Important Instructional and Assessment Tools - Essay Example

Teaching methods: Literacy and Elementary Reading Explain why pre- and post-questioning are important instructional and assessment tools Pre-testing helps put students in an anticipatory mood just before reading content. The anticipatory mood improves student’s ability to grasp the content and understand effectively. Pre-testing also instills learning objectives in the student’s mind, which in turn increases the student’s desire to solve a problem or to understand a given concept. Post-testing enables the student to evaluate their learning progress. It helps students to discover areas where they have not exhausted. For instructors, pre-testing helps in preparing their students for the learning objectives. Pre-testing can be administered at every stage of learning process to cue students to the concepts to be mastered. Instructors use pre-testing to invoke students’expectation, which is an important ingredient in concept learning. Instructors use post-testing to monitor the leaning progress for students. Post-testing is also a useful tool to determine the differences in learning process between students. It reveals fast learners and slow-learners. This helps the instructor to adjust accordingly to accommodate all types of learners, (Kormos, 2008). At administrative level, curriculum developers monitor the effectiveness of their programs using post-testing results. The results also help them adjust their curriculum to improve individual student performance. By adjusting their programs, they can develop model curriculum used to develop other programs. Explain what the cognitive domain of Bloom’s Taxonomy is and how it relates to critical reading skills Cognitive Domain of Bloom’s Taxonomy is a sequence of recognition learning process that involves six stages in the order of increasing difficulty. The stages imply that the learning process cannot begin at an advanced stage before the preceding one is mastered. The stages are knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis and finally evaluation, (Price & Nelson, 2010). At knowledge level, the learner is expected to have the ability to remember and state previously learnt information or data. Other learner’s abilities that characterizes learners at this stage include ability to describe, to define, to identify, to outline, to reproduce, to label, to list and to know. At comprehension stage of learning, a learner is expected to understand and infer problem or concept and to express given information in one’s own terms. The abilities that characterizes learners at this stage include being able to paraphrase, to infer, to interpret, to rewrite differently the same concept, to explain to convert and to predict. The third stage is the application of the concept. It involves the use of the concept in solving a new and related problem. This is the application of theory into real life situation. Characteristics of learners at this stage include ability to compute, manipulate, operate, predict, relate, modify and produce. At analysis level, the learner is expected to separate the concept into facts and inferences in the real world, the learner at this stage has the ability to diagnose a system and identify sources of malfunction. For a problem, the learner should be able to understand the meaning through inference or interpolation. Some of the abilities of learners at this stage include ability to differentiate, to deconstruct, to relate and to infer. The fifth stage is referred to as the synthesis level. Here the learner is expected to draw diverse elements and build a working whole. In real life, the learner is expected to design a machine to do a given function. The learner is also expected to improve a process by redesigning the entire or part of a system. The last stage of cognitive learning process is the evaluation stage. This stage requires learners to be able to decipher and make decisions on ideas, concepts or materials. At this stage, the learner is expected to appraise and make the best selection out of the many alternatives. He or she should be able to defend objectively the selection. Characteristics of learners at this stage of learning include ability to appraise, to compare, to critique, to evaluate and to justify. Complete the following for a selected work of children’s literature: Identify the children’s literature selection you have chosen (Gelb, 2001) Gelb, S. (2001). Kids Story Book: The Lost Little Sheep, The Feisty Bird: Two Stories Using Reading Words Kids Should Know. iUniverse. Summarize the chosen children’s literature selection Section 1 of the book (pg1-22) It was a nice day marked by cloudless blue skies. A little sheep stands in the backyard alone at a corner. It had a bell and a leather collar with brass nameplate. A boy and a girl approaches the sheep and argue over who saw it first. They each claim possession of the sheep. Their mother arrived and tried to stop them from fighting over the sheep. They each turned to the mom to seek intervention, each one of them claiming ownership. The little girl adored the sheep while the boy wanted to ride on it. The girl wanted to walk him with a yellow and red ribbon tied around the neck she wanted to have fun by making the sheep run and jump. The boy on the other hand wanted to make the little sheep pull his wagon. The girl opposed this and wanted to feed him on grass. The boy wanted to show him to his friends. The boy wanted to name him spotty because he had many black and brown spots on his white fur. The girl on the other hand wanted to name him Marky because he had marks and not spots. She could count the marks. The little girl wanted to make him sit, fetch and jumped. She also wanted to sing to him. The boy also wanted to take care of him to feed him, clean him and run with him. They both wanted to keep him inside but their mom refused saying that he would feel hot inside the house. Their mom also said they could not keep him inside because city health laws do not allow farm animals inside the house. The children suggested making a little house in the yard. The girl fed him on grass and he ate it all. The boy tried feeding him grass but he ran away. The boy ran after him to catch him be he disappeared under a tree branch.They wanted to feed him on water so that they may catch him. They succeeded to catch him and the little children started claiming him again. Their mom said they could not keep him because he belonged to someone else. The collar on the sheep’s neck read City Zoo where the sheep came from. Their mom reported to the city zoo to come and collect him. The little girl felt sad. In the end, they all agreed to visit the sheep in the zoo where they saw many other animals. Include a set of three pre-reading and six-post reading questions based on the children’s literature selection of your choice Pre-reading questions a) What was the little sheep doing in the yard alone? b) Where was the little sheep? c) How was the day looking like? Post-reading questions a) Why were the little girl and the little boy fighting? b) Why their mother did come to the yard? c) Why did the little girl want to keep the sheep? d) Why did the little boy/girl want to keep the sheep? e) Why did the little girl/boy name the sheep marky/spotty? f) Who between them gave the correct name? Why? g) Give two reasons why the mother refused to have the sheep kept inside the house Identify which level of Bloom’s Taxonomy is represented for each question you write Question Level What was the little sheep doing in the yard alone? Knowledge Where was the little sheep? Knowledge How was the day looking like? Knowledge Why was the little girl and boy fighting? Analysis Why did their mother come to the yard? Synthesis Why did the little boy/girl want to keep the sheep? Comprehension Why did the little girl/boy name the sheep marky/spotty? Synthesis Who gave the correct name? Why? Evaluation Give two reasons why the mother refused to keep the sheep Comprehension Reference Gelb, S. (2001). Kids Story Book: The Lost Little Sheep, The Feisty Bird: Two Stories Using Reading Words Kids Should Know. iUniverse. Kormos, J. (2008). Language Learners with Special Needs: An International Perspective. Multilingual Matters. Price, K. M., & Nelson, K. L. (2010). Planning Effective Instruction: Diversity Responsive Methods and Management. (4, Ed.) Cengage Learning. Read More