{"id":8,"date":"2018-04-09T21:57:45","date_gmt":"2018-04-09T21:57:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/programs.coe.hawaii.edu\/secondary\/portfolios\/blythecs\/instruction-commentary\/"},"modified":"2019-05-15T04:47:48","modified_gmt":"2019-05-15T04:47:48","slug":"instruction-commentary","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/programs.coe.hawaii.edu\/secondary\/portfolios\/blythecs\/instruction-commentary\/","title":{"rendered":"Instruction Commentary"},"content":{"rendered":"

Term 3: Link Here<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Term 2:<\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cDancing Diversity: Fact vs. Interpretation in Dance and Life\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n

Micro-Teaching Lesson Video Reflection<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
REQUIRED three prompts: two of your choice and the Social Justice Education prompt.<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Domain 1 <\/b><\/td>\nCommunity & Wonder:<\/i><\/b> Creates an Environment of Respect and Rapport to Establish a Culture for Learning <\/b><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/td>\nB. Explain how you set high expectations for both learning and hard work to be the norm? In what ways do students demonstrate their responsibility for taking the role of an active learner in the classroom community of inquiry?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you shared the elements of dance poster it really showed me how to pay attention to all that is going on when someone is dancing – I appreciate their work in conveying a story. The dancer\u02bbs make it look easy but I know it is difficult.\u201d (Kristy Kamoku)<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI enjoyed the video and the connections you asked the students to make to the video to engage them in thought.\u201d (Kim)<\/span><\/p>\n

In this lesson, I set high expectations for the community of inquiry, for observation, interpretation, reflection, respectful listening, analysis, written and verbal communication. I set high expectations by being transparent about the connection between the concepts in the lesson and students\u2019 potential success in dance, school, and life. Students also demonstrate responsibility for their learning by actively engaging in close observation, deep thinking, reflection, writing, speaking, and in other lessons, actively dancing, and utilizing other modes of expression. In this lesson, students showed rigor in their thinking about the concepts by writing about their observation of the film clip, discussing and analyzing their observations with peers, and asking critical questions of other students and of me as the teacher.<\/span><\/p>\n

This lesson focuses on one universal concept, consistent with theory on Concept-Based Curriculum and relevance to students\u2019 academic, personal, and future professional lives. I utilize Universal Design for Learning (UDL), which requires that students be able to engage with material in different ways and is also aligned with the theory of Multiple Intelligences. Therefore, in this lesson I demonstrated by Modeling the skills and concepts of the lesson, and integrated Skill Practice in the areas of observation, listening, writing, speaking, applying concepts, and reflecting. This rigorous approach includes academic vocabulary, critical thinking, writing and speaking skills. The class forms an intellectual community of inquiry, sharing responsibility for the generation of knowledge in alignment with Critical Emancipation theory.<\/span><\/p>\n

Students were responsible for their roles as active learners from the start, as I introduced the Essential Questions that we would be answering together immediately after greeting the class and announcing the title of the lesson: \u201cHow can we exchange ideas and beliefs in an open-minded way? How does one distinguish fact from interpretation in observations of dance and in life?\u201d I challenged students to take on a variety of learning objectives, and proposed an agenda to facilitate our exploration, including a thinking tool to expand what students are able to observe in a dance, and a dance (on video) that would entertain but also prompt a variety of responses that we then leveraged to deepen students\u2019 thinking. <\/span><\/p>\n

Students engaged in guided note-taking, I modeled writing and sharing, students exchanged ideas in pair share\/small groups, I recapitulated our progress as we went, I normalized students\u2019 perspectives and acknowledged student sharing to validate them as sources of knowledge: \u201cThank you everyone for all of those observations that I got to peek into, we have reviewed, written, consulted, distinguished fact from interpretation…I wanted to emphasize that there\u2019s nothing wrong with us having these interpretations, opinions, and biases that we apply to the facts of that we view and it can be helpful to have that distinction as a jumping-off point in communicating with others about what we see.\u201d I facilitated large group discussion of our findings and wrapped up with connections to dance and life.<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

Domain 2<\/b><\/td>\nCommunity & Design:<\/i><\/b> Manages Classroom Procedures, Organizes Physical Space, Communicates with Students, and Manages Student Behavior \u00a0<\/b>\u00a0<\/b><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/td>\nC. Do you make learning relevant when you communicate with students, especially in relationship to objectives and purpose of the lesson\/unit? Give clear directions? Scaffold?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Peer feedback pertaining to this domain was very positive:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI appreciate the clarity of the lesson. You explained the instructions of the lesson methodically\u201d (Vanessa)<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou had really clear objectives that were measurable for the most part! I also learned about the elements of dance. I had never really considered any of this before and you have made me a much more better consumer of watching dance.\u201d (Amber)<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI appreciated that you continually summarized what we were going to do. You said, \u2018so you will be paying attention to what you see and also what you think and feel.\u2019\u201d \u00a0(Dr. Mangram)<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cModeling how we were to process our observations of the dance was SUPER helpful.\u201d (Rochelle)<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI appreciate your ability to model what you wanted us to do.\u201d (Anonymous)<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI appreciate how you broke down the elements of dance into subsections that made it easy for your students to understand and observe in the video.\u201d (Misti)<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI appreciate how you geared this lesson toward students with varying levels of experience with dance and music in general. Students such as myself who are unfamiliar with dance concepts were able to analyze and participate with students very familiar with dance and music theory (who are are probably more used to teaching). \u00a0Experienced and unexperienced students are both able to discern the facts vs biases (ie there are two people vs the dancers are amazing)\u201d (Adriane)<\/span><\/p>\n

I strive to make learning relevant to students\u2019 academic, personal, and professional lives. I made a point to scaffold this lesson on the distinction between fact and interpretation as part of a larger critical framework, for application to student\u2019s viewing of choreography, work on their own dances, personal, academic, and future professional lives. This way, the lesson is suitable and challenging for all experience levels in dance and different critical skill levels. Watching the lesson on video, I see that I was successful in providing clear objectives (and will get better at this with practice), spoken and written directions, tools, visual aids, connections and applications. I communicated with clarity, precision, and energy in the delivery of this lesson in seminar as well as in class at Kaiser High School. Procedures and directions were conveyed in my slide presentation as well as in my spoken presentation, and the concepts were scaffolded appropriately for secondary learners and beyond. I also situated the purpose of the lesson in the context of course objectives.<\/span><\/p>\n

To make learning relevant and effective, the design of my lesson was aligned with many of Ormrod\u2019s \u201cBig Ideas:\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

#1 Learners do not passively absorb information from the environment: rather, they actively work to make sense of their environment and construct their own, unique understanding of the world. (Cognitive Theory, Knowledge Construction\/Constructivism, Elaboration\/Information Processing Theory, Information Seeking\/Behaviorism; students had the opportunity to actively engage in this lesson via observation, reflection, and discussion)<\/span><\/p>\n

#2 \u201cLearning is more likely to occur when learners pay attention to the information to be learned.\u201d (Dual Store Model of Memory\/Info Processing Theory, Modeling\/Social Cognitivism, Orienting Response\/Behaviorism; I selected a fun and thought-provoking video clip to pique students\u2019 interest and conveyed conceptual information in clear and varied ways)<\/span><\/p>\n

#3 \u201cLearners learn more effectively when they relate new information to prior knowledge.\u201d (Chaining\/Behaviorism, Assimilating\/Piaget, Script\/Schema Theory; students were invited to bring in their own life experiences and subject area knowledge)<\/span><\/p>\n

#6 \u201cHints about how to think or behave often facilitate performance.\u201d (Retrieval\/Info Processing, Scaffolding\/Sociocultural, Discriminative Stimuli\/Behaviorism; I gave hints about how to think and behave, and modeled the observation, reflection, writing, and discussion process for students)<\/span><\/p>\n

#7 \u201cLearning and development are fostered when learners are challenged to perform increasingly more difficult tasks or to think in increasingly more sophisticated ways.\u201d (pretty much every theory, this lesson was scaffolded to present the tasks in increasingly sophisticated ways)<\/span><\/p>\n

#8 \u201cLearners benefit from hearing or reading the ideas of others.\u201d (Conditioning\/Behaviorism, Social Constructivism; students shared their ideas with partners and in the larger group)<\/span><\/p>\n

#9 \u201cLearning is enhanced when learners engage in self-evaluation.\u201d (Programmed Instruction\/Behaviorism, Comprehension Monitoring\/Info Processing, Self-Regulation\/Social Cognitive Theory; learners evaluated their thinking regarding the fact\/interpretation distinction)<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

Domain 5<\/b><\/p>\n

Required Prompt<\/span><\/td>\n

Action: <\/i><\/b>Social Justice Education<\/b><\/p>\n

How does the learning environment you create and your instructional practices align to the goals of social justice educators as they are described in Teaching Tolerance\u2019s Social Justice Standards?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

