Teacher Reflection

Ultimately, this lesson was designed to introduce fourth grade students to the 5 main
regions of the United States. Through multiple means of representation, the objective
was for students to identify all five regions and be able to give one physical and human
characteristic for each region. Reflecting on this lesson, it is evident that the execution
of the lesson had both positives and negatives. To begin one positive of the of lesson
was the planning itself. The lesson contained numerous recourses from different
sources, including articles and videos from the internet, all correlating with the
standards set out by the school district. Additionally, the objectives of students aligned
with the state standards and was obtainable for students to achieve. All objectives were
able to be assessed, from both informal indications throughout the teaching and
through students exit slip. I was able to identify that objectives were being met while
teaching the lesson, because students were responsive and accurately answered basic
questions throughout the lesson. Further, another portion of the lesson that worked
well, was my intentional plan capture student engagement and support all learners in
the classroom, while focusing on multiple means of representations. Like mentioned
above, the choice to use multiple means of representation was to engage and gear the
lesson towards all students, including students X & Z who are below grade level in
multiple core subjects. I was able to identify that all students were engaged throughout
the lesson, through active participation from all students including both student X & Z.
Likewise, students seemed to enjoy the different representations presented in the
lesson, as it gave them a wide variety of ways to decipher information. Often times
students can lose concentration when lesson do not have depth and are solely teacher
first lessons, meaning students do not have a major role in the lesson. It was my own
objective throughout the lesson to make sure students were engaged and were
continuously participating throughout the lesson, thus why I also included a videos and
a multiple choice quiz at the end of the lesson. Students seemed to respond throughout
and have high energy throughout the lesson, which indicated to me that they wanted to
learn and had interest in the concepts. As a high energy teacher and having students at
a high energy level also, classroom management was a huge accept during my lesson.
Ultimately throughout the lesson my classroom management was near proficient, but
as the lesson continued on students began to become a little livelier, resulting in slower
time regaining students focus. With this being said, it was evident throughout that with
the excitement of the lesson, for the majority of the time my classroom management
was under control. To sum up positive attributes of the lesson this would include,
achievable outcomes for students, student engagement, students understanding of
basic concepts and classroom management.
Consequently, with any lesson there is always room for improvement, as growth
does not stop, but is continuous. With this being said there were key portions of my
lesson that did not go as planned, including time management, deeper conceptual
understanding of the five main regions (cognitive challenge), differentiation in
instructional groups and the alignment of activities/materials with instructional
outcomes. Further, one of the biggest areas that did not go according to plan was the
timing of my lesson. The lesson had to be completed within a one-hour block, but I was
unable to achieve this time goal, as I was unable to complete the entire lesson. Time
management has always been an area where growth in needed. If I were to teach this
lesson again, it would be my goal to keep the engaging elements of the lesson, but to
focus more on timing and in depth concepts. For instance, a ten question quiz at the
end of the lesson proved to create a little chaos for students and evidently was too
long. By shortening the quiz to five multiple choice questions, it not only avoids

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students from getting rowdy and leaves time to focus on more in depth topics during
instruction. Likewise, with more time allotted to the video, this would give me a chance
to implement conceptual learning about the content, rather than regurgitating facts to
the students. For conceptual understanding, I would make sure to ask students more
in-depth, scenario based questions and have them discuss important topics amongst
themselves (think, pair, share). Further, if student become too energetic and beginning
to lose focus during this engaging lesson, I would make sure to compose myself as the
teacher, by having a calming demeanor. Students often pick up on their teachers
demeanor and will mimic what they see.
Further, although this lesson hands many portions that can be improved
on, students were still able to achieve their outcomes. After grading students exit slip,
95% of the students were able to identify all 5 regions, list one physical and human
characteristics for each state, and describe differences between two states. Having
majority of students achieve the outcomes of the lesson is an indicator that they were
able to grasp the basic concepts of the lesson. With this being said, using my
assessment portion I will design lesson that activate students conceptual understanding
rather than just general knowledge. The observation assessment helped me identify the
areas where growth is needed. For future lesson I would like to push my students
conceptual learning and design a lesson that is more rigorous. Ultimately, for future
lesson my goal is to keep the engaging aspects of my lesson, but create lesson geared
towards more in-depth information and having students use collaboration to gain more
insight on the concepts at hand.