Task 4: What does a quality edTPA lesson plan look like? (Essential Question D).
An important component of your edTPA is planning for instruction. One aspect of the planning for instruction component of your edTPA is your actual lesson plans. To help guide all candidates to think about and address all the required elements required by the edTPA the MSU, Mankato College of Education has developed a lesson plan template. You are required to use the edTPA template for this course and student teaching.
Pre-Posting: To help give a visual of what is expected in terms of content, quality, sophistication and overall general length, please view the example lesson plan.
To view the example lesson plan click on the link below.
Posting - What stands out to you? What do you see cutting across all of the resources you have read/seen on this topic so far? What are the cautions needed or “hints” for making this a quality product? How will you approach the edTPA lesson plan format now that you have seen this example? What will you do differently than you have done in the past? What questions do you still have?
Response Postings:
By Sunday, November 17: 11:59 PM. Response postings
The thing that stands out the most to me about this lesson plan is how in-depth it is. Again you see a lot of academic language used, but it also goes into great detail about the students, their backgrounds, their prior knowledge, and how to differentiate learning for students who learn in different ways. I think that this gives me a better idea of how to create a quality edTPA lesson by providing such detail and many examples, but I still wonder how we will be able to gather all of this information.
ReplyDeleteThe past times that I have filled out this form we had taken some creative liberties with some of these sections and/or left some blank. It seems like going forward the information will need to be based on the actual class that we are working with to make it as realistic as possible, so that is definitely something I will do differently. My questions are based around the background information on the students mostly, how are we supposed to find out information such as where they were born, where they live, their family situations, interests, etc. if we have only spent 30 – 40 hours with them? Is this information we should be getting from our mentor teachers along with any IEP, 504, special needs info? My other question is on the “Research-Based Practices or Theories” section. It seems to me that this would be similar or the same on each of our lesson plans since it relates to research we have done to mold our personal teaching philosophy. Is it okay to keep this section the same? How do we differentiate our teaching philosophy based on the lesson we are presenting?
I can relate to your concern on understanding the background on each student. For my particular experience, I will see over 100 students 1x through the 30-40 hours of field experience. I have no prior knowledge of the students before entering the classroom.
DeleteI also feel like leaving these sections blank do not give us a full application of what this edTPA is intended for. As I stated in my post, the background of the students, and the class are incredible important when putting instruction into place. I found myself keeping the same content in the sections, however trying to re-word the content so it sounds different. Again, I feel like it is a bit redundant and busy work when we can clearly state our philosophy in one section. I am sure the answer will come to us in a form that will work cohesively across the disciplines. Until then, I will continue to search for the same questions you raise.
I have similar concerns. Overall I will be teaching 250-300 in a week, and my intro to visual arts class contain nearly 40 students - so many cultures, background, learning specifications!
DeleteI have been using this edTPA as a mini template in creating my own. I appreciate the clear tone in the academic language that the student used. One area that I can really appreciate is that the student used “I understand that effective teaching involves acquiring relevant knowledge….”
ReplyDeleteSomething else that stands out is the students use of a “hook.” Although hooks can be thought of before hand, we will need to use hooks as often as possible when kids become disengaged. And I also think that hooks are vital tools in keeping students completely informed and engaged. I believe that before a lesson can even become conceived, one must fully understand that classroom. Once the classroom culture is established, there are no boundaries as to how much content you can bestow upon the students.
Another comment I would make would be that we as teachers are always suppose to be assessing ourselves while we are doing assessments, Modifications need to be made under split second decisions in order to maintain a thorough lesson.
I also wonder why the “Common Errosr” and Struggling/ Underperforming Students” boxes are left blank. In any class, there are always errors, and there is always room for growth. If we as teachers don’t grow through our own mistakes, then are we really utilizing academia to its fullest extent? I am often at a cross roads where I will say things like “When I do this again, I am going to try ……” If we don’t ask ourselves these questions, we don’t grow as teachers.
Good point about the common errors section, I thought the same thing. I'm wondering if this form is something we will be able to update as we spend more time with the students and have a chance to go through the lesson to see if it should be modified or if we will just be graded on our first draft?
