Module 4: SMARTBoard Lessons & My First Lesson Plan!

The SMARTBoard, needless to say, has been one of my greatest adversaries throughout the course of this class so far.  It was far less time consuming then the Digital Story, but it was more difficult to understand in comparison.  With the Digital Story, my problem was with time than overall understanding.  With the SMARTBoard Lesson, it was just the opposite.  In the end, I really enjoyed this project and teaching my lesson to my classmates.  

For my SMARTBoard Lesson, I focused on the ELA Teaching Standard for 6th Grade Language for Vocabulary Acquisition and Use, 4b.  It states: "Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases based on grade 6 reading and content, choosing flexibly from a range of strategies: Use common, grade-appropriate Greek or Latin affixes and roots as clues to the meaning of a word (e.g., audience, auditory, audible)."  For my lesson, I decided to teach about 6 different Greek/ Latin prefixes:  aud-, ex-, sub-, cent-, tri-, and mis-.  My overall goal was for my students to recognize these roots in words that they see in their everyday lives, and from knowing the prefixes' meanings, be able to determine the meanings of unknown words which contain these roots.  

Starting this lesson with just a teaching standard was difficult, because I wasn't sure where exactly to begin.  But eventually, I was able to pinpoint how I could teach the lesson in an effective way, and then engage my students in a way where they will learn the subject efficiently as well as apply it.  I had three different activities planned, one building off of the other.  In this way, it can go from simple to more complex.  After teaching the definition of a prefix as well as the definition of the six prefixes, I gave them a matching game where they match the word containing the root with its definition.  Then, I gave them a fill-in-the-blank activity so that they can test their contextual skills using the same prefixes, but different words. I also asked my students to explain why they made certain choices.  The last activity I had planned was not able to be done during the process, but the main point that I wanted to elaborate on there was that while a word may contain what seems to be a prefix, the English language can trip us up.  So, it's important to be able to identify when it's a prefix and when it is not.

Overall, I had a lot of fun creating my lesson.  It was definitely difficult at first and also inconvenient (for I had to be working on it in the computer lab or in the library), but, honestly, when I'm a teacher, I can see myself using this in the future to teach my students.  It may be more useful if I use it for middle school, because high schoolers would be on another level of learning.  This was my first lesson plan ever, and I'm nervous and excited to create more.