1b demonstrating knowledge of students. I
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gave direct support to these students and only one was able to come up with the titles for her chapter

book. The other students were becoming frustrated. One even stated, “ I was not very productive today”.

That was when I had an idea that turned this lesson into something exciting for me and the students. I

decided to use the classroom iPads to record the students saying the chapters they wanted to have in their

book one by one. This demonstrated domain3c engaging students in learning, domain1d demonstrating

knowledge of resources and also domain3e demonstrating flexibility and responsiveness. Then once they

recorded all five we replayed the chapters one at a time and came up with a name for each one. Breaking

this task up into manageable parts allowed these students to be successful. I love to find ways to

incorporate technology into the classroom. I love the fact that I took something frustrating for these

students and turned it into a fun and engaging activity. I used technology to motivate students and also to

support them so that they could meet the objective of the lesson. Maintaining the expectations for

learning by supporting this group with the iPads demonstrates domain2b establishing a culture for

learning.

After reflecting on this lesson, one goal I have set for my teaching is to find new and creative

ways to support all students. In this reflection the iPads served as a support for the struggling low

students but they could also serve as a support for students in need of a challenge. I would like to find

ways to use the iPads challenge my advanced skills students at least once a week to support their

continued growth.