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Running Head: Portfolio Reflection

Written Reflection for Module Two

Chalsey Slaughterbeck

Arizona State University

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Running Head: Portfolio Reflection
Deep and Surface Level Learning

Creating lessons that are both engaging and content focused is an important role for an

educator. Tying literacy into these lessons is equally as important of a role because students need

to be able to understand and retain this information. Mixing these two important aspects is what

Module 2 was all about, and in order to do so, we need to be able to find the perfect resource to

utilize. These types of resources utilize something called deeper learning, and according to Elliot

Self, “Deep learning promotes the qualities children need for success by building complex

understanding and meaning rather than focusing on the learning of superficial knowledge that

can today be gleaned through search engines” (Self 2008). It is this transition from superficial

knowledge to deeper learning that is happening alongside this new age of technology and

disciplinary literacy. We as educators need to be able to utilize deeper learning in our lessons and

activities so that students participate in learning that is meaningful and useful.

Engagement and Motivation

The lessons that tend to speak the most to students are those that are engaging, and it is

this engagement that creates a motivation to learn within the students. Often times within my

internship experiences, I have seen first hand how students will check out of school whenever the

content is boring or unrelatable to them. It is very hard to get these same students interested in

learning after they’ve already checked out. “These students need to talk, write, and connect the

content to what they already know to make sense of the material on the page. Other students do

not see the relevance of the assigned reading to their lives and are not interested in putting forth

the effort to complete the task” (Irvine, Meltzer, Dukes, 2007). This is where disciplinary literacy

plays a part into the conversation. Within my content area, English, many times the stories that

they are reading about and trying to make connections to don’t relate to them at all. It is hard for
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Running Head: Portfolio Reflection
us as educators to ask students to connect to material that they don’t even connect to at all. This

is why we need to move away from this thinking and start making learning more personal

Face to Face and Digital Learning Environments

Reflecting on everything that has gone on this past year, I don’t think teachers have ever

had to go through such a quick and radical change. With the switch from face to face learning to

digital/online, nothing has ever been more of a challenge that teachers have faced. It has really

made me reflect on whether or not I would feel prepared if I had graduated and had to spend my

first-year teaching in an all online environment. The reason that this is such a challenge for

educators is that they can’t collaborate the same way they used to. The whole classroom

environment is different, and teachers have had to find new ways to get students to collaborate in

a digital environment. This is where digital tools such as zoom breakout rooms, Padlet, and

Kahoot come in handy.

Formative Assessments and Text Complexity

Formative assessments are great to use for more complex texts. Depending on your

content area, the level of difficulty can vary. Based on what I’ve learned in this module,

formative assessments are great to use to check for understanding, activate prior knowledge, or

use as a reflection. According to Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey,

“Instead of focusing on individual assessments, teachers who want to link assessment with
instruction must create a formative assessment system, which includes four phases: feed up by
establishing learning purposes, check for understanding to monitor learning, provide feedback so
learners can take action, and feed forward by planning future instruction (Frey & Fisher, 2011;
Hattie & Timperley, 2007)” (Fisher, Frey, 2014).

This process is key in providing instruction that is cumulative of everything that the student has

learned. This process involves all of the stages of learning and allows for feedback. This
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Running Head: Portfolio Reflection
feedback is what will help the students absorb what they are learning and apply it to their lives

both inside and outside of school.

Planning for Instruction

To reflect on what we have done so far, and our progress with our interdisciplinary lesson

plans, planning for instruction is a crucial and critical part of creating content for students. Using

our lesson as an example, planning took a long time and was crucial to the implementation of our

lesson. According to Archie Hill,

“Allowing students to explore solutions to their problem creates a classroom environment that is
amenable to openness and student autonomy, which promotes student motivation, reading, and
academic achievement (Guthrie, 2001; Lattimer & Riordan, 2011; Morrow 1996; Morrow &
Young, 1997)

This is exactly what happens in an interdisciplinary lesson. To give an example, Dion and I

decided to do our lesson on pop culture in the 1980s. This lesson featured content that aligned

with both English and History standards for 11th-12th graders. In our planning, we implemented

multiple activities that allowed students to explore the information they needed on their own, and

then applied what they knew in an overarching project.

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Running Head: Portfolio Reflection
References

Fisher, D., & Frey, N. (2014, May). Assessments that Highlight Strengths and Weaknesses.

Retrieved November 28, 2020, from

https://secondaryliteracies.files.wordpress.com/2015/06/assessments-strengths-

challenges.pdf

Hill, A. E. (2014, March). Using Interdisciplinary, Project-Based, Multimodal Activities to

Facilitate Literacy Across the Content Areas. Retrieved November 28, 2020, from

https://ila-onlinelibrary-wiley-com.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/doi/pdfdirect/10.1002/jaal.270

Irvine, J. L., Meltzer, J., & Dukes, M. S. (2007). Chapter 1. Student Motivation,

Engagement, and Achievement. Retrieved November 28, 2020, from

http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/107034/chapters/Student-Motivation,-

Engagement,-and-Achievement.aspx

Self, E. (2018, October 16). What is Deep Learning? Who are the Deep Learning Teachers?

Retrieved November 28, 2020, from https://inservice.ascd.org/what-is-deep-learning-

who-are-the-deep-learning-teachers/