My Technology-Enhanced Lesson

For my technology-enhanced lesson, I reviewed the parts of plants with my first grade class using I-Clickers. Prior to the lesson, I designed a review in the CPS program for clickers that Deerfield elementary uses. Some of the questions I entered only had 3 choices. Others had 4. Three of the fifteen questions were left without pictures, but the majority of the questions had a picture illustrating the concept I was quizzing at that moment. The formatting and set-up of each question was slightly different too maintain interest from all of my students. In order to do this, I placed the picture in a different spot when compared to the question base and the answer choices. For the actual lesson, each student was given an I-clicker. I used an LCD projector to project the questions onto the screen so that all students could see it. I read each question to the class with the options. After the question was read, the students were able to select which answer they thought was correct, then set down their controller on their desk to show they were ready and remove the tempation to continue pushing buttons. After all students had answered, I ended the question, showed the class the correct answer and the number who answered it correctly. This allowed each student to monitor their own progress and knowledge/understanding. If there were a large number who got the answer wrong, I explained the correct answer and why that was the right answer. At the end of the lesson, students brought their clicker back up to the front of the room to be put away.
Prior to this activity with the class, I tested out the system to make sure it worked. This turned out to be a great idea since my mentor teacher's computer (which I was using for the activity) was not recognizing the response system. After several attempts to get this to work, I ended up emailing the file to the facilitator's computer to use during the lesson. During my first attempt of the lesson with the students, the pictures would not work from the faciliators computer. For this reason, I only did the questions without pictures that day and downloaded the files onto that computer as well and then completed the rest of the questions the following day with the class. All in all it was a great success and the students really enjoyed it!