Lesson Plan Observations: A Reflection Meghan Shain Touro College

Transcription

1 Lesson Plan Observations: A Reflection Meghan Shain Touro College

2 As part of the practicum student teaching course, I was observed on two occasions giving a lesson. The first of these observations occurred in a 2 nd grade inclusion setting. The lesson I presented was focused on fluency, which is a critical component of reading. I believe fluency and comprehension are two areas that deserve a lot of focus and attention in the early grades of elementary school. My lesson discussed how to not sound like a robot while reading. I created a chart to engage the students as well as help the visual learners in the class. You can see the chart here. To engage the students I first asked them what fluency meant and had a brief discussion on what it was and why it was important. I then reviewed the strategies on the chart. It is important for all students to know the strategies in order to be fluent readers. I then read a portion of a book in a robot voice to get the point across of how boring it is to sound like that when you read. I selected one of the strategies and modeled it. I think modeling is a very important skill to learn and should be included in the majority of lessons. It provides a way to show the students what a certain skill or activity should look and sound like. By seeing an able adult model a certain skill the students are more likely to internalize that and have a better understanding of what is expected. We then did a strategy together. I believe this is also a great way to engage students as well as have them understand what is being asked of them. Finally, they were tasked with trying the strategies on their own and completing a worksheet I had put together. This worksheet and the lesson plan can be found in a previous section of this portfolio for reference.

3 I think my strengths in this lesson were my relationship and interaction with the students, classroom management, modeling, and including multiple entry points. Having worked with these students since the beginning of the year, we had built a very good rapport. I was able to have effective interactions with them and also manage the classroom. I was familiar with the behavior plans and how the class was run. This allowed me to maintain a calm, but attentive environment throughout the lesson. I held the students attention and they were engaged with the lesson throughout. I also think a strength on this lesson presentation was the modeling. As I mentioned, I think modeling a skill is very important for young students as it provides an example of how a skill should be done correctly. I think anytime a new skill or activity is being learned it should start with modeling ( I do ), followed by an example with the teacher and students working together on the skill ( we do ), and end with the students getting independent practice on the skill ( you do ). This method creates an environment where students will be more likely to internalize and remember the skill at hand. In my discussions with Professor Blaine after my lesson, she mentioned some of the same strengths. I think she could see the relationship I had built with the students and my ability to maintain a calm, engaging environment. Her suggestion to me for the future was to utilize the chart I had made to better benefit the visual learners. I created it for that purpose, but hadn t thought to really point to it and use it in that way during the lesson. She thought that if I had pointed to it and walked the students through the chart as I went, that would have benefited the visual learners in the classroom. This is definitely a strategy that I will use going forward and did use in lessons I presented after our post-observation conference. The assessments involved for this lesson included walking around during independent reading time, the completed worksheets, and during sharing time. I was able to use the

4 worksheets to better understand which students needed more focused help. This goes back to the discussion of data-driven instruction. I utilized the assessments during this lesson to alter my plan for instruction of future lessons to better suit the needs of my students. I also confer oneon-one with students during reading workshop, so was able to help them practice the strategies we had reviewed during these sessions. The strategies are something that I think will help these students become stronger readers. My second observation took place in a 4 th grade inclusion classroom and focused on the novel Maniac Magee. I had the vocabulary words projected on the smartboard so that the students could become aware of the words and be on the look out as we read. Each student had a copy of the book during my read aloud so that visual learners could follow along on their own. I know for me, it is hard to fully comprehend a text when it is being read to me. So, by providing the students with their own copies they are able to both listen and read along. As we hit a vocabulary word, I would pause and have a student re-read the sentence with the word in it. I asked them to think about what was happening and the other words in the sentence to determine the meaning of the word. This was teaching them how to use context to figure out tricky words. After the read aloud, I provided the students a worksheet to complete at their desk. The worksheet included a vocabulary matching section, a literal comprehension question, and a T- chart for them to provide character traits and evidence of those traits from the novel. This was utilized for assessment on the lesson. The vocabulary matching section showed me if the students were able to recall what was discussed on the rug during read aloud, and understood the meaning of the words. The literal comprehension question assessed their understanding of the story itself. And finally, the character section showed their understanding of the main characters in the novel as well as if they could provide valid evidence directly from the text on how those

5 traits fit those characters. By using this worksheet, I was able to determine which students were not understanding the story, or understanding the characters that occurred throughout the novel. That information was used for future lessons on the novel, as well as provided the students who were struggling additional enrichment activities. During my post-observation conference, Professor Blaine mentioned that overall I did a good job presenting my lesson. I believe she saw how I differentiated the lesson for different types of learners. Her suggestion for the future was around assessment. She thought that going forward I could provide an assessment that would go home with the students to provide me more information on their understanding. I think this also goes back to concept of data-driven instruction, that the more information I am able to collect the better my lesson planning for the future will be. I greatly appreciate the feedback I was provided from Professor Blaine after both of my observations. I think it is so beneficial to have someone so knowledgeable observe and provide feedback as I am still learning and enhancing my teaching skills.