Good afternoon Ms.

Harriott,

 It was great getting to visit you during your reading lesson with your third-grade students. The
research work you were doing with the students supported the work they have been doing with
their classroom teacher. It was evident that you have done a great deal of planning and
collaborating with the teachers of the students you serve. You began your lesson by having
students discuss and describe the genre of books they have been reading for this unit. Students
were able to identify the genre as non-fiction and were able to determine that the importance
of this genre is to provide the reader with information regarding a specific topic. By providing
the students with guiding questions, you helped support them with their conversations. You
utilized a strategy discussed during one of our TC pd sessions on how to get students engaged
in the discussion. Rather than allow the same students to respond you called upon students like
Abdullah and asked if they could help us figure out what to do next. This provided the students
with equal opportunities to become involved in the conversation. It also let them know that the
expectation is to contribute to the conversation. It was clear that you
implemented feedback from the previous observation by engaging more students in the
discussion during your lesson.

Additional highlights include:

 A clear focus of the objective for the day's lesson which was: Strong researchers ask
questions. " Today you will think of a question you have that you cannot find the answer
to in the book you are reading. You will need to develop a theory."
 Utilized the TC video to show how strong researchers ask "why" and "how "questions to
gather important information to form these theories. Teacher paused video to ask,
"What kind of questions are we asking?" Abdullah replies, "Why or why not questions."
 Teacher provided students with a few possible sentence starters to use..."Could it be
that... maybe it's because..

 Teacher modelled a think aloud, "I wonder why some animals live in warm places and
some animals live in cold places."
 Teacher generated a chart of "why or why not" questions to support students with this
work. Teachers reminded students to remember all they know about penguins and go
back to their jots for ideas.
 After model, the teacher asked students to rate her questions. " Do you think I asked
good questions? Why do you think so? and Did I use that text to answer that question?"
 Teacher then had students practice in their own books by going onto Epic and looking
for another text to support their topic. The students were asked to begin gathering
information to support their theories. Teacher also reminded students of resources they
could use if they forget what to do. All charts and tools were added to grade Padlet.
 Teacher then conducted individual conferences with students to engage where they
were in this work. In one of her conferences, the teacher worked with Juan on his text
 about Komodo Dragons. She asked guided questions about his topic and reviewed the
question he posed, "Why do Komodo Dragons have long tongues?" 
 The teacher supported Juan's thinking by asking him to reflect on what he knows about
a Komodo's tongue. Then she challenged him to read more and revise his theory as he
learns additional information. One powerful move was getting students up and running
and going from student to student to coach into where they were in this process.