Department of Teacher Education & Learning Sciences

Elementary Education Program

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: Kelsey Brice Date:11/24

1. To what extent were learning outcomes appropriate and achievable to your students?

I think my learning outcomes were both appropriate and achievable for our
students. Our class has recently struggled with being able to have nice and
friendly relationships with one another so I believe this lesson helped give them
tools to better achieve those relationships.
2. How effective were your instructional strategies? What changes would you make in
your instructional approaches if you taught this lesson again? Why?

Overall, I think my instructional strategies were more thought out and better
planned than they have been in the past. I think by giving the students more
opportunities to turn and talk to a partner gave them the time to carefully think of
good contributions for the class discussion. It also can help keep each other
accountable for how they treat one another. If I taught this lesson again I would
find a different way to asses the students. After they finished the activity they
seemed to be disinterested in writing and did not put their best effort into the
assessment.
3. Evaluate the effectiveness of your oral and written communication with students.
(Consider how well you communicated learning objectives, clarity of directions, use of standard English, quality of
questions and effectiveness of discussion techniques.)

I think I was effective with my oral communication and written communication

when reading the story and creating the action list. However, I think my
communication of my expectations of the written activity could have been more
clear.

4. Evaluate the level of student engagement in your lesson . (Consider how you presented the
content/skills, the activities and assignments for students, grouping of students, and structure and pacing of the
lesson.)
I think the students were very engaged with the oral part of the lesson. Our
students love to share their thoughts and contribute to classroom discussions.
However, once I got to the written part of the lesson some students seemed to lose
interest and forget what they were supposed to be doing.
5. How effectively did you use instructional materials, resources, and/or technology?
 I felt as if the book I used was very effective in bringing about good conversation
surrounding bullying. It gave students the opportunity to talk about what bullying
was, how they could help a friend who was being bullied, and what they could do
if they were being bullied. I should have referenced the action chart a little more
because they did not seem to want to use it for their written activity.
6. To what extent were your assessment strategies effective? What changes would you
make in your assessment approach if you taught this lesson again? Why?

I think they assessment of giving two sentence starters was a good idea and
appropriate way to asses the students, however, after the writing they had
produced in the activity they were not interested in doing more. Many students
did produce good evidence of what they had learned, however, some students did
not appear to but their best foot forward and were not writing complete sentences.
7. To what extent was your feedback to students accurate, substantive, constructive,
specific, and/or timely?

Students would bring me their goal folders with their assessment inside and we
would talk about what they wrote and how they could do these actions in the
future. If a student was a little off track, we would then discuss what the sentence
starter was looking for and they would edit their sentence.
8. To what extent did the classroom management and environment contribute to student
learning? (Consider your classroom procedures, your use of physical space, and the students conduct.)

Overall, I would say my classroom management was well controlled and allowed
students a good learning environment. I was having trouble getting one student to
focus and actually produce the work. I will have to learn better techniques with
dealing with unfocused students when the activity involves a lot of teacher-
student interaction.
9. Did you make modifications to your lesson plan during the lesson? If so, what were
they and what motivated these changes?
After talking with my teacher I decided to cut the opener wrinkling heart activity.
In the past when talking about bullying the second grade team did a similar
activity that ended in tears. I was worried how this would go over with my
students and was also concerned about their attention to the story and classroom
discussion with having these materials in their laps.

10. Was your Teaching Behavior Focus goal met?

I feel that my teaching behavior focus of student engagement through discussion
is fostered was met through out this lesson. I tried my best to give everyone the
opportunity to give their input and talk with one another. This is definitely a focus
that I will consistently have to work on and get better at to make sure every
student is given an equal opportunity.