Lesson Plan: Reflection and Evaluation Essay

Brief Evaluation of the Unit

A narrow-focused objective of the lesson (to examine colors and cloth in Chinese Mandarin) will be beneficial for students because it will help them memorize the concepts and vocabulary more effectively.

Due to the fact that the lesson plan is premised on using combined learning styles, including perceptual modes and psychological factors, the lesson will be efficient for the students whose visual and auditory memories the most developed (Heacox, 2002, p. 8). In addition, the first stages of lesson will also identify the students whose interest in the subject is the highest.

Discussions of the basics will provide a clear picture of students’ psychological characteristics and defines which students are reflective, analytic and impulsive. In this respect, the challenge of teacher lies in extending the learning process of students who are ready to comprehend the material and those who are just starting their exploration, which expands the degree of the lesson variety (Heacox, 2002, p. 9).

Smart Board application will be successful for visual learners as well because it provides more opportunities to visually memorize the vocabulary, particularly spelling and sentence structure. Students whose level of visual memory is poor can face complications while conceiving the new words presented in the unit.

Determining the Students Who Failed to Benefit from the Course

With regard to the above considerations, the lesson will not be sufficiently effective for students who have poor visual and auditory memories. Such students are usually more successful in manipulating and touching the material objects, which is quite difficult while studying different colors.

The lesson might turn out a failure to those who are not active and impulsive enough to interact with each other because communicative skills belong to another important condition to succeed in comprehending the lesson.

Because the lesson is built on the basis of a concrete-to-abstract scheme, students who have a more developed abstract thinking ability are less likely to grasp the main aspect of the lesson because it starts with discussing concrete notions and ends with indulging the more abstract ones (Tomlinson, 2001, p. 46).

Finally, students who have slow pace of study will benefit much from the presented lesson either because the unit is based on a number of activities that are time-sensitive. As a result, differentiation will not equally bring the information to all students in the class.

Prerequisite Skills Necessary for Successful Accomplishing the Unit

In order to successfully pass through the lessons activities, students should have a sufficient level of visual and auditory memories, great communicative and analytical skills, ability to abstract thinking and expressing thoughts in a logical way. In this respect, the discussion board at the beginning of the lesson seeks to define the most active students whose interest to the lesson is the highest one.

Further stages are designed for same purpose, but still they are oriented on a wider target audience. More importantly, the lesson is also planned for students who have background knowledge about the country which language they are studying.

Due to the fact that lesson cover wide areas of knowledge, successful accomplishment of the course is guaranteed to students with a strong interest in the subject because the lesson is based on a high-prep differentiation involving independent studies, tiered activities, interest groups, and personal agendas.

Pre-assessment Data Collection

Taken the above-presented information into the deepest consideration, certain gaps of the lesson plan should be identified. To begin with, the presented plan should be have an equal orientation on the learning styles because visual learning modes are prevalent in the unit.

Second, the lesson plan should be more organized in terms of time allocation of all assignments and exercises presented in the unit. In particular, a low-to-fast mode will be more appropriate for engaging all students irrespective of their abilities and skills (Tomlinson, 2001, p. 49). Hence, the fifth assignment should be shorter, or be placed before the third one.

Third, the project is destined on more self-guided, independent students who will be able to manage the most part of the presented activities. This is why more dependent and pass students are less likely to succeed. In order to improve the situation, the lesson should have included more tasks encouraging students express their thoughts and monitoring the extent to which the students are involved.

Aside from lesson content characteristics, particular reference should be made on the analysis of learning environment. Specifically, a teacher should be sure that each student feels comfortable and welcomed in the classroom. More importantly, the instruction should do his/her best to help a learn gain knowledge and experience.

Elements of Grouping: Perspectives for Success

The core principle of grouping should be focused on “whom we teach, where we teach and how we teach” (Tomlinson and McTighe, 2006, p. 3). These components, therefore, should be closely interrelated to create a favorable environment for a learning process. In the presented case, the grouping has been applied for the purpose of increasing students’ potential and developing their strongest skills and abilities.

Particular attention has been made to such elements as learning profiles, readiness to learn, and time allocation of the activities. All these details contribute greatly to developing a multidimensionality of the lesson unit. Arising from the above, grouping helps teachers to meet the needs of a differentiated learning environment, including the quality of curriculum and quality of instructions provided.

With all these elements combined, the teacher will succeed in creating effective guidance and tools to develop a lesson unit based on best comprehension of learning and teaching. In addition, grouping concept should heavily rely on students’ experiences and background knowledge, which will be a valuable contribution to the comprehension process.

Post-Test Analysis and Suggestions for Improvement

An in-depth analysis of the material and evidence used for presenting the lesson unit have revealed different degrees of challenges and variety for students. Specifically, the first assignment and the last two were poorly perceived by students whose independence level and motivation to learn Chinese was insignificant.

The third assignment was not accurately identified and, therefore, it has been poorly accepted by learners as well. Besides, memorizing activities should be more detailed because this is the basis of further interactions in the differentiated community.

Second assignment with color identification was the greatest success, specifically among students with high level of associative thinking because this activity was based on matching the meaning with symbol which is quite effective both for students with highly developed abstract thinking and those who is more visually oriented.

It should also be stressed that the first assignment was also effective because it has managed to provoke interest among students and engage all of them into an active participation. Arising from this, more quests should be involved into lessons as far as differentiated environment is concerned.

Complying the Lesson with Tomlinson’s Theory of Differentiation

The presented lesson plan is almost congruent with Tomlinson’s (2001) theory of differentiation suggesting “…shaking up what goes on in the classroom so that students have multiple options for taking in information, making sense of ideas, and expressing what they learn” (p. 1). At this point, the unit under consideration exposes an exhaustive algorithm of practicing and training students with various levels of skills and abilities.

In particular, the presented plan includes a great variety of options and students to overcome. The lesson does not only encourage students to demonstrate their potential, but make them fill in the gaps in the fields that seem to be the most complicated for them. What is more important is that lessons provoke students’ active participation in discussions related specifically to the topic of the identified unit.

In this respect, all assignments are highly relevant to the identified goals and provide wide opportunities for students to fulfill themselves. Oral and written representation of the learnt material is also an advantage of the given plan.

While drawing the parallel between Tomlinson’s theory of differentiation and the lessons plan under analysis, certain improvements can still have to be introduced.

First, the plan should strike the balance between theoretical and practical information where concrete examples should be directly related to theoretical foundations. Second, teacher should also be more involved into interaction with students to ensure their successful performance. In general, the plan creates relatively equal opportunities for all students.

References

Heacox, D. (2002). Differentiating Instruction in the Regular Classroom, Minneapolis, MN: Free Spirit Publishing.

Tomlinson, C. A. (2001). How to Differentiate in Mixed Ability Classrooms, 2nd Edition, Alexandria: Virginia, Association for Curriculum and Instruction.

Tomlinson, C.A. & McTighe, J. (2006). Integrating Differentiated Instruction & Understanding by Design. Alexandria, Virginia: Association for Curriculum and Instruction.