Joshua McWhorter

Session 5 - DID - Updated

EDUC 201
3/17/16

Story Comprehension Unit

Step 1: Know the Learner
Many modern schools have a very diverse array of students who come from a wide range of
backgrounds. These students also have a wide range of learning styles, levels of intelligence, interests,
cultures, and capabilities. In order for a teacher to effectively and efficiently teach their students to the
best of their ability, it becomes necessary for teacher's to learn about and understand the students under
their supervision. What are their learning styles, strengths and weaknesses, backgrounds, and what
strategies have I identified that I can leverage? Etc..

My 4th grage English class has 20 students of low to moderate socioeconomic backgrounds: 8
White, 6 Hispanic, 4 Black, and 2 Native American. The group consists of an even 10 boys and
10 girls.

Most of the class is developmentally on par with those in their age group. 10 are visual
learners, 5 are auditory learners, 5 are kinesthetic learners.

The students have a diverse level of multi-intelligence, ranging from spatial, linguistic,
intra/interpersonal, and logical.

Two of the students struggle with the ability to link story elements together to identify theme
and may need additional time and materials to help them.

Step 2: Articulate Objectives

In order for a teacher to effectively judge a student's understanding of the material being taught
and their mastery of the content at the end of a lesson, a diverse set of assessment tools should be
employed: including, formal and informal types of assessmentthis may include: tests, talks,
activities, and interaction with other students. I fully believe that there is a separation between knowing
and understanding content, and that in order for a student to display an understanding and/or a
subjective mastery of the material, they need to be able to display some level of understanding of the
material beyond just recitation of facts. It is also beneficial to let students know what expectations they
are to meet and what the goals of each unit being covered are so that they have a structured outcome to
work toward.

By the end of this unit, the students will be able to identify what the stories characters are and
what their role in the story was.

Success will be judged on the students' ability correctly name the characters, answer correctly
on a worksheet simple questions about the characters, and to correctly identify the role the
characters in the story played.

Assessment will be done through a combination of verbal communication and workbook

activities at the beginning, middle, and end of the exercise.

Step 3: Identify Teaching and Learning Strategies

Ever since learning about the 5E instructional model (engage, explore, explain, elaborate, and
evaluate), I see it as an important template for planning and implementing instructional material. And
although not all parts may be appropriate for every lesson, relying on this method of planning seems
(and I suppose this could change as I progress in my education) like an effective technique for

designing lesson plans so that not only are the students learning, but assessment becomes easier.

The 5E model will be used to engage the students, explore the material, explain what the
material is covering, elaborate on who the characters are and what they are doing, and follow up
evaluations will be performed at the beginning, middle, and end of the lesson.

Entry skills will be evaluated after having the students read a synopsis of the material and fill
out a worksheet about what they read. If this doesn't effectively help the students, or they don't
understand the intentions of the worksheet, and verbal discussion can be used to remediate and
judge the students abilities.

Verbal discussions and workbooks will be used to develop formative assessments.

Learning strategies will include: reading skills and comprehension, critical thinking, group
communication and discussion, and memorization.

Step 4: Identify and Select Support Technologies

In my specific unit of choice (English language arts), object oriented materials that allow for
visual subjects to be related to words, concepts, and goals would be a useful tool. These could be
digital or more traditional forms of instructional technology. Certain types of educational, story-based
games would also be useful in the learning process. In certain situations, tools that allow for
collaboration would come in handy. In all cases, assistive technology that promotes and allows students
with physical, cognitive, language, or other forms of exceptionalities to benefit from the learning
material, and to interact with their peers, should be considered necessary.

Workbooks will be needed, as well as a computerized summative assessment at the end of the
module. A projector and screen will be used to show a short video to the class related to the

story.

The workbooks will be there to help the visual learners, while communication activities will be
designed to engage auditory and kinesthetic learners. The video will be used to engage the
students and help both the auditory and visual members of the group.

Step 5: Assess and Revise

The ability of the students to identify the parts of language being covered, how they are used, or
the concepts and ideas being presented to them, will be used to identify how effective the module was.
Formal testing, discussions, workbooks, and activities will be used to guide learning and to identify
whether or not the desired learning goals are being met. If these goals are not being achieved, revisions
will be made to the material and the areas with the least comprehension will be revisited in a more
focused, specific manner, and areas of the module that were not effective will be replaced with
alternatives that may prove more beneficial to the class.

I will know if the module was effective based on the students responses during the assignment
and their correct completion of workbooks and tests.

A point based system will be used, with every correct answer representing 2 points in the
workbooks and on the test. For other areas, creativity and correctness will be used to judge how
well the students are doing.

If the students don't respond as expected, I will follow up with workbooks that explore the
characters, terms, and themes in a much more direct manner, helping them build the skills
necessary to understand the concepts better during future story based modules.