Home | Help | Login | Signup         Jennifer Saden Undergraduate Student Tampa Florida United States Education University of South Florida, St. Petersburg                 My Folios Employment Portfolio FEAP Portfolio FEAP Portfolio Education in Turkey Leonardo DiCaprio Professional Development Portfolio My Employment Portfolio My Learning Portfolio FEAP 2011 Portfolio My Resume                 Back to Folio Evidence #4: Mini Lesson Taught                 Evidence #4: Mini Lesson Taught View File My 4th evidence is a mini-lesson plan implemented in my Level II Internship EDE 4942. This lesson attended to curriculum and instruction about cultural and ethnic diversity. The students in my class were currently being taught health lessons by the guidance counselor. The current topic of discussion was acceptance of all differences. I decided to build on this and do a lesson on stereotypes. I also had my friend Tyson Walters come in to speak for the Great American Teach in. Tyson was a male cheerleader for the #1 national ranking UCF cheer team. I wanted to show the children that even though usually just girls cheerlead, it is perfectly acceptable for a boy to do it too.                 Reflection My third evidence meets this AP in many ways. This lesson was specifically modified to meet the needs of students with diverse learning needs. There are accommodations for each of the four levels of language acquisition to ensure that the needs of each level ELL student are met. This shows my knowledge of the four levels, and also strategies to adapt the lessons to these students. I also have specific assessments for these students as well. It is important to modify the lessons so that every student can participate, so that nobody feels different or left out. Even though there are modifications, these particular students will feel accepted and part of the class if they get to do the same things (mostly) as the other students. The other students in the class will also see that the ESOL students are just like them – normal, smart kids; they can do the same stuff, they just have a language barrier and I (the teacher) have to make special accommodations for that so they can understand what I’m saying to them. Also included in this lesson plan is a ‘homefun’ activity, which requires parent involvement. This is meant to help the families of the students understand and gain interest in their child’s school life, and also creates a line of communication between me (the teacher) and the families of my students. My third evidence was implemented in my Level I Internship where I taught a first grade class. There were two ESOL students, both at about the early-production/speech-emergent language level. This was one of my first experiences working with ESOL students with my own modified lesson plan. I believe the students benefited just as much as I did from doing this with them. I was able to look directly at the bolded print of my plan, and adapt my lesson to fit their needs accordingly. A lot of times, an ESOL specialist would come to the class to work directly with the ESOL students, but this time they got to participate in an entire lesson with the rest of the class. This helped them to feel more included and fit in more with their peers. The other students were able to see that even though these students had trouble with English, they were still smart and able to do the same work they did. At such a young age, my students didn’t fully understand the concept of being an ELL, and why a special teacher had to come in and work just with them at a table in the corner of the room. Creating lesson plans that are specifically tailored to every student in the room are so beneficial because not only is every student learning more, but they are all doing it together as a whole class. This promotes the idea at an early age that we are all equals, regardless of our backgrounds. My home-fun assignment actually received positive feedback for a couple reasons. First off, one of my students had parents who spoke very little English as well, so this activity also helped them work on their English words and skills. I also incorporated drawing into the homefun activity so it would be fun for the students, not just word-work that can get frustrating, especially when the parents are minimal help. The next week, I received very nice pictures of animals with the words written underneath, and my cooperating teacher told me that that same parent expressed to her how nice it was to do that with her son.