Sara Solano

Professor Deborah Sullivan

Behavior Observation in Education

EDU-211

December 16, 2020

Observation Reports

Observation #1: [Link]

This observation was performed on Pettigrew Kindergarten Lucy Calkins Reading Lesson.

Her teaching style was primarily “direct instruction”. She lectured and demonstrated, allowed

for student participation with her guidance by questioning. She utilized techniques to engage

students, and monitored progress closely and provided personal goals for students’ different

levels. Her instruction and management utilized a wide array of hand signals or gestures. There

were no major distractions during class. The class ran smoothly, without any major behavioral

issues, and students at a large scale remained engaged in the lesson. The only disciplinary

actions she took, was to call the students name to redirect their attention, touched a child’s

shoulder and whispered his name to get him to stop playing with his sleeves, and used the

phrase “self-control” when a student was fidgety. Her approach was effective, students

responded to her calls for attention and were not embarrassed in anyway in front of other

students.

The lesson began with an attention getter while the teacher was sitting in a chair and

students were seated in the rug in front of her. Teacher showed them a graduation hat and

asked them to make a connection. This was very effective. Students responded with excitement
and undivided attention. She then proceeded to tell her students that they were ready to

graduate to a next level of reading. The children were very motivated at the thought of

graduating. The teacher used familiar material at the beginning of the lesson to introduce the

new topic. Students feel confident and comfortable because she eased into the material. She

does not wait for a response but guides by questioning to get to the answer she is looking for.

This is effective and a technique I would emulate to keep student confidence high in the

classroom. The teacher motivates students with the phrase “who is ready to have picture

power?”, students give her a thumbs up as a response. The next phase of the lesson, students

read independently as she assessed students individually. Students had a goal card to write

their goals. She gave students a pre-assessment goal and a post assessment goal. Throughout

the assessment she gave lots of feedback, always starting with a positive remark. The next was

a game to introduce prepositions. They played Simon says, which allowed kids to move and

have fun. This is another technique that I would emulate because it allowed students to have

fun, move around, and it maximized learning time. The lesson culminated with the teacher and

students singing.

Observation #2: [Link]

This observation was performed on a second-grade vocabulary “Whole Brain Teaching”:

Five Step Lesson: Second Grade: Pronouns. This lesson was very high-energy. The teacher’s

voice was of very high volume throughout the entire lesson. Questions were asked and

answered in the form of a chant along with hand signals and gesturing to demonstrate

punctuation, capital letter, etc. Another technique used is that students repeat everything the
teacher says and they call that “mirror words”. This method of repetition enhances student

retention; this was evident when students had to repeat the words on their own at a later time.

Teacher announces that she will be teaching something “brand new” but calls on a student to

review a previous lesson on nouns. This is an effective method that I would emulate because it

links existing knowledge with new material and enhances learning. After review, students are

cued with the word “teach” to repeat the lesson to their partner. “Mirror words” and “teach”

are repeated over and over after each chunk of information. Giving students information in

chunks or stages is another effective method because it does not overload students with

information.

The teacher uses motivational language and the students equally participate such as

cheering a student after presenting by giving a “10 finger whoo” or by encouraging students

who have made a mistake by saying “you are still cool”. In this lesson the teacher is not the

center of attention; students and teacher talk an equal amount. Step one of the lesson,

introduces the question of the day which is the objective of the lesson after the students

“mirror”. Step two is the answer, teacher elaborates and gives examples. Students “mirror”

and “teach” and they repeat themselves until teacher signals to stop. The teacher stops them

when she feels they have mastered it. Step three enters into discussion. This portion is more

challenging where students are now expected to paraphrase. At this point of the lesson, I

noticed quite a few students going along with the motions, pretending to talk to each other but

not really doing it; they were noticeably uncomfortable with the exercise. I think this happened

because although the lesson remained lively, everything was rehearsed and acted, the energy

was not legitimate. Also, students remained seated throughout the lesson for the exception of
the selected few that got to go in front of the class. One boy in particular kept raising his hand

and he was not acknowledged. The teacher’s strategy was to call students randomly without

asking students to volunteer. This strategy is intended to give a chance to all students. I think it

was ineffective, because only a selected few had the opportunity to participate and the boy

that wanted to participate and didn’t get the chance was the most disengaged from the lesson.

