Instruction

Domain 3: Instruction

Communicating With Students  Using Questioning and Discussion Techniques Engaging Students in Learning Using Assessment in Instruction Demonstrating Flexibility and Responsiveness

EDU 501 Summative Assessment 11B Guided Reflection – Teacher Lesson Reflection

Introduction – LESSON TWO of being observed

The lesson took place at the beginning of our new science unit “Rocks, sand and silt”. The students had previously practiced observing rocks, and were about to begin an activity on sorting rocks according to student-chosen criteria. Prior to this lesson, they had brainstormed and listed together, vocabulary for describing certain aspects of rocks (hard, bumpy, colourful etc). The lesson involved reading a story about a boy who collects rocks and sorts them in various ways. My focus was on using questioning and discussion techniques. The reason for this focus being that I have a handful of students who are hesitant to share ideas in class, particularly in response to written material when read in a large group setting. I wanted to create genuine discussion amongst my students, and have all students participate effectively. After the story, students worked with their discussion partner to sort a group of rocks together based on an agreed upon criteria. After completing the sorts, students did a room “walk” to see how the different groups sorted their rocks, and hear the explanations and reasoning for the different criteria.

1. In general, how successful was the lesson? Did the students learn what you intended for them to learn? How do you know?

The lesson was successful. I had pre-determined to try out using a technique of “discussion partners” during the story-reading time, so that the students could share their ideas with one another. I also had students who were comfortable, share their ideas at the outset to help get everyone thinking of possibilities before they paired into their discussion pairs. I did this prior to each discussion phase. I was really pleased at the start because when I stopped to ask the first question – the student who volunteered her answer first, was one of the students who tends to be most reluctant to share in these settings. The first discussion topic was simple – the students were asked to make a connection to the character in the story (young boy at home, bored on the weekend), and were asked to talk about what kinds of things they like to do when they feel that way. As the story progressed, the questions became more focused on the theme – sorting and criteria – to where students were discussing ways amongst themselves how they might sort the rocks if the rocks were theirs. By observing and listening in on some of the discussions, it was clear that the students were engaged, and eager to share their ideas with one another. The students learned what they needed to learn, and I was able to see this not only in their discussions, but then also in their work later, when they sorted the rocks and were able to explain what criteria they had used to do so.

2. If you have samples of student work, what do they reveal about the students’ levels of engagement and understanding? Do they suggest modifications in how you might teach this lesson in the future?

The samples of student work came in the follow-up activity to the discussion – the actual sorting activity. The kids were really excited about sorting the rocks, and each group was able to choose a criterion and sort the rocks accordingly. One pair of students used more than one criteria (“these ones are the pink ones, these ones are the bumpy ones and over here are the round ones” – thereby mixing up colour, texture and shape criteria) however, in following activities, they will be required to do more sorting, and will focus on choosing a single criteria for their sort. Now that I’ve observed this, I know I will need to be more specific about the kinds of criteria there are, and to ask for them to use just one criterion for their sorts. I think in the future, I would make a visual list their ideas of how rocks could be sorted immediately after the story/discussion time, and then point out the requirement that they sort their rocks using just one of those kinds of criteria.

3. Comment on your classroom procedures, student conduct, and your use of physical space. To what extent did these contribute to student learning?

In my class, students are used to being given specific tasks at the start of an activity. They know they need to listen for the job that will be assigned to them. In this case, when they began to the activity, they were to listen to see which partner would get the materials (the rocks) and which would choose the activity location. At the beginning of the year, the students and I created a short list of behavioural classroom expectations, which the students posted on the wall. In general, there are few behavioural problems, with the exception of the students getting used to our new student in the class, who is still learning the expectations of this classroom and school. At the outset of the sorting activity, we had a brief discussion about how to manage a situation where both partners want to sort using a different criteria (a potential in my class – there are some independent and strong minded children!) The students brainstormed possible solutions (“We could do one way first, then the other next”, “I could just say OK, let’s do it that way”, or “We could decide alphabetically – the student whose name comes first in the alphabet gets to choose the first criteria” etc) Each pair was able to come to an agreement.

There are several “learning” areas set up in the classroom. There is a display table for student work (soon to be a rock “museum”), the clusters of student desks, a reading area, meeting area, calendar area etc. My classroom is one of the smaller ones in the school and this year I have the largest class of kids, so the room tends to feel cozy, which I don’t mind. I’d like a little more desk space for kids to work at together, however. Because I wanted to have the kids be able to “walk” the class and see the work done by other students, I wanted to keep it at an area easily visible to everyone. This meant a lot of bodies working in a relatively small area – where there was table room. I think next time, I’d make more use of the cupboard space and floor space around the room to give students a little more space to work and talk with their partners about their sorts.

