Reflection and Self-Evaluation:

Feedback From The Students:

​Students provided feedback on this lesson throughout it in the format of discussions.

At the end of the lessons different students would comment on things they enjoyed from
the articles or materials that we used in class. Typically it would be staying to continue
conversations of the material after class had ended. It was also expressed from different
students that they enjoyed the discussions we had over the material because they could
see the perspectives other students had applied to some of the questions and how it
related to their everyday lives.

Though some of the activities were repetitive, having multiple discussions over
written material, it met a variety of the needs/desires students expressed in their student
learning survey. Results of this survey and the desire for individual and group work can
be see in the contextual factors analysis. Meeting these desires and needs of the
students was extremely important to me and as a result influenced the activities we
conducted through the unit.

The final way in which I know this unit was successful and enjoyable for my students
is the high level of students which met the learning goals and objectives tied to each
lesson. There were some lessons where students got a partially meets but they were
later able to raise those scores through meeting and discussing the materials with me at
a later date/time. The last learning goal/objective with day seven on the application of
everything on their own case study everyone got a partially met because they did not
have time that class to complete and submit those reports. The day that they were due
five out of six students completed the assignment with extremely high marks across the
board. They all mentioned that they enjoyed the freedom to both pick their case study
topic as well as the freedom they had in the choice of format to turn it in to me.

The one thing that some of the students seemed to dislike about this unit is the
repetitiveness of the activities from the day to day classes. There was a lot of reading
and responding throughout this lesson, which worked extremely well for some students
who excelled in the categories developing their writing skills. However, not every
student enjoyed this set-up. I think they would have liked to see more of a variety in
activities, which is understandable looking back over the unit. This is something that I
would change in the future if I got to teach Sociology again.

Most Successful Learning Goal:

​The most successful learning goal was number five, I can form my own opinions and
back them up with evidence or examples through both written and verbal tasks. The
success behind this learning goal can be attributed to two things. The first is the number
of times through written work and verbal discussions that the students were asked to
form their own opinions and back them up with evidence from the text/their own lives.
This was a skill related to the English curriculum and the standards that I pulled from
11th, 12th and college level classes that Edward Little offers to their students. The
second reason that students were so successful with this learning goal is that the
students were given open-ended writing prompts/questions that connected to their
everyday lives. Having the students interested in what they are learning about and
showing them how something connects to themselves gets them to engage at a higher
rate with the materials.
Least Successful Learning Goal:

​The least successful learning goal of this unit would have to be learning goal one, I
can recognize major components/beliefs of the five major world religions. It is not that
this was a learning goal that the students failed at, rather it was less connected to the
end of the unit summative assessment. There was more of a focus on the other learning
goals and the application of the sociological concepts/perspectives on religious cults.
This learning goal was connected to providing the students with a review of/introducing
necessary material to build the other learning goals and their application off of. We did
spend the first three lessons of the unit focusing on this learning goal in order to be
ready and prepared for applying the sociological concepts and perspectives to major
religions.

My Professional Learning Goals:

​ My first professional learning goal is to find a variety of assessments to include so

that I am not constantly assigning writing prompts and opinion questions for the
students to respond to. This is connection to two personal goals that I set at the
beginning of the semester. The first getting to know my students, not just personally but
academically. Though the students are all more than capable of doing the writing it is
not something that every student enjoys doing. As a result I would like to find different
ways to assess their knowledge that could still be incorporated into a discussion format.
It is also connected to a second goal that I set at the beginning of the semester which is,
developing content knowledge in relation to the field of Sociology. Knowing more about
Sociology, which is not something that I have studied before teaching this course, would
influence the kinds of assessments that would work with this material. In order to meet
this goal I am going to be taking more time to shadow other teachers to see the kinds of
formative assessments and discussions that they have in their classroom in hopes that I
can modify or use them in my future classes, Sociology or otherwise.

​ Another professional goal that I have is knowing how to motivate students to

participate in class discussions more. I don't want the sole motivation to be that it is
graded, rather I would like to see the students wanting to participate of their own free
will. This was a smaller class, six students total, but it was only the same three students
participating each time. The other three students did not see to have a desire to
participate although they proved to be quite knowledgable about the concepts in their
written work. This again would be related to the two goals I mentioned above which I set
at the start of student teaching; getting to know the students and having content
knowledge about Sociology. Knowing the students, what motivates them and what they
are interested in would help greatly. Selecting topics or setting approaches to the
questions that would capture their interest might get them to participate more in the
class discussions. Also knowing more about Sociology, how to develop topics of interest
that the students will be excited about will encourage their participation. Developing
these strategies to get students involved in group discussions of material can come
from talking with other educators, getting to know the students more and see what
motivates them as well as continual practice of mastering the craft of teaching.