Resources

FALL 2010: Let’s get ready for our FIELD placements! 🙂

Here is our In the Field Wiki link for you to check out.

MANUALS:
Pre-internship manual available online at the Professional Development and Field Experience Office. This manual is provided for pre-interns and cooperating teachers and is intended to explain and clarify the EPS 215 (fall semester) and EPS 225 (winter semester), Laboratory (Field Experience Team Meetings), Field and other components of the pre-internship year.

The Field Experience manual copy that you received is designed to be used by you and your field advisors/lab instructors in your field experience/lab team time. It is a guide to be used so each section may approach different topics in a variety of ways and may not always happen in the order that they appear. Your EPS instructor and field advisor/lab instructor will work closely to make sure you know what you need to prepare for each session.

PLANNING FOR INSTRUCTION
Set Development Closure To begin to think about planning our lesson plans for the field, we will begin with Set-Development-Closure. Here is a one-pager that describes this in more detail.

lesson plan template There are many ways to do a lesson plan but this template provides a place for all of us to begin to understand the many components of a lesson plan – we will be working at this gradually so don’t panic…

Lesson Plan Outline & Sample This is a sample that was used in Social Studies last year. It includes what a Professional Development Plan may look like.

Math lesson sample This sample shows you one way that a completed lesson plan may look.

Longrange, Unit and Lesson Planning Review the ppt to see the connection between the different forms of planning.

Good Sites for Instructional Strategies Information

Best Practices: Pieces of the Puzzle (created by Regina Public)

Instructional Strategies (created by Saskatoon Public)

SaskSchools Instructional Strategies

What’s Possible in YOUR Unit Planning?

Have fun viewing and exploring these many resources.

View: Changing the World in 5 Minutes: Everyday at School

Key Questions to Guide Your Unique Design of Unit Planning:

What do you want your students to learn?
How will they learn it?
How will they show you what they have learned?
How will you know if they have learned it?
What will you do if they don’t learn it?

Remember…there are many different ways for units to ‘look’…but the key is “are the students engaged in their learning?” How will this unit be meaningful and relevant to the learner? Check out the following resources to better understand the key components of a unit plan, explore the curriculum for your grade level, think about ‘who your learners are’ and start brainstorming topics for your 3-week teaching block. The following 3 ways are explained in more depth in these sites: Unit Planning, Theme Planning and Project-Based Learning. Be sure to browse through all resources and decide how you would like to do your planning. You may also use a more blended, eclectic approach that brings a flavour of all these approaches to unit planning. Be creative but be cognizant that the key is STUDENT LEARNING and to not get carried away with ‘fluff’. Engage your learners in relevant, meaningful learning tasks. All planning can be driven by Essential Questions that you revisit throughout your unit to help keep the learning focused and meaningful. Check out the Questioning Toolkit by Jamie McKenzie. McKenzie explains and gives examples of what Essential Questions are in his book, Learning to Question to Wonder to Learn (Ch. 10) – you can download the complete chapter in pdf from this website.
Three-Story Intellect excellent visual to help you understand the importance of higher-level questions
Bloom’s Taxonomy – a quick review

Unit Planning Resources: Message from Sask Learning

Sask Learning states, “Planning for instruction can occur through a variety of approaches. Regardless of the approach taken, teachers need to plan to ensure that there is congruence between learning objectives, assessment, activities, and resources. Unit planning is an important component of adapting the curriculum to support student achievement of objectives.The framework for unit planning is based on the following questions: What is it the students need to know or be able to demonstrate? How do they demonstrate their knowledge, skills, and attitudes? What activities, approaches, and resources help students to learn what they need to know?” Resource: Saskatchewan Learning

Unit Planning Guide – Elementary Science (Saskatchewan Curriculum)

Stewart Resource Centre: Online Catalogue & Unit Plans (Saskatoon, SK)

Theme Planning

Read: Thematic Unit Planning in Social Studies: Make it Focused and Meaningful (In this Canadian article, the authors state, “Units are opportunities to address citizenship goals — the knowledge, skills, attitudes and values that we as teachers, parents, schools, communities and provincial and national leaders believe are important for children to learn to be “educated” citizens as well as contributing members of society. As such, we must develop thoughtful units that are coherent and focused as well as meaningful to students.” This is an excellent read and will make us think beyond the ‘fun theme’ with a bunch of ‘fluff’ activities to keep students busy (but not engaged and not learning).

Project Based Learning

“Project learning is a dynamic approach to teaching in which students explore real-world problems and challenges. With this type of active and engaged learning, students are inspired to obtain a deeper knowledge of the subjects they’re studying.” PBL Edutopia

Preschool Worm Project: Screaming Cackling Learning Be sure to read the description of how the teacher planned a spring themed unit on “Underground”.

Be sure to check out this Canadian non-profit organization at the University of Calgary: Galileo Educational Network Inquiry Exemplars – Their vision is “all children and their teachers pursue questions, address issues, solve and pose problems, and create artifacts and knowledge relevant to them and to the world” View this example: Calgary Stampede and Treaty 7 First Nations: A Historical Perspective

K-4 Earth Science Modules – gain new ideas to apply to SK curriculum Science

Start exploring these excellent websites that have step-by-step instructions, video clips and samples of PBL at all grade levels. Think of all the possibilities to make learning exciting for your learners!
George Lucas Educational Foundation GLEF provides a summary of project-based learning research, along with a gallery of project examples (in print and video versions).
The Project Approach Maintained by Sylvia Chard, professor at University of Alberta and co-author of Engaging Children’s Minds: The Project Approach (2000).
Designing Effective Project Based Learning to Engage Learners

PBL Online Video Library

Project Based Learning Edutopia

Project Based Learning Articles from Edutopia

Elementary Science Example of Resource Package (link from Jaclyn)

B. Professional Documents:

Professional Development Plan Templates

Professional Targets

C. Equity in the Classroom

Levels of Integration of Multicultural Content
James Bank Model

Cultural Conflict in the Classroom

Culturally Responsive Teaching & Differentiated Instruction