4. Did you depart from your plan?

I departed from my original plan in small ways only. During the story reading/discussion time, I did not stop as often as I had intended to do for discussions. The kids were excited and chatty, and I felt that stopping too often was going to interfere with the story’s purpose (understanding what sorting means, and what kinds of criteria one might use when sorting rocks). I also noted that my kids were very good at sharing their ideas (even those that I mentioned earlier, who tend to me more reluctant), but that they weren’t particularly good listeners (important part of a discussion!) Because of this, I changed one of my discussion points to having the students share the most interesting idea that they had heard their partner share (regarding ideas for sorting rocks). Although many hands went up – few were actually able to restate what they’d “heard” their partners say! This reminds me that I need to work on this aspect of their discussion skills, and is something I’m going to address and have them practice in following discussion activities.

5. Comment on different aspects of your instructional delivery (activities, grouping of students, materials and resources). To what extent were they effective?

I love starting lessons off with stories, and this year, I’ve had more opportunity than ever to do it. My kids particularly love stories this year, and don’t seem to get tired of listening to them. However, there are a handful of students whose language is still developing, who seem to find it difficult to always talk about what they’ve heard read to them. In this way, the story topic was relevant enough, and easy to follow so that even my ESL kids were able to keep up and be involved. Part of the management of this kind of activity was in deciding when to bring discussion to a close, and when to allow it to continue. My more verbal students would have been happy to discuss longer, however, I did not want to have the discussions dominated by one or two voices. At one point, I realized that as I moved on to the next part of the story, I had to cut discussion short. I remember thinking “Isn’t that ironic – here I am with someone observing me with the focus on discussion and questioning techniques and I’m cutting discussions short!” Unfortunately, there is always the clock to consider, and a schedule that is not always learning-friendly. The sorting activity that followed was a hands-on, practical application of what they had heard about and discussed. I felt it was very effective. Time wise – I wish there would have been more opportunity for students to continue sorting in more and more ways. I think they could easily have used another 15 minutes or so to further practice the skill. Next time, I will try to do this activity with a bigger block of time if possible.

When I grouped the children into their pairs, I used their name cards and placed them in a circle at the meeting carpet. The children had to sit at their card, and their discussion partners were assigned based on their seating arrangement. In this way, I was able to pair up my students who are more inclined to become “off-task” with a student who I knew would help keep them on topic. Also, I made sure my ELL students were paired with students who were more fluent.

I realized that the way we sat at the carpet had to be managed differently for this activity than for the types of reading we normally do there. Typically, when we are reading together there, the students are using their “Great Books”, or sharing science books together. They are always able to see the text right in front of them. For this activity, we only had the one book, which I was reading from. So when I first sat at the circle, I realized that it was going to be difficult for all of the students to see easily. We decided that it would be better if I were to sit up on a chair to ensure that all of the students could see the pictures in the text.

The materials (rocks in individual baggies) had been prepared ahead of time, and students were sent off to retrieve their supplies for themselves and their partner when they were called. In this way, the materials were retrieved in an orderly fashion, with little loss of time between the discussion period and the sorting activity.

6. If you had an opportunity to teach this lesson again to the same group of students, what would you do differently?

Next time, I would have the students sitting side by side with their partner, rather than sitting in a circle. This would have made it easier for them to see the pictures, and possibly have less interference from “neighbours” while discussing with their partners. Also, I would scheduled a larger block of time (or two separate work periods) to allow for complete discussion of the story and time for more sorting to take place. Also, I would list the various criteria for sorting rocks on a chart paper, for the students to refer to as they worked. I would also clarify the need to choose just one criterion when sorting. Finally, I would open up more areas in the class for the activity to take place, so that students were less crowded while doing their sorts.

7. Consider the different aspects of your planning and execution of the lesson in light of the domains and components on the following pages. Determine evidence, if any, for each of the components, and what that evidence demonstrates about your level of performance.

(See attached form)

Introduction – LESSON ONE (Being observed)

The lesson took place at the middle of our math unit. The students had previously worked with division concepts in informal activities (sharing “eggs” amongst “nests” etc), and were ready to begin a formal lesson on division. The lesson started off with a warm-up of subtraction with re-grouping, and then the students were presented with the new theme: division. I wanted them to connect what they were about to do, with what they had done prior, so when I asked if any of them could remember when we had worked with “sharing” or “dividing” activities, I was glad when one of the students raised her hand and recalled the “nests”, where children had shared their cubes amongst each nest and had to count out the leftovers. I then proceeded to introduce the first activity – a “challenge” to share 10 cookies fairly between 3 children. My focus was on using questioning and discussion techniques as I presented the material - I wanted to create genuine discussion amongst my students as they worked through the division activities together, and have all students participate effectively, being able to explain their process and reasoning. Once the students were presented with the problem, they retrieved their materials (cubes) and started into the activity. As the students worked, I stopped at each table group to see how they were managing. When it seemed that most students had completed the task, we did a walk of the room, where each group was required to explain how they had solved the division problem. I wanted them to talk about what they had done with the cubes, explain why they had chosen to arrange them the way they did, and talk about any of the problems they encountered as they set out.

