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Spider Maps

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Nan Miller’s spider web organization tool was helpful for her lower level reading and writing students, however, if Nan differentiated insher truction, provided more redundancy, and engaged all her students, her lesson would have been more successful. Nan remained optimistic that using spider maps would be a challenging and fun way to assist her students to organize their thoughts before writing, and she brought her excitement and enthusiasm into the classroom. This is extremely important because “Students consistently learn more and appreciate the content more when teachers display enthusiasm in their teaching” (Mastropieri & Scruggs, 82). Another positive aspect of her lesson was that she gave her students positive reinforcement and encouragement. …show more content…

While she did check for understanding by asking the class “are you with me?” throughout her explanation, Nan received numerous individual questions from her students asking for clarification after the instructional portion of the lesson (page 105). To create a better learning experience for her class, Nan should start implementing systematic teaching principals such as employing redundancy to better assist her students who struggle with completing the spider map. Many students “require additional opportunities to hear, see, and practice lessons before mastering objectives,” and because of this, some students in the lower level reading groups would benefit from more repetition in their instruction (Mastropieri & Scruggs, 81). One way Nan could implement more redundancy would be to create an example spider map with the class focusing on a room all students are familiar with, such as the classroom. By creating a spider map together, students not only would be able to practice developing their organizational skills, but the clarity of the lesson also improves as students are able to ask questions as the lesson progresses. In addition to this, Nan could have students such as Jason, who have high organizational skills assist struggling students. Doing this also helps differentiate her lesson as it allows students who have mastered this skill to solidify their

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