Step three’s conclusion is to apply the knowledge learned and a student comes forward to

teach the class. To focus the attention on the speaker, the students chant the student’s name

three times. Another student gets called and when unsure how to start uses a “help me”

gesture. This method is very effective; students respond to it automatically and many come

forward to help. The student gains confidence and is able to respond. Step four is a “quick test”.

Students are assessed using only audio. They have to close their eyes and respond to true or

false questions with their thumbs. Step five employs critical thinking by giving an open-ended

writing assignment. Students are asked to write a letter to their school mascot to tell him

everything they had learned about pronouns. Students seem excited about the assignment.

This is a great strategy because it allows students finally to use their own language to explain

what they have learned. Instructions are first given by the teacher, then by a student, and last is

repeated by the whole class. This is a very effective strategy, one that I would emulate because

it clarifies any doubts students might have about the assignment.

Observation #3 [Link]

This observation was performed on “Whole Brain Teaching” third grade vocabulary. The

lesson was very brief (only fifteen minutes) but much was achieved during that time frame.
There were no indications that students were lost during the lesson or uncomfortable with the

pace and energy despite being seated for the entirety of the lesson. At the beginning of the

lesson, the teacher shared the objective of the lesson with the students and set her behavior

expectation by saying, “when I’m teaching, I expect zero”, meaning no talking, “and when you

are sharing with your partner, I want you at one”. She then asked students to demonstrate.

Teacher also set her expectations for movement and participation. This was effective class

management strategy because expectations were set from the beginning. The teaching style,

was very vivid, utilized a lot of gesturing along with repetition and dramatization. She used

motivational language consistently, and praised student participation.

The lesson began with the introduction of the list of words. She read them and students

mirrored. Teacher claps to introduce definitions. Definitions are tackled one at a time, she

defines them, students mirror and then they teach (face each other and once more repeat),

over and over until stop signal is given. Then they move on to the third method of

reinforcement still on the same word; examples. At this time teacher assess student

comprehension when she asks question. These three steps are repeated for all words, with

slight changes. The changes implemented give students room for some decision making and

critical thinking. I think it was very effective to give students some freedom of choice to prevent

the activity from becoming boring and unchallenging. Teacher culminates lesson reinforcing it

once more, this time presenting the list of words again. She assessed them by randomly

defining the words and students had to match meaning to word. Assessment was done as a

group at all times.

This observation was performed on a first grade ELA class. The topic of the lesson was

elements of persuasion. The lesson was high-tech and teacher’s teaching style was the

“facilitator style”. Students had a great deal of autonomy throughout the lesson. Teacher

provided guidance by questioning. Students learned through research and engaging in

discussion. Students remained seated for the entirety of the lesson only moving from the floor

to their desks. Students had their electronic devices with them at all times. Students for the

most part, were engaged in the lesson’s topic and were actively participating. There were a few

instances when students were of inattention, and overwhelming amount of noise, one child

said he was bored while the teacher was talking. She handled it by ignoring his statement. In

other circumstances she just called on the students’ names and used the phrase “is time to

refocus”. I think these incidents could have been avoided by adding just a bit of structure to the

lesson by stating behavior expectations like some of the other teachers did. Also, students

should have been instructed to put their tablets down when the teacher was speaking, this was

a cause for distraction for them. To prevent some restlessness, she should have planned some

time to allow for students to move around. When students were sitting on the floor, many were

seated very close to desks. This is a safety concern because they could have easily bumped their

heads with the edges of the desks. The floor sitting should have a significant amount of distance

from students’ or teacher’s desks. She started the lesson by asking students to reflect on the

material they had learned “last week”, and initiated a discussion amongst the student by asking

them to “refresh each other’s memories”. This was an effective method that allowed her to
assess students’ knowledge and could tailor the lesson to better fit their level comprehension.

When students had a clear understanding of what persuasion was, she had them do research

on animals so they could write an informed letter of persuasion to ask for a class pet. A class

pet is something the children actually wanted which made the assignment meaningful and

definitely something I would like to emulate. Although there were a few management issues,

the lesson was effective and learning was maximized. Students learned how to conduct

research, they learned how to use technology appropriately, they learned what persuasion was

and how to use it, they learned fair ways to come to an agreement, how to write a letter, used

critical thinking to develop their unique ideas.