DeletePrior learning: This section of the TPA is extremely difficult to fill out for art classes – in part due to the inconsistent nature of art education, along with the fact that there are a good amount of the students being taught in the cities that come from different countries – some in which have had absolutely no art education. Am I to fill this out thinking about what they have learned in my room alone, or their prior knowledge to my classroom? The truth is, in any given art class, especially an intro art class, I am dealing with students with a huge array of ability.
ReplyDeleteIn addition, the student info section in general can be very difficult for specialty teachers. In a week’s time we teach between 200-300 students. They way this sample if filled out is almost suggesting each individual student with and IEP, ADHD, etc, is having specific consideration in the TPA. Don’t get me wrong – I take each student individually into consideration when teaching, but is it even possible to write about each ones needs in a TPA considering the amount of students I’m teaching. In my real life scenario I have 2 intros to visual art classes with each containing 38 students, and each class has a hand full of IEP students. I hope we aren’t expected to address every single one of them individually in the TPA and can instead address the support materials/methods intended to use on a majority of those who need it.
Family/Community/Cultural - What do you know about students’ everyday experiences, cultural backgrounds and practices and interests: Can this really be filled out to serve any true benefit or justice to the question?? In one class at Harding I am teaching to at least 10 or more cultures. This seems like an exercise so that we can claim we are crossing our “t” and dotting our “i”, but really has little substance. I’d need 10 pages to answer this, and that would be a light scratching of the surface. I don’t think this belongs on the TPA. I feel like this thing was not really designed for specialists’ classes – it’s more fitting for an elementary classroom teacher.
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DeleteLaura,
DeleteI can completely relate with finding it difficult to fill out certain boxes for art classes. I can also relate wight eh inconsistencies in arts education. I have found through my own personal experience that there is definite difference between teaching “Performance” and teaching “Appreciation.” I think my edTPA considers this idea one of the same, however I think they are strikingly different. Perhaps there is a similarity between teaching the “Creation of Art” and “Arts and Crafts” hour.
In my field experience area, I will have the opportunity to meet every student in the elementary 1 time. Since the classes are on a unique rotation, I have different faces every day. For the boxes that ask to give a cultural background, or even student information, I will be pulling from the school as a whole. Every school has listed the break down of population percentages in the school as well as free and reduced lunch. So instead of talking about each individual student, I will be providing a background on the school as a whole. I will also use the schools geographical location to provide background on the community involvement (is the school in Rual, suburb, or an urban setting). I believe that some of these questions will be answered shortly as we are not the only ones who struggle with this type of experience.
And I agree, I don’t think this was designed for our type of classes, and it is a bit concerning that those who create this “1 size fits all” approach are very mistaken on how to implement education and the arts…What gets me is that we are taught (expected) to approach the student holistically when trying to combat obstacles of learning in the classroom. However this process of the edTPA, we are all expected to follow the same format. This approach seems to be the exact opposite way that we are instructed how to teach…
I have a lot of the same concerns that you and Nick have mentioned. The prior knowledge section is one that will be interesting for me because I will be doing my three lessons at the beginning of the trimester, so I have no idea if they have prior knowledge in this area or not. Do I just say that I assume they have no prior knowledge in this lesson?
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ReplyDeleteThe overarching theme that I see in the lesson plan is....detail! Wow, it's amazing just how much research can go into planning for one fifty minute class! The areas I appreciate most are transitions and student knowledge. Transitions are critical in my class as they require change in space, activity and grouping structure. In an open room with no chairs or desks, well thought - through transitions are critical. I think it will be valuable for me to think through the many and varied needs of the students in my classes and write it all out. The needs are intense and if I get them down on paper as separate from one another, I believe it will help me to have more readiness to meet them when we are face to face. As much as I don't look forward to all the work required, I do see that the structure of the lesson plan is solid and if done well, will benefit my teaching.
ReplyDeleteI tend to agree that the organization and detail will be very helpful in planning and executing, which should hopefully help with classroom management as well. My question is do you think every section is necessary or beneficial? As others mentioned, some of the sections seem redundant or more like an overall philosophy, so does that belong in the lesson plan itself? I don't have the answers, just curious what others are thinking.
DeleteDo you feel the TPA layout in general meets your needs in the performance arts? Do you think it could be written better for your field, or does it seem to fit in nicely with your overall objectives?
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