Semester: Spring 2021

Student Teacher: Alethea Seaman

School: Shelby High School
Clinical Educator: Jamie Dunaway
University Supervisor: Jason Willis

Summary of Observation Notes and Suggestions

Observation 1:
Great job, Alli! I am impressed by how comfortable you are in the classroom. You did not
appear nervous at all and you have already built a good rapport with the students.

An area of improvement that I would suggest is to push harder for mathematical discourse with
students. Don't be afraid to stretch them with probing questions even if it may seem too much
for some of them. An example I thought of while watching your lesson was about the triangle
angle sum theorem. You asked students if they had heard that the sum of the angles in a
triangle added up to 180 degrees. Some students responded with a yes. You could have probed
them and asked them if they really believe that is true for every triangle ever created or could
be created. That could have led to an opportunity to have each student draw their own triangle,
cut it out, cut off the angles, and place them all next to each other. Then have students share
their combined angles and discuss what happened. Hopefully they will notice that everyone's
angles made a straight line. This could lead to a discussion about proof. Even though all their
specific triangles pointed to the theorem being true, it is not enough to say it is true for every
triangle. Of course, the natural question that should come up next is, how do we prove it is true
for every triangle.

Sorry it took me a while to get the video watched and the feedback posted. You can now work
on your observation reflection. Go back and watch your own video and find areas to improve as
well as seeing what good work you have done.
Observation 2:
Strengths:

-Connecting with students through a discussion about French and showing off your second-
language skills
-You did a great job of laying out the schedule for the class period so students know what to
expect.
-Providing a template for proof corrections was evidence of good planning.
-Your activity of "math hospital" is a clever way of getting students engaged at higher levels on
Bloom's taxonomy.
-You ask probing questions to encourage appropriate mathematical discourse.
-You asked students about their thinking concerning the activity, a good metacognitive strategy.
Suggestions:

Your students were engaged and listening and seem to be a well-behaved group of students. It
may be helpful to "reward" them with a quick reprieve from sitting and listening with some
type of activity that gets them up and moving around just a bit, such as a quick 5-minute task
that gets students to locate and touch a physical example of perpendicular lines (where two
walls meet in the corner) and then ask them what specific drawing could model that physical
example and what conclusions could be made. You could lead them into to a discussion about
whether we say the walls are perpendicular because they meet to form a 90 degree angle or if
we say the walls form a 90 degree angle because they are perpendicular, getting at the essence
of a definition.
Observation 3:
This is one of the best designed activities I have seen carried out in a lesson. You have evidence
for many standards in this activity including:

-evidence of planning, setting up the stations and delivering well-planned directions for
students to complete the activity

-it was an engaging lesson that tied concepts together with a practical application

-you included a cultural example of how different countries use different measurement
systems, you named the countries that use the same measurement system of the US

A suggestion I have for this lesson would be to let the students figure out why there may be
some issues with using this measuring process with scoreboard station. Instead of pointing out
that they need to add some distance because of the hill would be a great critical
thinking/problem solving situation. You could be on hand at that station to watch what
students do (do they take into consideration that if they just measure to the edge of track that
the height measurement will not be accurate). You can leave students hanging and not really
help out. Notice and jot down specific groups that may have figured this out correctly and call
on that group to share their ideas when you get to the debrief of the activity. It is ok for
students to struggle with this and not get it correct. That is where real learning will take place -
in the struggle of figuring out how mistakes in the measurements will have drastic effects on
the calculations.
Great lesson!
Observation 4:
This lesson went well and I like the hands-on application of the trig concepts.

A suggestion I would make for this lesson wrap-up would be to make a connection between the
two outside activities. using the mirror and similar triangles makes use of fact that
corresponding sides are in proportion (equivalent ratios). Since all similar triangles that could
possibly be made with the right triangle representing the inaccessible distance, the measure of
the angle is not important as long as the angles are congruent. The ratio of the triangles’ side
lengths are the important part hence we define that specific ratio as the sine, cosine, or
tangent. When we write the proportion a/b = c/d we substitute the ratio a/b with a trig
expression that connects the ratio with an angle of a triangle. Students do not typically make
this connection and that's why trig seems foreign or made up when students are first exposed
to it.

Remember to take the last few minutes of class to do some type of debriefing or reflecting
activity to help students think about what they did or learned in the lesson.

This seems to be a great class. You are doing a nice job with your students and have built a
productive rapport with them. Kudos!!
Observation 5:
Because of this Covid semester and the short amount of time you actually can deliver direct
instruction, I understand having to lecture for the majority of the class time. When things
return to normal, remember that students need an activity change every so often. I could see
doing something like a think, pair, share activity thrown in between each factoring technique.
Show them how to do a specific factoring problem, then have students work with a partner to
do a similar problem. Have them think about it individually for a short time, then share their
result with a partner. Then do a quick assessment of how many got it correct by raising their
hands (formative assessment letting you know if you need to repeat the activity with a new
problem or ready to teach a new factoring technique).

It is difficult to tell with a video, but all your students seem to be tracking with you, and it
doesn't look like you have any issues with disruptive students.

Your instruction is procedural, which is necessary for this topic, but don't forget to include
some conceptual components as well. Help them understand why it is important to be able to
factor polynomials. Here is a website with some examples (you probably have examples in the
textbook): http://www.montereyinstitute.org/courses/Algebra1/U10L2T1_RESOURCE/topicTex
t.html
Express to your students that factoring is a specific tool used for solving lots of problems in
many fields. A visual diagram may help them place where factoring fits in the puzzle: