REFLECTION
Nicole Druley
December 4, 2005
Cyber Lesson Reflection
RDG 589
1. How did you implement your cyberlesson? (small group, whole group, posted on the Internet to be done at home? Individually, as a learning center etc.)
I am a Fifth grade teacher and I designed this lesson in order to incorporate the content area of Science with literacy. I implemented my cyber lesson in small-guided reading groups. As part of the Before Reading Activity, I had my students take a picture walk through the book in order to make a prediction as to what they thought the book would be about. The students did not seem very enthused during the picture walk and I think that is because they have done picture walks since Second Grade and they might be bored with them. However, my students were excited to share their predictions, which ranged from basic answers to extremely creative responses. The During Reading Activity gave my students a purpose for reading, which was to identify the sounds that were made by the Foley Sound Team and their specific jobs. My students did not have any difficulty with this activity and enjoyed sharing their responses to see who identified the most sounds in the book.
How did your students respond to the project?
My students were excited to be engaged with technology, which made them more focused during the Cyber lesson. My students are typically unmotivated when it comes to Content Literacy so to see them excited to learn about Sound through the cyber lesson got me even more excited to do it with them. Some students struggled with the typing portion, but they did not become upset or frustrated (which is how they typically respond) they just kept working at it until their task was complete. My students’ favorite parts of the cyber lesson were exploring the website on the beyond reading slide because they were able to listen to the soundcards and search for sounds they wanted to hear, and making their own graphs online.
2. Strengths?
While engaged in learning about Sound, my students were also practicing literacy skills that align with the Connecticut Mastery Test. These skills include summarizing, predicting, identifying main ideas, and supporting their answers by using evidence from the text. As part of our school’s improvement plan, we have identified the importance of those reading skills and I have taught them to my class throughout this unit on Sound in accordance to our school’s biweekly literacy blueprint. I found that using the cyber lesson to incorporate those skills made them more involved, and it was if the students didn’t feel like they were doing work because they were enjoying it so much.
4. Weaknesses?
There was difficulty getting the prediction document to open with the first two groups who did the cyber lesson so they had to write their answers on a sheet of paper instead of typing it on the computer.
I also should have put a materials page in the beginning of the lesson so students would see what they needed instead of me telling the orally.
5. How would you modify the way in which you implemented the project to
make it more successful?
I would change the way I implemented my lesson by giving each student a computer to do it on. I felt like the lesson consumed too much time because I could only have one group do the lesson at a time on two computers. I would also delete some of my beyond reading activities because it too much time for my students to make a table and a graph of the sound they heard.
6. Recommendations?
I would recommend to have someone for technical support in the classroom incase there is difficulty opening links of the power point. I would also recommend to use a computer lab if that is available so that a number of students can be engaged in the lesson at the same time.