Chapter Book Talk Presentation and Collaboration Reflection

This week, in my Education course at Brock University, we did a presentation on a chapter in our social studies textbook. Our presentation covered the conclusion of the text and included information about unit planning, assessing and evaluating. It contained a lot of helpful information about how to develop and assess/evaluate social studies unit plans, providing practical examples of tools that could be used in the classroom. We included a wealth of information in our presentation, but I will try to summarize it as best I can in the following post. Please do not hesitate to comment and ask questions about anything I discuss!

Primarily, we discussed the six components that are required for successful unit planning. This includes: the context, the rationale, the major goals, the scope of subject matter, the objectives and the sequence of lessons. All of these six components pertain to student interest and using the curriculum expectations to make the student's learning relative, practical, attainable and logical. Making the units based off of student's prior knowledge, their abilities, their real life and their interests is really only going to enhance your lesson plans and unit. You are not necessarily going to follow your unit plan exactly how you laid it out, but developing and thinking about these ideas before actually presenting them to your students will only benefit you and the students in the future.

Next, we discussed different types of assessment tools that could be used in the social studies classroom. One point that really resonated with me, was that there was a difference in types of criteria that teachers could use to assess students. Descriptive criteria is very knowledge-based and involves students listing or naming different things that they have learned. Evaluative criteria, however, involves having students take their knowledge to a deeper level by extending their comprehension of descriptive learnings. I think that developing evaluative criteria would certainly be something that I would strive for in my future classroom. The portfolio was also a useful type of assessment, that I think I will integrate into the social studies classroom. Portfolios allow teachers to look at a progression overview of students work over a period of time. It also challenges the students to use  self-reflection skills to develop and meet learning goals that relate to their work. I think that this is a great type of assessment tool to use and could be very helpful in teacher-parent conferences to show student work.

Overall, there was a wealth of information covered in the conclusion of this textbook, however, I think that I have highlighted some of the key concepts that can be taken away from the read. Of course, unit planning, assessment and evaluation go hand-in-hand, and should always be considered in any subject taught by teachers. All of the information discussed above, can certainly be applied to all subjects and are all great resources that teachers should keep in their back pocket!

'Till next time,
Rebecca Johnson