EdTPA Task 1
This week let's talk about the edTPA and focus on Task 1. Heidi sent out the link to the recently released Making Good Choices--A Support Guide for edTPA Candidates. I have just started to review it and find it very helpful. I hope you will too.
So, let's talk about your progress thus far. I assume you have completed the Context For Learning so think about how you are going to describe your class.
What is the central focus of the learning segment you are planning? See page 6 of the Guide and note that Literacy has additional support in Appendix A. Secondly, previous candidates have struggled with Academic Language so what language demands you will identify in your learning task? See Guide pages 8-9 for help. What language function have you identified that is essential for all students in your class to understand and practice within your central focus?
If you haven't gotten to these planning tasks yet, this should get you started!
posted by Chris @ 5:48 PM
5 comments
5 Comments:
I've printed off the Making Good Choices guide, and have slowly been reading through it. I think I'll only refer to it at the start of each task so I don't overwhelm myself. I've completed my Context for student learning and three lesson plans. I intend to start on my Planning Commentary today, so this post really help me reflect on how effective my unit is as a whole.
The central focus of my unit is about the vowel "y" being read as /ī/ and /ē/. In the first lesson, we talk about phonemes and how a bunch of phonemes can form a word. Students have learned about long and short vowels before, so we talk about how "y" can sometimes be a vowel too and can be read as long e or long i. The second lesson is an application of the skill of being able to read and decode words with vowel y. We read a story from our basal reader that has many words that allow students to apply what they learned from the previous lesson. The last lesson is assesses the students' mastery of vowel y through a writing sample. Students use a graphic organizer to describe the changes from when they were infants to themselves now as a first grader. They will need to apply their knowledge of vowel y when spelling words for their writing. My hope is to convey to the students that reading and writing go hand-in-hand. A skill learned in reading can easily be applied to writing, and vice versa.
The language function that I think best fits this unit would be "compare and contrast." Students will need to not only compare and contrast when y is read as a long e as compared to a long i, but students will also need to compare/contrast how much they have grown and changed over the past 6 or 7 years of their life. Some of the academic language students will need for this unit are "phoneme," "punctuation," and "graphic organizer." An additional language demand would be syntax.
Chris, if I do not have any children with an IEP/504 or any ELL students, do I still need to discuss how the lesson could be modified if I had a student with such needs in the class?
I also appreciated the Making Good Choices guide and will be using that as I review my lesson plans. I've created three, but will be critiquing them over the next week or so as my lessons unfold.
My unit's central focus is fractions; how to create equivalent fractions, compare them, reduce and add and subtract them. The prior knowledge students are coming into this learning segment with is widely varied and our small group instructions are individualized for each student's needs to help them all reach the ultimate goal. Because my room is a 3/4 split, two of the small groups are fourth graders and two are third graders. Truly the only difference is what prior knowledge students have and how quickly we can move, but the same material will all be covered in the end. I hope that all students will reach the goal of making it to successful adding and subtracting of fractions with unlike denominators.
My chosen language function is "interpret". Students must be able to take a picture of a fraction, or written fraction, and interpret how they can change it into an equivalent fraction, reduce it, add it to another fraction or subtract it from another fraction. I feel confident that this is the best language function for my unit, but this is the trickiest question so far, I've actually had to stop myself from writing too much on the Commentary, they're good questions!
I also have the same question as Kryssa, because none of my students are ELL.
The central focus of my learning segment is teaching the kids how to compare different things. For example, they compared two different stories with similar subjects. They will also be comparing (tomorrow) a frog and a toad based on a story they read in their reading books. This also doubles as my language demand. The students will need to know how to compare/contrast things, and will need to be able to state whether an idea is a similarity or a different between two things. This is essential for all students to understand. I have put an emphasis on ensuring that my students know why it is important to know this skill. One example I have given them often is when they are at a grocery store trying to decide between two different brands, they can compare and contrast the two brands to determine which is the better choice for them.
In my last lesson I have also added an extra focus on adjectives. We have noticed that our class is struggling with adjectives so I am adding this in as en extra idea to work on. I will incorporate this in our lesson tomorrow by having students write comparisons using adjectives, and also identifying the adjectives that I have used in the examples for comparisons.
I agree with Kryssa when she says that this post helps us reflect on the effectiveness of my unit. It really helps to think it through and write it all out. I've done a good portion of my task a already, in fact I planned on finishing this last week. However, I went to put together my video and found out that some key parts were cut out. I'm going to film one more time (at least) and hopefully I will be able to finish ALL of task A soon. I am teaching a similar lesson that I taught last week, but will be making it relevant to what we have been working on this recent, plus I will be tweaking it to make the lesson run smoother!
I think we've all been pretty good about pacing ourselves with Task 1. We are a little "behind" some of our peers, but we also had to walk into a brand new classroom and did not have the context for student learning already completed.
Madelyne,
I think the language function that you've selected sounds great as long as your justification is thorough.
It looks like each of you is making good progress on Task 1! I just wrote a response and can't find it so...I will try again. :)
Rubrics 2 and 5 refer to adaptations for IEPs or 504 plans. You should state that you don't have any students on formal individualized plans (IEPs/504s)then you should discuss how you are adapting planning/insruction and assessment for students who need additional assistance (time, individualized instruction etc). I assume you have some of those even if there isn't a formal plan. The idea is to show the evaluator you know how to plan for differences in your learners.
I can't wait to see your progress when I get there!
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