Week 5: Exploring Lesson Plans and Standardized Testing

 Part 1: Exploring Lesson Plans

I have had to write lesson plans for other education classes (Physics and Earth Science Apps courses). For these I had not gone over how to write a lesson plan. Looking at the samples on the ICON site mine looked more like the list one, but in general I think better in lists. I like the idea of having headings then including the bulleted list below of the second example that you provided. It is most similar to the lesson plan templates provided under google drive and a lot of the others. With using google drive/docs I could see that one being easier to navigate, due to the headings feature on google docs. As for the formal NGSS write up sample you provided I like how it shows the full NGSS standards and it is in a similar format to the way we look up the standards. The other component I really liked from that one is the assessment or review portion of that lesson. I feel that the bulleted list one did not have this component, but I feel that it is necessary, because it establishes that mindset that this lesson is fluid and subjective to change. At the same time the one with the NGSS standards is a bit much to look at for me personally. I know it has the same information, but it gives me a bit of anxiety just looking at it (I think I may have ADHD, I am working on figuring that out with a mental health professional, and that contributes to this). The list format is more comforting to me personally and it closer to how my mind naturally organizes things. However, I would rather fill out the NGSS one If I were doing it on paper and the list one if I was typing it. 

The components I feel that are necessary to a good lesson plan are what standards are being met (Include All components), the goals of the lesson, time it takes, materials needed, safety concerns, ways to assess for understanding and an area to assess the lesson or note changes. The component that I didn't think about initially was the safety concerns, but considering you may work with chemicals it is good to note what safety things you need to inform your students about. 

Part 2: Standardized Testing

This brought back the frustrations I had with standardized testing. As a student I would have to work really hard to focus on the questions as a whole, and a lot of the time I would skip over instructions or reading the question fully (part of why I think I have ADHD). I love that they have the text-to-speech feature. I wished that was an option for when I was a kid. I love how they have this accommodation for students and personally saw that this helped in my understanding and ability to focus on the questions. 

As for the set up and questions on the tests, I really liked how they stressed the 3D component of NGSS. I saw questions indirectly assessing SEPs and CCCs. The short answer questions were also a welcome change. I feel that it provides a student the opportunity to show their thinking. I noticed that a lot of the questions were more asking the students to think about science and data over the DCIs. I felt that if you understood what the question was asking you could get most questions right by being able to do the SEPs and CCCs. Most questions were not asking about understanding of DCIs but how to think through the materials given to you. 

The questions they were asking was about stuff that I don't remember ever covering in those grades. For example, we didn't go over ecosystems until high school biology, and some of the stuff I didn't cover until college or at least briefly glance over in an AP science class. Seeing that this is what they are being tested for either means that teachers need to help the students think through science or they actually cover science material in elementary school.