Observation # 5 [Link]

This observation was performed on TPSD First Grade, Phonics First, Lesson 13c Level 2.

This class was held as a special training and the teacher that taught it was not the regular

classroom teacher. The student’s behavior was very good throughout the class with just one

very minor incident. The students seemed self-conscious about their surroundings, which I am

sure influenced their behavior and the classroom dynamic.

The teacher conducted the one-hour lesson by shifting from one activity to the next very

rapidly. Each activity lasted an average of about five minutes. She made students move from

their desks to the rug a total of four times. This was effective to keep students from getting

restless, losing focus, and misbehaving. The lesson started by asking students to go to the rug

which was right in front of the smartboard. When she directed the students to get up from

their seats, she told them to tiptoe and she whispered. Which was another very effective
management strategy to set expectations clearly. The students followed her instructions very

quickly and in orderly fashion. When she began teaching, she changed her voice to a more

energetic tone. She began the lesson with a review, using flash cards. The review was very

quick, almost rushed. For the following activity, she had materials the students needed, on a zip

lock bag. This was very effective because she saved time with distribution. She encouraged kids

to get ready fast by being competitive, “let’s see which table gets ready first” and did a count

down. Also, a very effective strategy. Competition is motivational and fun. Her teaching style

was direct instruction. Students worked at her command sometimes independently sometimes

with a partner and she moved around the classroom constantly to provide guidance, make sure

students remained on task and to assess their comprehension. When a student gave an answer,

she made them stand up and speak up. Students were instructed to point at the words while

they read. Students were praised for following directions as expected. Their were applauded,

requested that the behavior was emulated, and in one instance said, “I like the way you look so

ready! ... you seem like an active listener”. Once the lesson became more challenging students

were hesitant to begin. She gave them a hint---that triggered the students’ critical thinking and

gave them confidence. Consequently, students’ participation increased and they were eager to

do so. Learning was reinforced by verbal and written repetition. She used gesturing and

enunciated vocabulary. Teacher repeated directions multiple times and requested that students

repeat instructions. Then they did a practice run to clarify what was expected. Despite her

efforts of moving them and switching up activities, students began to yawn. I think this could be

addresses by loosening up the structure half way through the lesson and incorporate a short

break, and allowed students to stretch or maybe even dance. The first and only behavioral
incident happened when she asked them to partner up to practice, she called this activity the

“peanut butter and jelly”. The student got upset because he didn’t want to be jelly. The teacher

asked him to be a sport but when he refused, she quickly asked another student to avoid an

escalation. She thanked the other student for being a good sport. Deflecting attention from the

student who is upset is an effective strategy that prevents the occurrence of a meltdown. When

students were not actively participating, she physically grabbed their hand and made them

point to the words. That effectively got them back on track. The teacher never corrected

students or reprimanded. She used no verbal communication to avoided bringing negative

attention to any student in particular.

Observation # 6 [Link]

This observation was performed on a first-grade math lesson: “Find the missing part of

10”. The teaching style used for this lesson was primarily demonstration style. The teacher

implemented a lot of active student participation and used physical examples as well as

questioning to promote critical thinking. There were no major behavioral issues. There were a

few instances were a student eager to answer interrupted by blurring out a response. The

teacher handled this by saying, “I will call on somebody” and “It’s not your turn its mine”. She

also used a threat to make a student stay still during participation, she said, “if you can’t do it

right you are going to have to sit down”. Although her threat worked, and the student stopped

the behavior, there could have been a better approach to the problem. A threat might have

been appropriate if it the behavior didn’t stop after a first warning.

This was an effective and clever way to get the students’ attention and settle down. The

students sat around a very big ten frame and were asked to identify what it was. When two

students volunteered to participate, she called their name and said no, “I know you guys now”.

This is how she avoided frequent participators and urged other children to participate.

Acknowledging students, even if there are not chosen, is more effective than ignoring them

because being ignored can be frustrating. She utilized the ten-frame, to demonstrate how it can

be used by making student volunteers actually stand on them. This was an innovative

technique, that was fun and demonstrated the concept in a clear way. Every single student

participated in the demonstration; very important to ensure that everybody is learning. When

the next activity began, she had the students read directions along. When the teacher asked a

question, and students volunteered a response immediately, she asked them to put their hands

down and take a second to think. When teacher asked students to speak, whether it was to

respond to a question or to read a problem, she asked for a specific tone of voice, for example:

“everybody whisper”, “use a loud teacher voice”. This was effective because it set clear

expectations by example. When it was time for independent work, she assessed student

readiness by asking them if they felt ready, students were instructed to respond with either a

thumbs up or down. All students felt ready.

