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Department of Teacher Education & Learning Sciences Elementary Education Program Formal Observation Reflection
Department of Teacher Education & Learning Sciences Elementary Education Program Formal Observation Reflection
Department of Teacher Education & Learning Sciences Elementary Education Program Formal Observation Reflection
5. How effectively did you use instructional materials, resources, and/or technology?
I would say that I was able to use instructional materials generally effectively, we really
only made use of the white board and our book. I think that my organization of the board went
well as we mimicked our mentor teachers general anchor chart practices, simply using the
whiteboard in place of an anchor chart. We did hang the resulting poster on the board so all the
students could see and provide their chameleon to the collective work which went well!
6. To what extent were your assessment strategies effective? What changes would
you make in your assessment approach if you taught this lesson again? Why?
I think that our assessment strategies, conversing with students, were effective, as we
were able to get in depth answers by talking to the students and tailoring our questions to their
individual understandings. I think that we could have changed the assessment approach by
having them produce something that showed that they understood how their specific sets of
diverse beliefs, thoughts, etc. contributed value to our classroom.
7. To what extent was your feedback to students accurate, substantive, constructive,
specific, and/or timely?
I think that my feedback to students was accurate substantive, constructive, specific, and
timely because it was given to them verbally and concisely, immediately after their responses,
they were able to ask follow up questions and participate with dialogue with myself and my
mentor teacher/ partner teacher throughout the lesson, helping them deepen their individual
understandings of diversity.
8. To what extent did the classroom management and environment contribute to
student learning? (Consider your classroom procedures, your use of physical space, and
the students conduct.)
I think that although we did have some students that chose to have questionable actions
throughout the lesson, the classroom management throughout the lesson contributed to student
learning as they were able to focus and contribute to the learnings of the lesson as a
collaborative group, there were not many transitions to deal with, and students were able to
offer participation in a variety of ways.
9. Did you make modifications to your lesson plan during the lesson? If so, what
were they and what motivated these changes?
We chose to just have students color their chameleons in a unique way- not as a
representation of themselves as we were running out of time and the concepts of symbolism
and meanings associated with that activity would have required more time than we ended up
having with the length of our preliminary discussion. Additionally, we added a sort of ceremony
to adding our chameleons to our poster, showing students the differences and similarities in the
chameleons that they chose to color. We also chose to have a more paired down closing
discussion, wrapping up the diversity and classroom community points, but also allowing
students to contribute individual ideas about what they had learned from the lesson. Finally we
chose not to implement the extension activity as we taught on a Friday and would not be seeing
students for over a week.
10. Was your Teaching Behavior Focus goal met?
I believe that my teaching behavior focus goal was met, as I was able to practice paraphrasing
students verbal content at various times during the lesson, not only individually but also as a
collective or for multiple students. It was an extremely helpful practice because not only was I
able to better understand the points that students were trying to get across, but also allow for
other students to better understand their peers points by putting them into different phrasing.
Although it seems like a simple behavior focus, it can be difficult trying to stay true to what the
student is trying to put across without changing their intention to meet the meaning of your
lesson, however, it could be an opportunity to assess whether students are getting the meaning
out of the lesson that you intend for them to as a teacher.