Department of Teacher Education & Learning Sciences

Elementary Education Program

Formal Observation Reflection

Directions: Complete the reflection questions and submit your response to your observer prior to having a post-
conference to discuss the observation. If a conference is held immediately after the observation you will submit
your responses to the observer the following day via email.

Name: Sarah Suffridge and Meredith Dickens Date:11/28/17

1. To what extent were learning outcomes appropriate and achievable to your students?
We feel that most, if not all, of the learning outcomes were achievable for our students.
When we asked the students to explain the details of The Giving Tree and some of
the things that occurred throughout the story they were able to explain the main
concepts of the story back to us. Generally speaking, the students were also able to
describe the lesson learned. By the end of the lesson they were able to explain to us
the characteristics of a sacrificial giver, as well as specific things that they can give to
their classmates and community that does not cost them any money. We believe that it
is also in their capacity to extend this learning into their own lives by giving
compliments, hugs, and extending kindness, but we are not able to be there to witness
it.
2. How effective were your instructional strategies? What changes would you make in
your instructional approaches if you taught this lesson again? Why?
We feel that for the most part our instructional strategies were effective overall.
However, as far as changes in approach, one thing that we might change if we were to
teach this lesson again would be to give the students practice in what it means to give
to one another. For example, maybe give them a chance to give one of their peers a
hug, another peer a compliment, and share something of theirs with another peer for
the rest of the afternoon. This could potentially motivate the students more to actively
seek ways every day to give, instead of just keeping this story and the activity as a
cool idea in their heads.

3. Evaluate the effectiveness of your oral and written communication with students.
(Consider how well you communicated learning objectives, clarity of directions, use of standard English, quality of
questions and effectiveness of discussion techniques.) \\
For the most part, I feel that we were able to communicate clearly to our students. In
particular, we were able to discuss and form rules and expectation for group
discussions and turn and talks through effectively communicating what expectations
means. In addition, throughout the read aloud, we were also able to probe at the
students well and keep them engaged by asking questions throughout the text.
However, we do feel that we might not have explained or communicated the activity of
writing giving characteristics on a seed, because this was difficult and confusing to
some of the students. In addition, although we were able to ask good questions
throughout the story, after the story ended we struggled to ask and think of good
questions that would set the stage well for our leaf activity.
4. Evaluate the level of student engagement in your lesson . (Consider how you presented the
content/skills, the activities and assignments for students, grouping of students, and structure and pacing of the
lesson.)
Students were highly engaged in sharing and brainstorming the expectations for
 students discussion, and they also were very attentive and were able to answer most
of the questions asked throughout the text. Engagement and focus decreased when
the students were asked to write on their seed/leaves, because our class has a difficult
time staying on task when they are not in direct instruction. However, engagement
came right back when the students were asked to share what they put on their
seeds/leaves and when they taped their leaves onto the classroom giving tree
5. How effectively did you use instructional materials, resources, and/or technology?
We used the resources that we had available well. We did not use any technology
during this lesson, but we used many paper materials to draw/cut out the seeds and
leaves for this activity. In addition, we used paper in our elementary schools resource
room to build a classroom giving tree. A picture of all of these put together are below:

6. To what extent were your assessment strategies effective? What changes would you
make in your assessment approach if you taught this lesson again? Why?
Our assessment strategies were moderately effective. They were able to tell us and
recite all of the things that we had initially outlined for them to be able to know at the
end of the lesson, but we feel as if there might be a more effective way to instill the
lesson we were teaching. If we taught this lesson again, it might be helpful to add an
element of a written plan of action for our students when it comes to giving. Having
them write or draw a picture of a plan to give something to a family member when they
got home could give us greater concrete evidence for us to see that they understood
the lesson while also giving them a specific action plan.
7. To what extent was your feedback to students accurate, substantive, constructive,
specific, and/or timely?
We believe that our student feedback fit most of these things pretty well. There may
have been a few times that we were not as timely as we could have been due to the
fact that we were thinking or other times when our explanations were not as specific as
possible. However, we feel that for the majority of the lesson we attempted to give
students correcting feedback that is also encouraging their thinking process.
8. To what extent did the classroom management and environment contribute to student
learning? (Consider your classroom procedures, your use of physical space, and the students conduct.)
We set guidelines at the beginning of our lesson about what it means to be a good
participant of group conversation. The students were able to come up with their own
rules and this allowed them to really engage and connect with what was being asked
of them because they had a say-so. Since they were being active listeners, the
learning was more easily accessed. We also gave clear instruction for each
assignment and walked around to help any students individually who needed it. This
allowed us to make sure all students were on the same page. Also, we made a really
big deal out of the tree and made sure to highlight what it represents many times to
instill the learning goal of the lesson.
9. Did you make modifications to your lesson plan during the lesson? If so, what were
they and what motivated these changes?
We did make a few changes through the course of our lesson. When we began our lesson with
discussion and expectations, the students were already on the carpet which is their normal read
aloud spot. When it came time to have them write characteristics on their seeds at their desks,
we did not feel it was wise to move them back to their tables just to move them again for the
read aloud. As a result, we went ahead and did the read aloud and discussion on the story, and
then sent them back to their tables to write a characteristic of the tree that they found
throughout the story. Our group sharing of these characteristics were slightly altered also by
having each student share what they wrote from their chair instead of in a group circle because
we did not want to keep moving them around.
10. Was your Teaching Behavior Focus goal met?
Yes. We were able to foster group conversation through the use of classroom
established guidelines.