This observation was performed on a first-grade reading workshop: “Informational unit

study”. This lessons, primary objective was to teach students effective study skills. The teacher’s

approach was to demonstrate first before student was asked to work. Throughout the lesson

students remained seated, with the exception of retrieving materials. There were no notable

behavioral issues. There was some silliness, which she handled simply by calling their name to

refocus. The teacher kicked off the lesson demonstrating the activity and reiterated its

importance. Students were instructed to stop, think about it, discuss it, and finally mark it when

they come across new information. She assessed their comprehension by asking them to

gesture with their thumb if they understood, then called on a student to repeat the steps of

Throughout the activity, the teacher walked around and guided students by questioning and

cueing. Then they went back and shared their findings as to the class. The next activity involved

learning how to decipher challenging vocabulary with previous knowledge. For both activities,

students retrieve their own materials that were pre-packed in a bag. Material retrieval was

done by groups. This was an effective classroom management technique because it saved time

and avoided chaos. During the next activity the teacher took turns working with small groups of

students. Student were asked to refer to books that they had been working on, where they

found challenging vocabulary. This was an effective method because it addressed students’

specific needs. Students read to her and practiced the skill, while she assessed them.
Observation #8 [Link]

This observation was performed on KCSD, eighth grade math lesson “Matching &

Creating Word Problems. The objective of the lesson was to enhance the comprehension of

how to solve word problems. The lesson began with the “Starting Gate”, a warm up problem

that was displayed on the smartboard. While the students were trying to figure out how to

solve it, the teacher walked around the room, cuing students on how to tackle the problem. She

did so by asking questions about how they think it should be solved. She initiated the thought

process and let the students fill in the blanks. The teacher utilized the warm up to assess areas

of confusion. She halted the activity and reviewed the problem in front of the class and

addressed those weaknesses. She used the same strategy of actively involving students in

problem solving. Assessing students prior to a lesson is an effective method that allows the

educator to address areas of concern before introducing new material.

The teacher introduced the lesson’s topic by saying that word problems are something

that “most of us” have trouble with. By including herself in that statement she created a

cooperative learning environment. Students had to partner up with pre assigned partners and

she distributed the materials that had been previously arranged. At this point the classroom

noise level slightly elevated, she addressed that by saying “guys we don’t need to talk to get the

sheets out”. The worksheet she handed out had detailed instructions, she read them out loud

and explained them multiple times. Despite her thorough explanation and the written

instructions provided, the number of steps confused most students. After they got through one

of the steps, they needed to cued to start the next step. Some students began to lose focus and

even thought they were finished. It became a challenge for her to answer student questions
and refocus students who had fallen of track and was no longer working. This was a cause for

many interruptions. Overall, there were no major behavioral issues. Not breaking up

instructions into chunks made the teacher’s and the student’s job more challenging. Most

students didn’t get to the final activity.

Observation #9 [Link]

This observation was performed on a fourth-grade science class. The teacher’s

approach to the lesson was guided discovery. The lesson was about “Observing and exploring

crickets”. The activity had a lot of components which required following a lot of instructions.

The teacher provided the instruction verbally and visually. She also broke them into chunks,

with pauses in between. This was very effective because there was no confusion. For retrieving

materials there was an assigned “material manager”. The students were very excited about the

activity and the class volume elevated. After a few minutes she used the command “take five”

and students immediately responded to it and became attentive. She followed, by saying

“hands free eyes on me”, and then said “remember---we want to be participants not

observers”. By saying this she set high expectations for all students. She initiated the discussion

with a question. Every couple of minutes she paused and gave them a new question. Student

conversations were very active and remained focused on the topic. She guided the discussion

but did not give her own input nor hint them in anyway. Proving their hypothesis was the next

part of the lesson. Students had to write their observations on a worksheet. After each question

students had to pause before moving on to share students had to go in front of the class and

take the “hot seat”. Only two students shared their responses after each question. This was
effective because it was helpful for other students who might be struggling. The class had to do

a “fire cracker clap”, it was the special applause the used to support their peers.

