Your 2nd Grade Teacher's Thoughts

  After reflecting on my learning from this week's readings a few things stand out to me that I feel like I am already practicing. While I think I still have a long way to go using the UbD model to its fullest potential I have been designing units that include all the same elements as the UbD template. For each of our grade-level units, my second-grade team has come up with essential questions and big ideas and since “the essential questions highlight the big ideas that are central to the design” I feel like going forward I have a lot of valuable information to work off when designing next year's units ( Wiggins & McTighe, 2005, pg 58) . Additionally, because of all of the work redesigning our units I find that I also have a better overall understanding of the standards I teach which ultimately helps me design more effective units. These changes in my unit design process have helped create a shift in my teaching approach from “what I can teach my students to what I can get

 After reviewing this week’s readings and reflecting on the practices that I use with my students I would consider one of my strengths as a teacher would be making learning activities authentic and experiential. Zemelman, Daniels, and Hyde discuss that children “routinely handle phenomenal complexity in their own daily lives” and teachers should provide opportunities for children to “read, write, calculate, and investigate for purposes that they have chosen.” (2012 pg. 11) As an educator for the last few years, I have been working with my team and instructional coaches to design lessons within a workshop model. I have become much more comfortable and successful at creating meaningful learning experiences that challenge students to engage in learning that is authentic and complex. At first, when I began creating lessons I had trouble keeping my mini-lessons short or ran out of time and didn’t reflect on learning. Now, I can routinely plan and execute lessons that challenge my students i