EDE 4941

Rachel Porter
29, November 2015
Supervisor Observation 2
Strengths
My lesson was on how students can express emotions through movement
and body language. One of my strengths was connecting this lesson to the one I
taught the previous week. My previous lesson was on a visual art, drawing. The
students drew a portrait of another student, parent, teacher, or a self-portrait.
During this lesson I introduced the vocabulary term media then proceeded to ask
the students what media they were using to complete their portraits. This lesson
connected as dance is another form of art, but the media used is our bodies. I
also explained the purpose of the lesson so the students understood why we
were completing this activity. This, in addition to a lesson hook increases
student engagement and participation. Students often desire to know the
purpose of doing an activity before they participate in it.
Throughout the lesson there were several points of transition in-between
displaying different emotions and ideas. I then needed to capture the classes
attention quickly to move on through the lesson. When I called out, boys and
girls the students quieted down very quickly. I also used a technique the
students are familiar with, the teacher puts her finger on her nose and the
students copy this action. Then she says, drop it down to you mouth and then
does so. This prompts the students to think through the process of quieting their
mouths to listen to the speaker. When I used this technique the students quieted
down quickly and listened to the next direction. Lastly, the movement throughout
the whole lesson provided a kind of brain break. Brain breaks help students
release pent up energy and a desire to move about before sitting back down to
focus on schoolwork. Studies show that brain breaks improve student
engagement during instruction time. This was very helpful as after my lesson the
students sat down to write about a story just read. The movement gave the
kindergarteners just the break they needed before returning to language arts.
Improvements
For the different things I need to improve upon, firstly there is behavior
management. I noticed during the video that my collaborating teacher walked
over towards the group and told one or two students to follow directions. In the
future I will be teaching without the support of another and even if I was coteaching, I need to improve on quickly correcting students. This could mean

enforcing the classroom behavior chart and asking students to pull-down their
clips. Another approach would be to greatly praise students who are following
directions and making good choices. When one student was repeatedly not
following directions I should have asked him to go pull his clip down. Before his
behavior repeated I should have praised students who were on task, and done
so again after he was causing a disruption. I noticed throughout the day that
when I highly praised his good behavior he was on task and following directions
longer. As a teacher I will be the authority in the classroom, and as a pre-service
teacher I do have authority over students. This authority should never be abused,
of course, but I do need to exercise it when students are making poor choices
and not allow the behavior to continue.
Another improvement would be to have a list of predetermined vocabulary
words. These words are to be introduced to the students one at a time and
reinforced daily or weekly. During class when students are cutting and pasting
pieces of paper to sort into sections, they can be asked what kind of media they
are using. When walking through the halls or during regular class discussion
when the rules are referenced, I could ask students what is the appropriate or
right way to express emotions. I can introduce what words like express and
communicate mean when using them. This could include the students providing
me with their definition followed by me telling them the actual definition. The
vocabulary can be added to the word wall and I would reference it on the word
wall whenever using or talking about the vocabulary. Then these words would
enter their speaking vocabulary and some would enter their writing vocabulary.
Re-Teaching
If I were to teach this lesson I would increase my lesson time. I felt rushed
and then rushed the lesson. While I taught the lesson according to my plan, it
would have been much better with an extra five to ten minutes. This would allow
for collaboration among the students. As a second portion of the lesson students
would stand around the classroom in pairs. The first student would choose an
emotion and try to express it through body language. Then the second student
would verbally identify or guess the emotion and provide a reaction to the first
student. After the first student identifies the reaction, the process begins again
with the second student starting. My CT and I would be able to walk around the
room and check off those who were participating while also asking questions.
This whole process could take seven to ten minutes based on student
engagement. Once each student has had at least two turns going first, the
teacher my discern whether to end or continue the activity. Finally if I taught this
lesson again I would tell disruptive students to pull their clips down and praise
on-task students.