The lesson continued like that…tackling one response at a time and stopping for guided

discussion. The teacher used the words “paint a picture with your words” to guide students on

how to write their responses. On the final observation, they had to cover the cricket with a

piece of cardboard, but before doing so they had to predict what was going to happen as a

group. After that they sat on the rug to reflect on their learning. She guided the reflective

discussion by asking questions. Despite the being such a large class there were no disruptions or

behavioral issues. Students were engaged and motivated throughout the entirety of the lesson.

Students responded very well to her classroom management methods and the classroom

climate was cooperative.

Observation #10 [Link]

This observation was performed on a fourth-grade math class. The objective of this

lesson was to enhance student’s comprehension of a mathematical concept. The teacher

utilized a combination of teaching styles, she used direct instruction as well as a facilitator style.

Her instruction included questioning to guide student thinking, class discussion, visuals,

demonstrations, and connected knowledge of other subjects that students could apply to reach

the lesson’s goal. The teacher began with a brief warm up called “Quick images: Seeing

Numbers”. The task was for students to “visualize” the image after only seeing it for a few

seconds and make connections to math. Once completed she requested volunteers to come up

and share their thinking. She culminated the warm up by asking students how that exercise was
going to help them. The teacher introduced the title of the lesson’s topic “multiplicative

comparisons” and asked them what did they think it meant. Students had to “think, pair, share”

to try and figure it out. She guided their thinking by suggesting they use their “reading schema

to figure out those math words”. She reminded them that it was a skill they had and gave them

examples on when and in which subjects they had used them. This is a method that I would

emulate in my teaching because making connections with student knowledge enhances

learning. The teacher assessed students by walking around the room during the discussion and

listening to students’ thoughts. The teacher gave a signal and turned it into a whole-class

discussion where students shared their predictions. When the teacher worked on a problem,

she used students’ names. This was an effective attention getter. Before reading the math

problem, she again, made a connection with another subject, “before we start to think about it

like math, we have to think about it like reading”. They worked on understanding what the

problem was asking of them. She interpreted the vocabulary and used the word “synonyms” to

make them make the connections between mathematical term. Again, using student

knowledge to their advantage. The teacher assessed students again by listening to their

reasoning and addressed areas of confusion by providing another example. Students had to

identify the “sameness” of each problem and how that information would help them interpret

it. There were no distractions or behavioral issues. The teachers use of multiple methods was

very effective. Students of different levels, even students with evident exceptionalities

remained engaged and were able to grasp a challenging subject.

This observation was performed on a fourth-grade reading class. The objective of this

lesson was to teach students about character traits. The teacher tied in the lesson with another

topic students had been learning about to make it more meaningful. Students were learning

about the American revolution and had been learning about George Washington. To start the

warm up, students were told to get ready to work, grab their “thoughtful logs” and anything

else they might need to “annotate”. The teacher utilized language that gave the classroom the

feel of a professional setting. Before reading, she asked students to “reflect” back on what they

already knew about character traits and suggested they look through their notes to refresh

their memories. She asked students to share their “aha moments” and any questions that they

might still have about character traits. This activity clarified any doubts about the topic, and got

them thinking before their main task. Their task was to identify George Washington’s character

traits and determine whether he was a worthy leader. Students had to do research to support

their findings with evidence. She also included a brief discussion of how to identify valuable

sources. As she read, she paused to discuss the significance of each passage and the images.

The teacher emphasized the language being used in the book. She prompted student to

“annotate powerful thoughts and phrases”. This was important because she expected them to

use similar language when they became historians. Students were expected to role play.

Students responded wonderfully to this strategy. They embodied the character and went to

great lengths to find more refined vocabulary to express their finding. Students had to work

with their pre-assigned groups. There was lots of technology available and students were very

familiar with it and used it appropriately. The teacher sat with students individually to guide
them through questioning. Her motivational language pushed them to succeed and motivated

them by holding them accountable; she said things like “you have control of your learning”. To

wrap up the lesson, she said it was time to take a “pulse point”. This meant it was time to check

in with everybody’s progress. Students that felt confident about their findings could decide if

they were ready to be assessed. Students had to write a paragraph to answer the question

supported with their evidence. This class had no distractions or behavioral issues. The teacher

did not have the need use any sort of discipline because her students responded well to the

high expectations placed on them.