My lesson was designed with Multicultural Education and Critical Emancipation Theory in mind, particularly with regard to a safe community of inquiry, sensitivity to diversity, and student empowerment. As we prepared to share our observations of the video clip, I made sure to normalize individual\/small group ideas and responses: \u201cI wanted to emphasize that there\u2019s nothing wrong with us having these interpretations, opinions, and biases that we apply to the facts of what we view and it can be helpful to have that distinction as a jumping-off point in communicating with others about what we see.\u201c The students were challenged to communicate in an open-minded way in their partner discussion: \u201cwith my partner I would identify which of those observations were really objective facts that we could agree upon together and which of those might more subjective impressions that I\u2019m assuming.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

During the lesson, we practiced skills in objectivity and tolerance of multiple viewpoints, and a democratic approach to generating knowledge. This approach supports Ormrod\u2019s Big Ideas #8 \u201cLearners benefit from hearing or reading the ideas of others.\u201d (Conditioning\/Behaviorism, Social Constructivism; students shared their ideas with partners and in the larger group), which is beneficial to learning in general, but to Social Justice Education specifically, as it supports the development of positive identity, awareness of diversity, recognition of injustice, and taking action. It was in my summary that I made the social justice and life applications of this lesson more explicit: \u201cyou guys really pointed to some good interpretations, and really more questions than answers in a lot of cases about what is subjective? What is objective? Let\u2019s really pick apart what we can all see and then what do we make it mean based on our knowledge, our beliefs, our background experiences, which definitely has a lot of applications for us as dancers, but also observers of dance and dance critics. If we were to continue to look at it from that point of view, we would go on through this process of being able to describe an analyze and interpret, but then based on all of that information be able to use it to evaluate whether [dance] works are effective or not. On a larger scale in our lives, we can also look at in our interactions with our selves, with our classmates, with our students, ask ourselves: \u2018is my thought about this a judgement or an interpretation?\u2019 Or if it\u2019s a fact, are other interpretations possible? And then see what light that sheds on your judgements of yourself and about others, and in the classroom.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Students came away from the lesson aware of the fact\/interpretation distinction, having reflected and written personally and dialogued with a partner. They practiced open-minded communication, written and oral, in pairs and in a large-group context (consistent with Social Constructivist theory). I hope that they started seeing how the facts of the situation were contant, yet people\u2019s interpretations could vary and are worthy of respect. Some students in the cohort did come away somewhat unclear about whether or how the lesson conveyed my selected Social Justice Standard, so I have room for growth in this area:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn DI.8 it states that student will respectfully express curiosity about the history of others in an open-minded way. How does your lesson help us to consider this? I notice you said that this is part of a bigger lesson. With the history portion be address prior to this or after?\u201d (Monica) <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat was your link to the social justice standard?–maybe make this a little more explicit.\u201d (Amber)<\/span><\/p>\n

In the future, I\u2019d like to reiterate what an intellectually safe community of inquiry is before we launch into discussion in lessons, and I\u2019ll also work to make my connections to Social Justice Standards more explicit. I think there\u2019s a script in my head about how I need to be sneaky about embedding Social Justice into my curriculum, where just being totally transparent makes more sense. <\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

Additional optional prompt <\/b>from any of the Domains<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Domain 3<\/b><\/td>\nWonder:<\/i><\/b> Uses Questioning and Discussion Techniques & Demonstrates Flexibility and Responsiveness <\/b><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/td>\nE. How do you use a variety or series of questions or prompts to challenge students cognitively, advanced high level thinking and discourse, and promote metacognition?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

My goal was to encourage respectful student discourse and create connections between my subject and other areas of life through questioning, and I believe I was successful in those aims. Peer feedback included, \u201cI appreciate how you validated our impressions of the dance even before we watched it\u2014\u2018there\u2019s no wrong answer,\u2019\u201d (Rochelle) and \u201cI appreciate all of the question you posed to cause us to think not only about how we observe dance but how we can apply this to real life situations.\u201d (Monica)<\/span><\/p>\n

Regardless of the topic I am teaching, I follow Critical Emancipation theory and try to integrate Socratic Discourse or philosophical inquiry. In this lesson, my progression of questions started with inquiry into how to inquire with an open mind and defining fact\/objective vs. interpretation\/subjective. Then I asked questions to guide students\u2019 observation of dance, built toward analysis and evaluation of dances, awareness of bias and prejudice, sensitive communication, and constructive feedback. My questioning included:<\/span><\/p>\n