Angela Root

March 31, 2016

Setting:
Angelas topic today was: What makes the weather change? Class began with the
Daily Prep on the white board. Instructions for the students were also on the board
to help them prepare for todays activities. Many activities and demonstrations were
provided for the students as they continued their learning about weather fronts.
Strengths:

o Angela was engaging, interesting, and personable while working with

the students.
o By showing and discussing the What are we doing today? slide,
Angela fully prepared the students for learning and setting her
expectations.
o Angela continued to show a great deal of confidence and control over
the classroom. She has consistently demonstrated her competence in
her management of the students and the instructional activities. Her
awareness of timing and flow is efficient and impressive.
o Angela was very effective in her use of questioning techniques. She is
skilled at leading the students to the correct conclusions without just
lecturing or giving them the answers. This encouraged them to use
their own reasoning and critical thinking.
o The students responded positively to the interactive elements
throughout instruction. Her use of models promoted clarity and
understanding for the students.
o Angela is very likable as a teacher. She smiles often, laughs and
jokes appropriately with the students, gives them positive responses to
their comments, gives clarifications for students in an encouraging
way, and has an enthusiastic spirit while instructing. Her nurturing,
energetic attitude inspires the students to want to learn from her.
o She continued to provide a safe and comfortable learning environment
that promoted open communication with students, was very studentcentered, incorporated technology effectively, and implemented best
practices for middle level learners.
o She used current models of wind maps and isobar maps on the white
board to demonstrate the content she was teaching. The students
were very interested in the wind map that displayed up-to-the-minute
wind movement in the United States.
o Angela used a variety of weather-related maps to lead the students
through compare and contrast questions and activities. The students
were not just reading about weather, they were forming their own
conclusions and deeper levels of comprehension by actively analyzing
and interpreting a variety of maps. They were required to use the data
from one map to interpret the data on other maps, and vice versa.
Very impressive and effective use of an inquiry approach!

o Using demonstrations and modeling exercises to learn small portions of

information at a time was an effective technique noted specifically
within Angelas rationale for todays lesson. The students have been
actively involved in recording and analyzing data, evaluating patterns,
and scaffolding their learning day-by-day to build and connect new
understanding to prior knowledge.
o By recording and analyzing daily weather conditions, the students were
able to connect the instruction to the own lives through real-world
examples that were relevant to them. This is an important middle level
practice and is developmentally appropriate for her students.
o I was glad to see that Angela was willing to incorporate her CT into her
lesson by asking her to provide additional information about their
topic.
o Angela identified specific academic language needs within her lesson
plans. Her plans were scaffolded well for meeting the developmental
needs of her students.
o The students enjoyed the foldable activity used to reinforce their
knowledge about weather fronts. The use of the animations
demonstrating the various fronts was also visually effective.
o The students loved the Bill Nye weather video clip. Angela stopped it at
key points to relate it to todays activities.
o Angelas lesson plans address the need of the diverse learners in her
classroom. She is cognizant of multiple intelligences and engaging all
of her learners in a wide variety of ways, such as: data observations,
class discussions, modeling, videos, direct instruction, animations, etc.
o Angela continued to be personable and respectful with the students.
She made direct eye contact with each student, was aware of the
importance of personally connecting with the students, and made sure
each student was engaged and attentive.
o Angelas assessment plans assessed the students prior knowledge
through the Daily Prep question and other questions related to
previous lessons. She included plans for formative assessment over
todays instruction, as well as plans for tomorrow to re-assess todays
lesson and future plans for summative assessment.
o She varied her tone, pitch, volume, expression, and overall prosody to
keep the students attention and engagement. She continued to use
vocal variations to promote interest.
o Terrific job of reminding the students that they should not be talking
when you are talking.
o

Angelas explanations of her content are clear, direct, and precise. She
speaks well to the middle level learner, knows how to provide accurate
information at a level they will understand, and has a good balance between
complexity and simplicity in her discussions.

Suggestions:

When the students were guessing what would happen, consider taking a
quick poll by having them raise their hands to vote on which scenario they
thought would occur.

Other:

Angela Root: Midterm Goals Spring, 2016

J. Data Guided Instruction: I will focus on making data-informed decisions to
set long-and short-term goals for future instruction and assessment by using
and analyzing my learners' data.
Angela gave a pretest over weather which she plans use for data
analysis in setting both short and long term goals for future instruction
and assessment.
L. Assessment Techniques: I will focus on evaluating and supporting
learning through a variety of diagnostic, formative, and summative
assessment techniques that are developmentally appropriate.