Observation #12 [Link]

This observation was performed on an eleventh-grade mathematics lesson. The

objective of this lesson was to teach students how make predictions based on data interpreting

linear models and the correlation coefficient. The teacher started the class by showing a picture

of Michael Phelps. This was an effective attention getter which led to a discussion that gave the

class activity real world meaning. She gave students a warm exercise to be worked on as a

group. Before they began, she asked them take some “private time” to look at the problem

before work began. She made the activity competitive and gave them a prize incentive.

Students responded well to her motivational strategy and well fully invested on the class

activity. The teacher also made the activity meaningful by discussing what careers need to have

these set of skills. Students remained focused and engaged throughout the lesson. The

teacher’s motivational teaching methods were effective. All students were impressed with their

own performance in the class. Teacher assessed students’ comprehension in a variety of ways.
She walked around while they worked to guide them and assess their level of comprehension.

She also requested students to share their reasoning in front of the class and she gave them an

“exit ticket” which was the culminated the lesson with a problem were students had to apply

what they had learned from the lesson. Giving students a final quick activity to end the class is

effective because it reinforces learning and gives the teacher a clear idea of students’ level of

comprehension.

Observation #13 [Link]

This observation was performed on a high school social studies class. The objective of

this lesson was for students to understand how belief systems have influenced historical

events. The teacher’s style was direct instruction. She presented concepts and used questions

to guide students’ thinking. The teacher initiated the lesson by reminding students of the idea

they had been working on, advised them not to let go of it, because a new area of focus was

going to be added. Connecting relatable concepts is an effective strategy to enhance learning.

Students had a “big idea sheet” which was a diagram with all the topics covered. Students took

notes there. She used three main “guiding questions” that lead the class discussion. There were

no major behavioral issues although many of the students seemed disinterested and others

were hesitant to participate. There was one student who participated on multiple occasion. The

teacher failed to make students who were not focused participate in the lesson. When students

partnered up to discuss the were instructed to stand. Making students get up instead of sit was

effective to make students refocus. The teacher had students assess their own level of

comprehension from a scale of one to four. She made the activity relatable to the students by
asking them to think about a personal belief that drives their actions. This was effective for

some students; others remained confused or uninterested. When she gave the students the

Manifest Destiny, students were intimidated by the length of the document. When she asked,

what do you see in front of you? He said big paragraphs. The teacher read it breaking it up in to

chunks, and explaining it as she went along. This was effective to relief the anxiety and

intimidation it caused. When a student said she was confused, she asked a student to explain in

different words. This was good to build student confidence. The teacher used a lot of good

strategies to make the material meaningful to the students, but failed to motivate majority of

the students. Perhaps an attention getter at the beginning of the lesson likesome powerful

images would have help grab student interest.

Observation #14 [Link]

This observation was performed on a twelfth-grade ELA class. The objective of this

lesson was to understand the traits of a “fool”. The goal behind this objective was to familiarize

students with qualities of character they were going to be introduced to in an upcoming lesson.

Creating a solid background of knowledge to facilitate the comprehension of more challenging

work is a very effective method. This was a routinely approach that the teacher took.

Wednesday was the designated day where they talked about character traits. Students

responded well to the routine. They knew what to expect which gave them confidence to

participate. The teacher’s instruction was student centered. Students participated throughout

the entire class contributing with their ideas. Students were asked to read the description of

the traits and do some “informal brain storming” with their partners. The teacher language set
the tone of the lesson as laid back and fun. Students were had to think of literary characters

with these traits as well as pop culture characters. Students were focused, engaged and eager

to participate. Using examples that are relevant to students and entertaining worked great

during the lesson. The energy of the class was great. I loved that although these were high

school seniors, they were asked to celebrate their classmates with finger snapping.

Observation #15 [Link]

This observation was performed on an eleventh-grade reading class. The topic of the

lesson was “Elements of a Theme”. The objective was for students to understand what makes a

theme and be able to recognize the themes of a story. The teacher began the lesson by asking

students to recall the assignment they had to do and what her “guided annotations” asked of

them. She randomly called students to repeat to the class the instructions of the assignment.

