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Running head: REFLECTION MODULE 2

Written Reflection Module 2

Daniel Peña

Arizona State University

RDG 323

Nicole Trombley

RDG 323 Portfolio Reflection #2

November 11, 2020

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Written Reflection Module 2

Planning instructions needs to be looked at with a great deal of importance. The way you

plan a lesson can make it or break it and needs to be planned with your students in mind.

Instruction can not be planned in this “cookie cutter” or “one size fits all” kind of way, your

design of instruction needs to cater to the students in front of you. We need to create and adapt

for those that are listening and with classes full of diverse learners both in the way they learn,

ways to relate the material to them, and ways they stay with you in terms of engagement, we

need to add various tools to our belt in order to provide quality education.

Motivation & Engagement

“Literacy is a big part of the everyday world of adolescents. They pass notes, read e-

mail[s], write in journals, share stories…Yet many middle and high school teachers and

administrators lament that students just do not read and write anymore.” (Irvin, 2007). With the

change and evolution of technology it is easy to think that students do not read and write

anymore but yet there is so much literacy still in everything they do. Whether it be video games,

texting, reading, etc. all of which may have a digital format, but it remains the same in that

reading and writing happens a lot more than we think. Students just have this view on school as

if it is a chore or just something they have to get through and be done with, but if we could make

it relate to the students either by making it real-world, or about something of their interest

students will put in the effort and it will become more than a “chore” and be something they

enjoy.

Motivation and engagement is crucial, as it can also create deeper learning as “the result

of deeper learning is students leave school with how, when & why to apply skills & knowledge

to face challenges of college, career, & life” (Wickline, 2018). An example would be with a
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lesson that was given in my high school math class, we were paired up with someone and given

job titles along with their respective salaries and told to plan out and budget for a year to see

what we could afford and have as well as see if we would be able to live the lifestyle of our

choosing. We then would create a pie chart and with combined salaries we would have to sort

out are pie chart with how much is being spent on entertainment, food/groceries, rent, etc. and

just this alone got everyone so invested in the assignment. It was real-world so it was interesting

to learn and see how much food and housing would cost, and it was fun as we got to discuss with

our partner what we wanted and what we could spend on in terms of materialistic things and

entertainment. Similarly, in our econ class we were competing against each other in a simulated

stock market where we were all given the same amount of money to start with and were given

the chance to invest wherever we chose to make the most profits. It is real-world, it had us read

into prices, cost of houses, look further into stocks, look into companies we were tempted to

purchase stocks from and in turn it had us motivated and engaged while providing us with a

lesson in which literacy was greatly involved.

Assessment

Formative assessment focuses on the student’s learning, so that we can receive and

provide instant feedback depending on what we observe and notice students succeeding or

struggling with in order to improve both our teaching and their learning. There are many schools

that unfortunately focus on just the numbers, where students learning becomes second to their

overall grade and the “numbers” a school produces. Yes, schools do need to have those numbers

and the higher the better but when it doesn’t reflect how the students are actually performing,

learning, or retaining then it becomes ineffective and needs a change of focus and attention. This

is why assessment is important as it can help us “obtain information during the course of a lesson
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for the purpose of informing the next instructional steps” (Fisher, 2014, p.3).

Formative assessments help us check for understanding, rather than simply asking “did

you get that?”, “does that make sense?” ask questions which only has the responses yes and no.

These assessments provide us a clear opportunity to apply strategies we have learned when it

comes to what type of questions to ask rather than bluntly leading them to an answer, or types of

feedback that would benefit our students or even focus on the process rather than the outcome.

The types of assessments we form matter as it can have so much of a correlation with student

engagement as well, and can benefit us as long as it “becomes informative…when it is leveraged

by the teacher to make decisions about what should occur next.” (Fisher, 2014, p.7).

Content/Language Objectives & Planning Strategic Lessons

Content objectives focus on the goals set for a student in regard to what students should

be able to do while language objectives focus on what language skills or strategies students will

need to use. “Language objectives become a vehicle for higher order thinking and student

interaction when students listen, speak, read or write” (Lewis, 2014), with this in mind it will

help us as educator to think about our lesson creation and provide our students with different

ways they will be interacting with the content. Content and language objectives are key to know

what is the ultimate goal that we have for our students and what layout will be using in order to

guide them there.

There are various ways we can implement objectives in our classroom even as simple as

writing out all objectives of the day on the board and planning around them. An example in my

content are is that in my math classes we would be planed into groups, the desks were all set up

so that we were always in a group of four. This allowed us to collaborate with one another and

discuss solutions when it came to group work and practice. Our instructor would have us review
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with one another and give us the opportunity to “be the teacher” as we all had to at least explain,

teach, one problem at our tables. At the end of our collaboration we would have to at times come

up with our own problem, so we would create our own equation that related to what it was we

were learning that day however complex we wanted or as simple we wanted to make it, as long

as it was the same type of questions we’ve been being asked and provided someone else the

opportunity to perform the content objective it would be fine.

Conclusion

All these concepts can be placed hand in hand which is why each of these and become a

crucial part in the way we give instruction. The types of assessments we give will give us an

abundance of beneficial information in order for to revise and adapt our teaching/lessons in order

to achieve better motivation/engagement from our students. Being able to motivate and engage

our students will enrich their learning and help us create an environment that will provide

students with deeper learning and reach the objectives given in each content area. All of this

applied together will help us as educators plan and design our instruction so students will engage

in literacy and activities specific to our disciplines.

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References

Fisher, D., & Frey, N. (2014). Literacy practices that adolescents deserve. Assessments That

Highlight Strengths and Challenges, 1-11. https://doi.org/10.1598/e-ssentials.8052

Irvin, J. L., Meltzer, J., & Dukes, M. S. (2007). Student Motivation, Engagement, and

Achievement. ASCD Inservice.

http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/107034/chapters/Student-Motivation,-

Engagement,-and-Achievement.aspx

Lewis, K. (2014, October 23). What are content and language objectives? [Video]. YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfIheht9hGw&feature=youtu.be

Wickline, H. (2018, February 6). Creating the Conditions for Deeper Learning. Hewlett

Foundation. https://hewlett.org/creating-the-conditions-for-deeper-learning/