One+-+derful

Please start by listing your team members:
Alison Negrave - Grade 1/2 at Ottawa Crescent PS Cheryl Wallace - Grade 1 at Laurine Avenue PS Valorie Giles - Grade 1 at Maryborough PS

 =**__Group Reflections - December 10, 2008 - please add your comments __** =
 * subheadings for reflection and comments:

1. __Lesson study model__  Val - This has been a very reflective experience that has enhanced my personal teaching. By observing the lesson, and then teaching the same lesson I have been able to explicitly focus on better practices to use as I focus on a specific lesson.

2. __Technology__ Val - I find technology very engaging for my students, and am eager to learn new things. The sharing done between groups today was very beneficial. I especially liked the differentiated lessons, and the lessons done in Primary classrooms. It is great as a tool to enhance lessons and to demonstrate a variety of skills. Students also enjoy using the Smart board as a centre activity.

3. __Student learning__ Val - Students are engaged, and seem to transfer demonstrated skills to other activities. With repeated and explicit lessons, such as the lesson study examples, students should truly benefit!

4. __Collaboration__ Val - Through planning the lesson together, searching for background resource materials and finding an appropriate text together we were able to plan a lesson that I would use again. We were accountable to each other in the planning stages and through interactions after the lesson was video taped. We reflected right after the lesson was taught, and posted our immediate thoughts on the wikki (found later on this screen).

5. __Unexpected learning__ Val - Through the "parking lot" comments and postings, I found that I became more aware of how the four-square model could be adapted. The basic lesson could also include a modelled writing component to do with the students, or there could be follow-up done after the students tried the writing component. This reinforced the importance of preparing lessons based on the students' needs and the explicit focus of your lesson (within the continuum of the "release of responsibility" model).

 **

 Alison & Val -I was looking for some Graphic organizers on the web and found this site. There is a story to read and then there are shapes that stand for character, setting, problem etc. etc. The site is interactive and "talks" to you etc. You drag the shapes over the text that matches. The gr. 1 stories are a bit lame (ok - a lot lame) but the concept might be something we can use or adapt. Cheryl  [|http://membres.distributel.net/~redeemed7/anchors/anchors_main.htm]

Here's an excerpt from a book with some ideas in it too. [|www.stenhouse.com/pdfs/0383ch13.pdf] Cheryl PS - I thought I should stick this link in so we remember to use it later :)

http://www.uglinks.org/survey/index.php?sid=49756&newtest=Y

October 25th Hi Alison and Cheryl, I cut and pasted the info, but the table did not appear...here is the lesson plan - first draft. Val WOW! Thanks Val -- I've done a bit of editing/think aloud style -- let me know what you think. It's in purple. Cheryl Lesson Focus: Retelling a story that has been previously read to the class as a readaloud. This will be done in a Grade One class in November of Term One. Prior teaching: Character, setting and problem within a narrative would have been taught and previously discussed.

Curriculum expectations: demonstrate understanding of a text by retelling the story or restating information from the text, including the main idea.   (Put section number in)

Lesson Outline: 1. Reread the story. <span style="color: rgb(96, 0, 192);"> <span style="color: rgb(96, 0, 192);"> Work as a class to fill in the Char/Setting/problem on the GO organizer 2. Review the four square organizer, <span style="color: rgb(96, 0, 192);"> <span style="color: rgb(96, 0, 192);"> that is the middle section of the GO organizer (4 parts of the Events section)   using the sequencing terminology: first, next, then, finally. (Graphic organizer on smart board) 3. Have the students move scanned pictures into the organizer to sequence the story in proper sequence. Orally discuss the story as the pictures are sequenced. <span style="color: rgb(96, 0, 192);"> <span style="color: rgb(96, 0, 192);"> (Need to decide if will have 4 pictures or more so that they have to make choices) 4. Follow-up to lesson would include students having a worksheet to sequence pictures into an organizer. Differentiated ways of completing this activity would be to scribe for some students who have difficulty writing at this point of the school year. More advanced students could explain the sequence of events from the story in their own words in written form.

Assessment: -students will be able to sequence photos from the story in proper order from the story -students will demonstrate understanding of the story by discussing and retelling the story in written form

Next teaching: -Continuing to practise the retelling of various <span style="color: rgb(96, 0, 192);"> <span style="color: rgb(96, 0, 192);"> (   of <span style="color: rgb(96, 0, 192);"> <span style="color: rgb(96, 0, 192);"> )    narratives to develop the students’ independent retelling skills -Making connections <span style="color: rgb(96, 0, 192);"> <span style="color: rgb(96, 0, 192);"> (bottom part of GO organizer) -Long term goal would be to use the graphic organizer to create their own written stories

Materials needed: -storybook -graphic organizer on Smart board -scanned photos from book -worksheet to follow lesson, in graphic organizer format and scanned photos

References: The Power of Retelling by Carrisse Cummins and Vicki Benson (GO chart model)

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<span style="color: rgb(30, 184, 41);">Wednesday November the 5th, 2008 - Lesson Day!
<span style="color: rgb(31, 117, 31);"> What went well: Overall, we are pleased with how our lesson went today. The students appeared to be engaged with the lesson and enjoyed the story that was chosen. The scanned pictures from the story focused the discussion and made the process of retelling the story streamlined and focused. Because the story is long, having carefully chosen illustration that reflected the First, Next, Then and Last parts of the story the students were able to succeed with this new skill.

We added in a small change to the lesson plan. We provided two different pictures for the last square. The students were asked to pick which picture they felt belonged in the 'last' square. They were required to explain their reasoning as to why they selected that particular picture. This generated excellent discussion. A correct answer was not provided in the large group. When the students did their personal response to the story they were given the choice as to which picture they put in. This moves the lesson follow up from a simple copying exercise to one that requires higher level thinking.

What we would change: Alison forgot to use one of the the slides that was prepared. The slide that was missed would have focused the students on the first part of the GO chart (character and setting). It wasn't missed too much because the same things were covered on the screen that showed the entire GO chart (triangle, square and circle).

Pointers for other groups! Cheryl had the great idea of pretending to tape the class during the story before the actual lesson started. This gave the students the chance to get their sillies out of the way before the actual lesson started.

Other thoughts - we found it time consuming to transfer the pictures from the memory stick into an easy to use format for the smartboard because we were not familiar with the photo transfering and editing software on the laptop. Hopefully next time this will go much faster.

<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> <span style="color: rgb(42, 137, 47);">This is our Notebook file that we used for the lesson. ***<span style="color: rgb(174, 50, 50);">