.REFLECTION
Implementing a Pickleball unit allows the students to cover
multiple standards within one content area. I incorporated various informal and
formal assessments throughout the unit monitor student learning towards the
learning objectives. I have used multiple differentiation strategies that not
only meet the needs of specific students, but also that meet the needs of the
general students in my class. I have incorporated demonstrations that benefit my students in need of differentiation specifically based on the learning
profiles and readiness levels. The demonstrations provide a visual depiction of
what is expected, which will reduce confusion. I have incorporated the strategy
of working with partners to allow all of the students practice social skills
while learning content through collaboration. I have differentiated the
Newsletter assessment for the ELs by creating an individual rubric that
outlines their expectations for the assignment.
I believe the one strength that stands out in this unit plan is my
continual use of assessment. I have created informal and formal assessments
that progress monitor and summatively show students’ understanding of the
learning goals. Students are exposed to multiple assessments that allow for
more corrective feedback to enhance the students’ skill performance and learning
of the content. One limitation of this unit plan would definitely be that it is
short in length. Students do not get a lot of time to practice and master the
skills. If I had it my way I would create an 8-10 week unit where I could
create a more in depth task analysis so students could gain more strategies,
tactics and techniques of the game.
To measure the effectiveness of the pickleball unit I would
analyze the students’ work on their Newsletter to see if they demonstrated
knowledge of the learning objectives. If I noticed that students had some
common misconceptions I would go back over the material and re-teach it
differently to ensure student understanding. If the unit were longer in length
I would be able to incorporate more checklist assessments that would allow me
to gain evidence on student skill performance. I would use this assessment as a
means of progress-monitoring to help students build more competencies in their
skills.
Overall the unit planning process was quite tedious and took a lot
of planning and thinking. I learned that if you are new to creating unit plans,
you should start small and then build upon it as time go on. If you try too
many things at once it can be chaotic and students will not get the most out of
the activity. As a new teacher I know I will not be the best at teaching
everything, so it is important that I find content that I am confident in
teaching, and keep expanding my pedagogical content knowledge to that I can
teach more in depth topics to my students. At the beginning of the year I did
not realize how much time and planning went into teaching a full unit. It made
me realize how important it is to be prepared and organized you have to be as a
teacher. Unit plans should definitely be done well in advance, and after each
lesson the teacher should reflect upon what went well and what did not. This
reflective process should be continuous throughout teaching to ensure both
student and instructor growth.
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