During her lecture she used questioning to increase student participation. When she called on

student she said, “Ok” and hardly used students’ names. Part of the activity included a big red

box where students had to put words in it that could be elements of a theme. That was

intended to assess students’ comprehension level. Although there were no interruptions or

behavioral issues the energy of the class was low and there was no connection between the

teacher and the students. The activity failed to make a connection with the students. The lesson

would have been more effective if the teacher would have used an attention getter and an

activity that connected with student interests.

This observation was performed on a sixth-grade science class. The topic of the lesson

was “Radiation, Convection, Conduction”. The objective of the lesson was for students to

understand these scientific concepts, explain them, and be able to provide examples. The

lesson began with a warm up, that reviewed the previews lesson. The teacher called it “bell

ringer question of the day”. She asked for a volunteer by saying “who feels confident”. This was

an effective way to motivate student participation. Student came forward and demonstrated

her response. Students were asked to agree or disagree with the show of their thumb. The

teacher further assessed student comprehension by asking questions verbally and having the

class answer by raising an index card with their response. This was an effective method that

included all students in class participation, and did so in an orderly fashion. Teacher introduced

new material with a “guiding question”. Students had to identify vocabulary that had not been

used in the class before. Teacher asked a series of questions to assess students background

knowledge. The questioning also enabled students to make connections to specific instances

where they have heard these words being used. The three term were introduced one at a time

in five different way: discuss, definition, demonstration, sketch, examples. This was a very

effective teaching method that I would emulate in my teaching. It gave students, visual, written,

oral, instruction to provide to maximize comprehension. Students glued definitions in their

notebook as a reference. Students participated and observed the demonstrative experiments.

Examples of each term was given and students had to match the image with the correct term as

a team in a using a poster. This poster was also going to serve as reference by for the future by

hanging it up in class. Students remained focused for the entirety of the lesson; no behavioral
issues. There was one instance were two students started to drift off. This occurred during one

of the experiments. Students had to come close to look and these students did not have the

opportunity to do so. The teacher handled it by calling their names. At the culmination of the

lesson students had to do an “exit pass”. It was a post it where students had to answer three

multiple choice questions. Students were to asses their own comprehension based on their

ability to answer the questions. They did so by sticking the post it in one of two columns: I

understand or I need help. Teacher also reminded student about the deadline for extra credit

and about “success day’. Success day was the day when students had the opportunity to hand

in make up work. Giving students the opportunity to succeed in class is a best practice that I

would emulate as an educator.

Observation #17 [Link]

This observation was performed on a seventh-grade ELA class. This lesson’s focus was

divided in two. The first topic was themes and the second critical issues. For the first topic,

students had to refer to a novel they were reading, choose a theme, and explain the theme

with their drawings. Students had to also choose a quote to go along with their drawing that

supported their theme. More than one quote would give them extra credit. This was an

assignment to be worked on the span of tree days. Instructions for the assignment were posted

on the smartboard and were left up for the duration of the first half of the lesson. Instructions

were not given verbally. Before starting, the teacher informed students the topic of the next

assignment, and told them it was important, and that it will be something of their interest. The

teacher walked around to guide students during their project. She gave students ideas to work
with and at times told them exactly what to do. She failed to use guided questioning to get

them to develop critical thinking. On the next topic she started showing students a news clip to

grab their attention. Students were moved by the topic. She gave them thirty seconds to write a

sentence about the message of the clip. Then she gave them a related article. As she read it

students had to circle nouns. They then had to write a reaction to the article and share it with

their group. Students were engaged in this lesson. I believe the objective of this lesson wasn’t

sufficiently clear. The teacher connected with her student by using humor which was effective

in getting their attention. There were no behavioral issues in this class.

Observation #18 [Link]

The following observation was performed on a tenth-grade ELA/Social Studies class.

Students were apathetic and appeared bored but slowly warmed up. There were no behavioral

issues during class. The teacher implemented lecture-discussion as well as guided discovery

during this lesson. The teacher started the lesson with a brief warm up activity. Students

showed whether they agreed or disagreed with her statements by choosing a side of the room

to stand in. She emphasized to “stand” and “not sit or lean” because they had to stand for their

believes. This was an effective strategy to motivate students into participating with and change

their negative attitude. Students had to explain why they had chosen to stand on that side.

