1st Technology Lesson Reflection

Liz Barry

26 October, 2011

            I taught this lesson on basic formatting in Microsoft Word to about 28 third grade students with varying cognitive and developmental abilities.  I began the lesson by telling the students that we were going to be learning about how to format a short paragraph about what they are thankful for in the Microsoft Word program.  I asked the class if any of them had used the Word program before to see how much background knowledge I would need to teach.  The majority of the students knew what the program was a few had used it before.  I showed them step-by-step what I expected them to do once they received their lap tops.  I first showed them what the Microsoft Word program symbol looked like on the tool bar.  I stressed that they only need to press the “W” symbol once to open the program.  I showed them how to make sure that the “blank document” option was highlighted and to press the “open” button to open a new blank document.  I think showed them how to make sure that the text style was set to “Times New Roman” and how to change the font size to “18.”  The last step was to show them how to press the “tab” key once to indent the first line of their paragraph before they start typing.  To review what I expected them to do, I had the students help me write the steps on the board before they received their lap tops.

            While the students were working independently I roamed the room to help with any issues.  Some of the lap tops did not have the Microsoft Word program on their bottom toolbar so I had to go around and move it from the “Applications” menu to the bottom tool bar for them.  On some of the lap tops the formatting toolbar did not automatically open so I had to go around and make it available for those students.  To differentiate my lesson, I had students that finished their sentences about what they are thankful and why early write another sentence or two, print their work, and help other students with their work.  This allowed me to extend the assignment for some students, have them help struggling students, giving me more time to devote to the ELL and other struggling students. 

I clearly stated my expectations and challenging standards during my introduction to the lesson and reiterated them during the students’ independent work.  We had time to finish this entire lesson and the students met my objectives.  I judged whether the students met my objectives by looking over their paragraphs for formatting and content after the students printed them.

Although the lesson went well and was a success overall, there are a few things I would do differently.  I would have liked to have the students center a title for their paragraph, What I am Thankful For, with their name, By …,  also centered under it.  I feel that this would have made their paragraphs look like more polished pieces.  I also feel that I did not stress the importance of punctuation as much as I should have.  If I stretched the lesson into two days I would have spent more time on revising and editing their typing.