Elementary Education Program

Department of Teacher Education & Learning Sciences

Formal Observation Reflection

Directions: Complete the reflection questions and submit your response to your observer prior to
having a post-conference to discuss the observation. If a conference is held immediately after the
observation, you will submit your responses to the observer the following day via email.

Name: Claire Griffin Date: 4/13/2021

1. How effective were your instructional strategies? What changes would you make in your
instructional approaches if you taught this lesson again? Why?
- I felt like our instructional strategies were effective. Kay and I made sure to use an activating
strategy which allowed the students to actively think or make a connection to the material that
was going to be presented. By having the students make a connection this allowed us to see
what the students already knew prior to the lesson. Another thing Kay and I did was introduce
some of the vocabulary that the students were going to be using throughout the lesson. Once we
introduced it, we made sure the students were interactively using the words during the lesson. If
I was to teach this lesson again, I would incorporate student movement into the lesson. We
implemented this lesson to first graders so they always have energy. I would have the students
be mobile at some point during instruction to ensure that they are actively engaged in the
lesson. For example, in this lesson I could have think-pair-share but I could make the students
get up and walk to a partner that wasn’t right next to them.

2. Compare how students actually responded to the lesson verses the way you anticipated they would
respond. Explain how you scaffolded or extended students’ thinking.
- Before implementing my lesson plan, I thought that the students would have a background
knowledge on traditions and culture, but it would be mostly limited. I thought that the students
would most likely have a tradition that their family does so this way they can explore the
tradition and hear about other students’ traditions. However, when I was implementing the
lesson, I was presently surprised when some of the students knew more than I was expecting.
One of the students was able to give good example of the vocabulary words that we were
discussing. I was able to scaffold the students’ thinking by encouraging the students to think
about the context we were talking about. I also used opened-ended questions to extend their
thinking. I would ask for example, “can you tell me more about that?” or “can you explain that
a little more for me?”

3. Describe how you assessed whether your students achieved the objective of the lesson. Was this
effective? If not, what would you change about your assessment?
- Students will be able to explain how people’s lives are often shaped by different values and
traditions, as seen in the learning exercise. Students will explore their family traditions as well
as listen to their classmates. As the “teacher” I will listen to the whole group discussion to
formatively assess students’ thinking. After the read aloud, students will brainstorm the types
of traditions they have within their families in their journals. Each student will choose a
specific tradition and makes their family’s “crayon” unique. Our assessment plan for the
targeted learning objective will be accessing the students on the worksheet that they will turn in
at the end of the task and by observing them as they are talking to their peers about their
traditions to make sure they are using the correct vocabulary. From both our classroom
 Elementary Education Program
Department of Teacher Education & Learning Sciences

discussion and as well as looking at the students’ worksheet, I was able to assess that the
students achieved the objective of the lesson.

4. How effectively did you motivate your students, set and enforce expectations, and handle
transitions? Would you change anything and if so, why?
- Setting high expectations and supporting students as they struggle allows learners to rise to
meet those expectations. Our cooperating teacher sets high expectations for her students each
and every day, which we continued when we were teaching this lesson. At the beginning of the
lesson, we laid out our learning objectives and our expectations of the students. We were able
to get the students to be motivated by allowing the students to discuss together. After they had
created their crayon, we allowed each and every student to come to the front of the class to
 Elementary Education Program
Department of Teacher Education & Learning Sciences

show off their crayon and what their family tradition was. The students were motivated to show
off their artistic ability and their unique crayon that represented their family.

5. Did you make modifications to your lesson plan during the lesson? If so, what were they and what
motivated these changes?
- We did not make any modifications to our lesson plan during the lesson.

6. How did you meet your Teaching Behavior Focus? If you did not meet it, what would help you to
meet it next time?
- We met our Teaching Behavior Focus by allowing students to discuss with their classmates
their family tradition, this fostered student engagement through discussion. Also, we accounted
for students’ prior knowledge and experience before the lesson to get a sense of where the
students were on the topic traditions. After listening to the book, The Crayon Box That Talked
by Shane DeRolf, Kay and I asked many questions to connect student learning to the idea that
each person and family is different and this is what makes each and every one of our family’s
unique.