PSIII: Lesson Observation Form

Date: Mar. 6, 2018

Intern Teacher: Brittany Sander

School: Crestwood

Lesson Focus: Celebrations – cross-cultural

University Consultant/Instructor: James Rempel

Outcomes for Lesson – Alberta Program of Studies and Ministerial Order Competencies
All in place

Lesson Maintain... Think about...

Segments
Beginning  Clear lead-in about focus of the period 
 Review of expectations - working with the
pieces that they want to be conscious of as
they continue with building their presentation
work. Nicely done! This kind of front-end
loading of expectation with exemplars on the
Smartboard is tailor-made to prepare them for
success!
 Having the students reflect on the exemplars
– building student voice and student reflection
on standards for their own work.

Middle  Smooth flowing into their individual project 

work on the celebrations – getting the
Chromebooks and their project booklets.
 Loved how you talked about how next day
there would be a peer revising of their
projects – this collaboration is so important
(where students are building and working with
the standards to judge their own and each
other’s’ work – what a way to build intrinsic
motivation to be critical of one’s work!).
 Their attentiveness was wonderful – the
collaborative support of their table groups
really empowered a number of them (from
technological to content to aesthetic
considerations). Isn’t collaboration a
wonderful dynamic!
 Having the project set up as an individual
presentation, supported by the collaboration
of their table groups, gave each of them a
challenge. And, your highly intentional
provision of a presentation piece at the end to
celebrate each of their learning was just
excellent! We need to make our learning
meaningful by providing ways of sharing the
results of our work (Dewey would really stress
this).
 Loved how you stressed that their
collaborative helping was not to be a copying
from another, but a supportive enabling.
Bravo!
  Your wonderfully supportive, positive
presence animated the room. Their
interactions with each other are clearly so
colored by your approach – they were really
kind and supportive with their table group
partners. As you circulate you take the time to
connect, to tease, to support, to direct, and
this level of relational connection speaks
volumes to them.
 Their level of independence and willingness
to work through fairly high-level material
speaks to a highly intentional setting of
climate. To be willing to have a personal
growth mindset takes a climate that
celebrates challenges and working to build
capacity. Also, their acceptance of diversity
as they reflected on these various religious
celebrations speaks of a climate that you
have helped to create. (I asked you about this
later and you spoke about the preliminary
work that you did with creating diversity
thinking in the room – so good to hear).
 The students are willing to gently/supportively
correct fellow students – that is the sign of a
true building of intrinsic motivation to build a
community climate in the classroom! I just
loved how you supported this in one instance
by quietly acknowledging what one student
had said to another, not adding any of your
own correction – wow!
 This project, with the pre-set screen prompts
for students, and yet the need to find the
appropriate info for each screen, builds a
wonderful combo of scaffolding along with
independent research. For grade 3 this
seems like a very necessary approach to
research (a high-level skill).
 Loved how you stopped the class in the
middle of their work and used a student
exemplar of where they had added their own
ideas to the info they had pulled from the
booklet – this is so excellent! When you do
this kind of contextual prompt for them using
student work you will find that almost
everyone will pick up on it because it is a
timely piece of input, and because you used a
student’s work as inspiration!

End  Don’t you love the groans when you said that
time was done for today – that certainly says
a lot! The one girl was so into it she blurted
out “no!”
 Again, a wonderfully organized approach to
the putting away of computers and booklets.
 Taking the time for a great bit of closure –
think/pair/share on the most exciting thing to
emerge from their research on their
celebration (using popsicle sticks for the big
sharing, because of time considerations).
What a great way to honor the incredible
learning in this period and to create huge
amounts of student voice.