Reflection
The cyber lesson Voyager and Its Mission to Jupiter and Saturn is part of a thematic unit used to integrate reading and writing. Teaching strategies and activities in this lesson are designed to implement reading comprehension skills assessment through writing a compare/contrast paragraph. The cyber lesson takes the student through sequential steps to produce a compare/contrast paragraph. It starts with the rereading of pages 96-103 in the text Voyager, An Adventure to the Edge of the Solar System. While students reread these pages, they are asked to type in characteristics/details of Jupiter and Saturn in a graphic organizer. They print this sheet to help them complete the Venn diagram in the after reading activity. Once that is completed, the student prints the Venn diagram to assist them to write a compare/contrast paragraph.
Strengths: My student was able to identify and type in the characteristic/details of Jupiter and Saturn in the graphic organizer. After saving this information, she was able to print this sheet to type in information to complete the Venn diagram. After typing and printing the Venn diagram, she was able to use this diagram to write a compare/contrast paragraph. It is important to remember to save changes to each of the documents (graphic organizer and Venn diagram) to avoid losing the information.
Weaknesses: In this case my student needed assistance reading the text due to her reading disability. My student also needed assistance with the use of the computer, such as saving and printing. I needed to also insert a text box in the Venn diagram to allow the student to be able to type in the information. For future lessons, I feel this student needs more exposure with the use of the computer so that on future lessons she will not need assistance and be more independent. Although my student was successful in writing a compare/contrast paragraph and earned a check, she could have done better with her concluding sentence.
Recommendations: To modify this cyber lesson for easier use, I feel I need to have students be more familiar with the use of a computer, adjust the Venn Diagram so that a text box does not need to be inserted and to make the before reading activity more interactive with the student such as having them answer/predict questions to generate their own thinking. Due to the fact that I only have one computer in the classroom, I need to either have the cyber lesson be friendlier for more than one student or be able to have access to the computer lab.
I felt this activity took the student through sequential steps to be successful in completing this assignment. Students should be familiar with text structure of nonfiction text to get maximum benefit of identifying information from the text. Not only was this activity designed to provide students with reading comprehension strategies of nonfiction text (which can be transferred to other curriculum such as science and social studies), but, the beyond reading activity meets science standards addressed in the 5th grade curriculum.
The student’s response to this activity was favorable. She enjoyed learning about Jupiter and Saturn along with working on the computer. She was not familiar with the use of the computer as much, so she found that part difficult. She also wanted to be able to type her compare/contrast paragraph on the computer. This could only be done after she wrote the paragraph on paper. I felt it would be too much for the student to handle going back and forth from her Venn diagram posted on the lesson to writing a paragraph in a word document. My student was also able to use the web sites listed in the beyond reading activity to gather information on Jupiter and Saturn. The student’s response was with great excitement. She was excited to see that you could just click on the hyperlink and it brought you to that site. The web site offers a lot of information, again due to her reading disability; I needed to assist her in the reading where she was able to identify details to list.