Lesson Plan Reflection

Teacher Candidate: Caitlin Teetor

School: Stonewall Jackson Middle School
Principal: Jessica Austin
Teacher: Sonja Davison
Grade and/of Content: 6th Grade Social Studies
Date: October 27, 2014
PLANNING
The most helpful part of my planning was having WV CSOs to help guide my lesson.
Having particular objectives to be met can help to drive the entire lesson in order to meet those
objectives. One aspect that I would definitely change would be the size of my lesson. I had
thought that the students would finish the assignment in a longer amount of time than what was
the real time it took for completion. Many students finished early and I did have a back-up plan
if a student finished early. The decision I made though was that some of the classes were broken
up by bathroom breaks and I wanted the students to have an activity that could be completed
within the class time or finished quickly at a later time.
This being my first semester teaching lessons, nerves was an element to consider when
presenting the content. Having a lesson plan definitely helps to take away some of the stress and
nervousness that can come with being new to teaching lessons to students.
The WV CSOs directly fit into my lesson plan. The first CSO listed in my lesson plan
states that students will be able to cite evidence of the deprivation of human rights violations
during times of war. This directly fits within my lesson of teaching the lack of diversity and
human rights during the Holocaust.
IMPLEMENTATION
My implementation of the lesson went fairly went. I know that I need to work on my
introduction and closure and also my timing. I feel that my introduction of the lesson went well,
but I did not so much have a closing statement to wrap up the lesson. My objectives, strategies,
and assessments were all appropriate for a sixth grade level. What needs work is my delivery of
the lesson. Students were allowed to use their textbooks, which are definitely on a sixth grade
level. Students had to critically think about what they had read and what questions in the context
of the Holocaust would they want to ask Mr. Wiesel.

For future lessons, I would change my assessment of the students. I partially assessed the
students by taking the quiz at the end of the BrainPop. Next time I would utilize a pre and
posttest in order to better determine what the students had learned from my lesson.
CLARITY OF PRESENTATION
My voice was loud, but not booming, for all students to hear. I used Standard English
throughout the lesson and tried to keep a louder volume with my voice when addressing the class
and a more toned down volume when addressing individual students. For future lessons, I will
need to work on how I speak to the class. For my first time teaching a lesson, I believe my voice
to be consistently effective. I also will need to avoid the use of guys when addressing the entire
class. Most of the class went without many problems. I did have to go back and clarify what I
wanted the students to do for the activity.
ATTENTION TO INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES
When planning my lesson, I tried to make sure that all students were able to learn
effectively. Students were able to read in their books (visual learners), hear the instructions out
loud (for auditory learners) and were able to write and interact with their books (for kinesthetic
learners). For the three hearing impaired students, I used the microphone when addressing the
students in the first social studies class. Subtitles were also used during the BrainPop video. The
adjustments made for the three hearing impaired students were listed in my lesson plan.
PLANNING AND IMPLEMENTING HIGHER ORDER THINKING SKILLS
The activity allowed students to actively think about what they were reading. I wanted
the students to take a first-person account of the Holocaust and to place ones self into the same
situation. I wanted students to be informed citizens and understand that the Holocaust truly
happened and to remember it for the future so that it may never happen again.
Technology was used in this lesson. I not only used the SMART board, but the students
were also working on Achieve 3000 on laptop computers.
ASSESSMENT-MEASURE STUDENT LEARNING
Diagnostic evaluation was completed during my introduction when asking students what
they knew about Holocaust during World War II. Formative assessment was completed by
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walking around the classroom, correcting student behavior, and making sure that students stayed
on task working toward the lesson objectives. Summative assessment was completed, but in the
wrong part of the lesson. I should have saved the Holocaust BrainPop for the end and then
assessed the students with quiz.
Assessment is one area that I need to improve on in my future lesson plans. I am not
completely sure if the students mastered the material or not. I do, however, understand that
assessment is extremely important and will be the one area that I focus on in the future.