Students responses were then used to make connections to a story they had read the day

before. They discussed the story’s imagery, themes, and the tone. The theme of the story

connected with the following questions: what is your response when someone’s rights are

being challenged…are you typically a defender? a silent bystander? Do you participate in the
injustice?” This question opened up a discussion, where she called on students to participate.

Very few participated voluntarily and she seemed to gravitate to the same students. The

teacher talked about a famous bystander case and presented evidence that most people are

bystanders---she called it a “phenomenon of pluralistic ignorance”. She told students that they

had to explore the bystander effect in the various research stations she had prepared. This

activity had to be done as a group that she had pre-selected, primarily because of technology

accessibility. Each station had a packet with instructions for students to follow. Packets had

documents with barcodes that had to be scanned with student personal cell phones to access

information. She paused the activity after a few minutes and called each group to share their

findings. The packets contained documents and images that displayed social injustices such as

acts of racism. Then she handed students the “United Nation Universal Declaration of Human

Rights”. She asked students to glance at those articles and pick two that stand out to them---

students read them out loud. Then students had to make connections between the articles and

the story they had read and discuss what human right violations occur in the story. After the

student discussion, she talked about the importance of “upholding” human rights. She

designated a moral responsibility by saying it should be the “goal” to “ensure” these injustices

don’t repeat themselves. She used this discussion to prompt their writing. She also gave them a

sentence starter “It is important to uphold this”, and instructed them to create an argument.

Finally, students shared their writing with the class. She reminded them about an excerpt they

had read, “The Good Samaritan Laws” and told them to make connections. She dismissed the

class by highlighting the strong moral message that she intended through the lesson, “if

everybody would uphold these principles…we would have a much better society, don’t you
think?”. This lesson’s topic was social justice. The objective of the lesson was to instill moral

values and to teach students how to write an argumentative essay. She utilized both literature

and social studies to enhance understanding, which is a strategy I would use as well. The topics

discussed were a continuation of material previously presented, which allowed students to

reach a higher level of comprehension and retention. She also allowed students to make

personal connections to the topics, and by doing so, she engaged students who were apathetic

to begin with.

Observation #19 [Link]

The following observation was performed on Ms. Ward’s high school Algebra I class. The

class climate was informal were students participated without raising their hands. Despite that,

there were no behavioral issues. The class was conducted with minimal lecture. Students had to

work hands on in groups and independently with teacher’s guidance. The lessons activities,

objectives and reminders where up on the smartboard. She briefly read the list to the class. She

warned students to pay attention because they had a test the next day. The lesson started with

a quick warm up, which she set a timer for. Teacher walked around the class guiding students.

When timer was up, she worked the problem on the board while students corrected their work.

The next activity was the introduction to the main part of the lesson. She gave them three

minutes to brainstorm while again she walked around guiding them. For the main and final

activity, teacher used a folk story about the history of the game of chess to recreate a scenario

to solve an equation. Students had to work in groups. A “resource manager” was chosen by

each group to be in charge of materials. The activity had many steps, students were engaged
but seemed to struggle. She walked around providing guidance. When the time was up the

“resource managers” had to go up to the board and share their answers. Everybody had

different answers. She read aloud the lessons objectives and asked students to give a thumbs

up or down for each one to show their understanding. Although the activity was a very

interesting one that merged math with something meaningful, students were not yet prepared

for the activity, which is why they all got an incorrect answer. Her explanations were too rushed

at the beginning of class. I did like that students felt free and comfortable to participate and

were actively engaged in the activity.

Observation #20 [Link]

This final observation was performed on an eighth-grade reading class. The teacher’s

style was direct instruction. The lesson’s topic was “analyzing archetypes”. The objective of the

lesson was for students to identify the characteristics of archetypes of literature. The lesson

focused on matching characters that students were familiar with, from movies and current

literature to help students relate to the topic. The teaches approach was effective because

students were able to make lots of connections and were eager to participate. The teacher

started the lesson with a quick review of previews lessons. The review was brief and she

assessed comprehension by questioning and asked students to self asses gesturing with their

thumbs. Before they started to analyze the characters, she made sure that students understood

what analyzing meant. That was a good practice, that helped student be clear about what they

were supposed to do. She got the students to move around a bit by having them type their

responses in the front of the class. The teacher connected well with the students using humor
and personal anecdotes. Students responded well, they remained focused and there were no

behavioral issues.