1. In general, how successful was the lesson? Did the students learn what you intended for them to learn? How do you know?

I felt the lesson was successful – there was a lot of conversation as students worked in groups of 2-3 to solve the division “problem”. It was interesting to watch students at the start of the activity, as one group in particular were really puzzling through how they would go about sharing the cubes. The fact that they continually had left over cubes, had them quite perplexed. It really got them talking about how they could get rid of their “extras”. On my second or third time passing by, I noticed that one of the students had suggested they arrange the cubes in a new way, and leave the “extras” to the side. It was fun to hear the kids talk about their work, and even demonstrating exactly how they had shared the cubes out (some one at a time, others two cubes at a time). I had noticed one group had decided to place a small cube on their table that represented each “person” to receive the “cookies”. When they gave their answer to the division problem, they answered that each person got 4 cookies. As soon as the one boy had said that, one of the other group members looked a bit perplexed, (realizing that this didn’t seem right), and re-counted the cubes again. That’s when they realized what was creating the confusion. I asked them to clarify what the confusion was, so that the other kids could learn from them, and it was great to hear them clearly explain what had gone wrong. Each group of kids was able to talk about how they had shared the cubes equally, and indicated where they had placed their “leftovers”. Later, the students worked individually on solving various division/sharing problems in their workbooks. This allowed me to see how they were managing on an individual level. Although a couple of students needed clarification a few times, the group as a whole, seemed confident in their beginning division skills.

2. If you have samples of student work, what do they reveal about the students’ levels of engagement and understanding? Do they suggest modifications in how you might teach this lesson in the future?

The samples of student work came in the follow-up activity to the discussion – the student work in the workbook. The students who struggled slightly with the independent work were ELL kids, who were in part also dealing with language issues presented in the word problems. For these children, the best modification would be to have them working (and reading) through the material under close supervision.

3. Comment on your classroom procedures, student conduct, and your use of physical space. To what extent did these contribute to student learning?

The procedure used for grouping the students was by pulling random “sticks” with student names on them. As I pulled the three names, I gave an assignment to each one – host the work desk, gather the materials, etc. This is typical, so kids know to listen for their assigned task. There didn’t appear to be any confusion, the kids went to their work areas, had their supplies and began the activity quickly. Because of the size of the groups, and the arrangement of work area, I felt that the physical space for this activity was effective. The kids were able to easily work on their solutions together, while still being able to do so in an independent way, and without being influenced by the other groups. Each group truly had a unique way of arranging their cubes and of explaining their process.

4. Did you depart from your plan?

I hadn’t really intended to have the kids walk to each work space to see each group’s work. I’d only intended to have each group talk about what they had done, while I made a kind of “mock-up” of it on the board. This was because I hadn’t anticipated the range of responses and processes that I got. When I saw the various arrangements, I knew that we needed to take the time to actually see the work done by each group. This made each group’s explanation of their process much clearer to the rest of the students. It was a good decision, because it helped reinforce to the kids that there isn’t just “one way” to solve a problem.

5. Comment on different aspects of your instructional delivery (activities, grouping of students, materials and resources). To what extent were they effective?

Because of their previous exposure to division concepts, I felt comfortable presenting the children with a problem to solve without any direct teaching at the outset. The activity promoted lots of discussion amongst the students, which was one of my goals, and the fact that each group was able to (eventually) solve the problem, meant that they started off the lesson feeling successful. They were already excited about the concept of doing “division”, so engagement naturally followed.

I had not pre-determined the groups of students, as I felt confident that all students would be successful in this activity. The number of students per group needed to be small enough to allow for participation, but not so small that there would be limited discussion.

The classroom has a good choice of resources for this kind of activity. I could have chosen pennies, unifix cubes or the small cubes. Either would have been effective.

6. If you had an opportunity to teach this lesson again to the same group of students, what would you do differently?

There isn’t a lot I would have done differently in this lesson. The students were engaged and successful. I really liked the level of conversation between students about what they were doing.

7. Consider the different aspects of your planning and execution of the lesson in light of the domains and components on the following pages. Determine evidence, if any, for each of the components, and what that evidence demonstrates about your level of performance. (See attached form)