Commitment to Student Learning

For this commitment, I used the first lesson I ever taught. This lesson was a part of a unit
of three lessons I taught on Newtons Three Laws. This specific lesson was Newtons First Law.
To find out what exactly my students needed to know, and what they already knew, I gave a
diagnostic assessment before I began my unit. This diagnostic assessment assessed the material
for all three lessons.
Since I chose to only focus on the first lesson for this commitment, I picked out the
portions on the diagnostic assessment that were important to know and understand for Newtons
First Law. These questions were questions 1, 3, 4, 5, and 6. I explained in my data-based
decision making what portion of the class missed each of these questions, and why it was
important for these students to understand the question.
After making decisions from my diagnostic assessment, I took my formative assessment
(Newtons First Law: Inertia Lab Sheet) and analyzed the scores. I found that all students got
every answer correct on my formative assessment except for the last question. Only two students
from each class missed these questions. For first period, one possible reason the students missed
the question was because they were disengaged. For second period, one possible reason the
students missed this question was because they may have run out of time to answer the
questions. Either way, this made me realize that I needed to reinforce this question before
beginning my second lesson on Newtons Second Law the next day. This question asked the
students how the lab they did in the lesson related to Newtons First Law.
After teaching, I made self-reflections on my lesson. I knew that my strengths of the
lesson were that I made the content relative to the students so that they could understand what
Newtons Law states. I also realized that students learn when they are engaged. The amount of
participation I had during both periods I taught this lab was impressive. The introduction I gave
in this lesson really helped to capture what I wanted the students to understand from the lab, and
it also helped them understand what was happening during the lab. Informally assessing students
during a lab is very important so that misconceptions can be cleared up with a visual explanation.
I realized that I needed to strengthen my classroom management skills, especially in first period.