Lesson #2 Self- Assessment

Name: Libby Kent

Lesson topic: The 5 Senses
Date: Monday, March 7th, 2016
School/grade level/ number of students: Greenfield Middle School/ 8th grade science/ 11
students
Name of Cooperating Teacher: Wendy Klewer
Planning and preparation: Describe how your plan provided opportunities for active engagement. How did
you provide for the needs of diverse learners? Did you adjust your plan in any way? Describe how and why if you did.

My plan provided many opportunities for active engagement. I had the students read aloud
at the beginning and take notes on a piece of paper in a two-column form. During the eye part, I
had a 3-D model of the eye that I made to show them the different parts in case they could not tell
from the 2-D diagram in the book. I pointed out each part of the eye several times as we learned
about more parts from the reading. After we learned all the parts, I pointed to each part on the
model and asked them what it was called. I had 3 short YouTube videos throughout my lesson that
reviewed and gave more information about the sense. One was for how light enters the eye
another one showed how near and farsightedness affected the eye and the last one talked about
how the senses of smell and taste were related. All of them involved some cartoons so that they
were interesting and engaged and were between 1 and 3 minutes long. For the sense of hearing, I
designed a human model where three students had props that related to the three parts of the ear.
I described why each prop was important as they related to structures in the ear. This activity
especially helped meet the needs of all learners since the students had fun with it and were
interested to find out why the students were wearing the various items.
I made several adjustments to my plan. First off, I had the students make name tents so I could
learn their names easier and call on them. In the first class, I noticed that reading the whole section
about the ear out loud took a long time and wasnt as engaging as I hoped. Since the section about
the eye was the main focus, in the next two classes, we read the sections about the eye out loud,
but I only used the human model for the ear and described each part to the students as they were
introduced. For the senses of smell and tasting, I summarized the text and showed the short video
instead because the same information was in both. Another change I made that I only did in the
first class was previewing the reading by paging through it first and reading the headlines for them
so they would know what we were going to talk about. I forgot to do this for the next two classes.

Classroom environment: Evaluate the ways in which your encouraged student participation. How did you elicit
student responses? How did you engage them in responding to you and each other? Evaluate your plan for individual,
small group and/or whole class work. How effective were these different organizational techniques for keeping
students involved in your lesson?

I encouraged student participation by reading out loud, taking notes, watching the videos,
answering questions, and modeling the parts of the ear. They were also able to ask their own
questions along the way as they arose. The students did not want to volunteer to read so I called
the students by name to read the paragraphs. Since the class was small (due to a band field trip)
students didnt have to raise their hands to talk and could just answer out loud. They responded to
me by shouting out answers to my questions. They were quite shy however and unsure of their
answers so I had to ask them to speak up a lot. A majority of the lesson was whole class work
since we were reading together. The ear demonstration involved only three students but the whole
class was engaged and helped to review the parts of the ear. The review worksheet at the end was
individual work. These organizational techniques proved to be very effective to keep students

involved in my lesson as they started to critically think about the topics and ask questions related
to the senses.
Instruction: Evaluate your choices of instructional strategies. Did they have the effect you intended? Were the
needs of all learners met? What changes would you make if you repeated this lesson?

I used a variety of instructional strategies. I began with having the students set up a note
taking paper. I modeled how to find the main idea in the reading. My CT wanted me to read the
text out loud with the students so I couldnt really avoid that (even though I did summarize some
of it at times). I ended up linking the learning objectives to the reading of the text. The short
videos helped to reinforce the ideas and the role playing activity with the parts of the ear turned
out as I expected. All of these strategies did have the effect I intended them to have. The needs of
most of the learners were met although I could tell at the end that some were still confused about
the parts of the eye.
If I were to repeat this lesson, I would change a few things. Although I taught the lesson to
three classes and made changes along the way, some parts of the lesson design could have
improved. In my original plan, I had a web idea for a closure. It would have been cool to fill in the
web as we went through the lesson though to show the students how the 5 senses are
interconnected. Another idea for the web would be to break the class down into 5 groups and have
each group conquer one sense and then fill in that section of the web. I also would have liked to
preview the section in all the classes instead of just the first one. It was very helpful to show them
what they would be learning about. When I was modeling how to read each paragraph and find the
main idea, it would have been nice to actually write my thinking down on a smart board slide for
the students who need a visual along with verbal directions.
Assessment: What assessment processes did you plan and how did they work? What did you learn from listening
to student responses, examining their work or listening to their interactions? How well did your assessment
procedures inform you about student attainment of your lessons objectives?

The main assessment process I used was informal. Throughout the reading and activities, I
observed how the students behaved and what types of questions they were asking. They shifted
from asking surface questions to asking in-depth scientific questions about the senses such as
what happens when someone is colorblind, can someone wreck their eardrum and the like.
Their note taking papers were also informal assessments since they were writing notes for
themselves and employed methods that they individually were going to remember the information.
The worksheet at the end could be more of a formal assessment since it was asking them to recall
certain facts about the senses. These assessment processes worked well in determining the level of
understanding the students had and finding out if my lesson objectives were met. The artifacts I
looked at had some nice details about each sense which means that they did a close read and were
about to figure out the main ideas.
Professional responsibilities: What did you learn from your cooperating teachers feedback on this lesson?
How will you apply it to future lessons?

Again, my CT had some great feedback. Some of the main positives she said were that my
pacing through out the lessons as very good and I gave enough time for students to jot down notes.
She liked when I did the initial walk through of the section, but suggested that I continue that
practice with all the classes, as it was very effective. She said that the instructional strategies were
very appropriate and engaging for the students and what we were learning about. Some
suggestions she had were to ask more specific questions using students names instead of general
ones. For example, instead of asking did everyone write something down or does anyone want
to share what they wrote, I should trust that the students wrote down some notes and specifically

call on students to share. She also suggested using more think, pair, shares so the students can
not only talk, but also share their ideas with one another before reporting out their ideas to the
whole class. The students might volunteer their knowledge more if they confirm it with a table
buddy first. Lastly, my CT said to watch for students that ask questions to pull the class off task.
To deal with these questions I can tell them that its a great question they can write in their notes
and we can look at it another day. The example from the lesson of this was when a student asked
how tears were related to the eye. I can apply all these suggestions to future lessons by watching
the types of questions I ask and adding more talking time into the plan.
Reflection: What did you learn about student learning and assessing from this lesson? How will it affect your
planning for future teaching?

I learned a lot about student learning from this lesson. My CT and I discussed how middleschool students could be actively engaged while not explicitly showing their excitement. Even
though I repeated the parts of the eye multiple times, they still did not stick in the minds of the
students. Perhaps I need to focus more on the vocabulary aspect of the content. The assessment
part was good for this lesson. Watching the student interactions during this lesson, I also noticed
that the females tend to be quieter than the males who sometimes talk out of turn just to talk. In
one of the classes, the students actually split themselves up into a female and male side of the
tables when they were asked to move up to the front rows. When planning for future lessons, I
have to make sure that the activities are suitable for the differing personalities and knowledge of
all the students.