Reflection Post 4

Description
This week's focus was on what makes a lesson effective for student learning.

Analysis
I found the reading this week to be very interesting. The goal of teaching is to of course be effective in having our students learn the concepts that are being taught. This is not something that just happens by chance, but requires planning and use of different strategies. Slavin laid out the template for a lesson to be effective. The lesson should begin with reviewing previous skills, then the lesson should move into the new material which should be presented in a logical order. Through out the lesson the teacher should ask students questions to check for understanding. The lesson should finish with a form of independent practice (2012). It was made clear that the independent practice portion of the lesson should be short. Researched showed that the most effective teachers only used 16 minutes of independent time compared to 25 minutes used by less effective teachers (2012, pp. 200). Slavin also explained that whole-group and small-group discussions are valuable ways to get students to use the information that they are taught (2012).

Reflection
Most of this chapter was a review of strategies that I commonly use in my own classroom. I use Socratic seminars a lot in Science and Social Studies. These are student led discussions concerning different topics. The most recent one my students participated was over the differences in wants and needs between the United States and Kenya based on the cultures of the countries. This was a great way for my students to apply their knowledge of wants and needs. One interesting fact I took away from this week was concerning the length of independent practice. My math lessons immediately came to mind and I began to reflect on the amount of time my students spend working independently. Most days my students spend 20-25 minutes on this area. This chapter helped me to see that I need to lessen that time and allocate that time to a different part of my lesson.

Reference

Slavin, R. E. (2012). Educational psychology: Theory and practice (10th ed.).  Boston, MA: Pearson Education.