Lesson 1
The first lesson I observed was a math lesson on
measurement.
Space: At the beginning of the lesson, the students were on
the carpet. They transitioned to their
desks. Space was not specifically talked
about in the transition directions, but the teacher had students with certain
shoe types go back to their seats. This helped only small groups of them go,
which avoided too much movement in certain areas. During independent practice, I noticed that
the teacher walks around the room a little bit.
One side of the classroom is hard to walk through (very narrow), so the
teacher avoided this. She walked to the
back of the class once, and spent most of the student work time around one
student with some behavior issues.
Time: Timing was most noticeable during direct
instruction. The teacher got started a
bit late, and seemed a little rushed throughout the lesson because of
this. I noticed a few areas where she
shortened the lesson: she skipped one review problem and a few example
problems. During an activity, she
focused on one group for quite a while.
During this time, it was noticeable that the other students got very off
task (very related to materials). One
major thing I noticed with time is that it is used as a behavior management
incentive. The teacher often says “You
have 30 seconds to…” or counts down from 5 to get attention. She also often says she’s timing the
students. I didn’t see her follow up on
this during this lesson, but students were excited about the race, so I’m
hoping to see this in action soon.
Materials: During this lesson, students each got a tape
measure to use. The teacher has a
teacher helper and a supplies helper as student jobs. These two students helped pass out and
collect the worksheets and tape measures.
The teacher had them pass out the tape measures at the beginning of the
class, then collected them after their introductory activity. She then passed two back out as she needed a
few more observations about the tape measure.
A few minutes later she passed them all out again. This seemed a little excessive and she could
have had the students keep them. I did
notice directions about where the tape measure should be specifically, usually
on the students’ name tags when they weren’t being used. It seems like to collect materials, it is
pretty standard for the class to pass them down to the end of the table where a
student will pick them up. This works
very well, and the students can do it quickly and easily. During individual work time when the teacher
was occupied with other students, most of the class got very off task when they
finished their work problems. They were
playing with the tape measures a lot. They
got a little crazy, but it didn’t take
anything extreme to get their attention back when the teacher desired it.
Instruction: The teacher changed how she instructed a few
times during the lesson. She included a
lot of partner and small group work, as well as direct instruction and work
time. I really liked that she encouraged
collaboration with peers, especially during the beginning of the lesson as
students brainstormed observations. I
noticed that she pulled name sticks a few times to have students come up to the
board or to answer questions. I think
this was a good idea because I noticed her calling on one student in particular
quite a bit, and he is a student who seems to give quick and correct
answers. It was nice to see this
varied.
Behavior: Most of the other aspects of management created
the behaviors in the room. Materials
were the biggest detraction from well-behaved students. The teacher gives corrections nicely at
first, sometimes jokingly. Her second
warning is usually much more harsh. She
then uses a method of a ‘take a break’ chair.
One student ended up taking a break three times or so throughout the
morning. He seemed to only get more
upset with this. I wonder how he would
react if he had to take fewer breaks and spent a little more time there
(sometimes it’s only about a minute and he leaves looking mad and escalated).
Lesson 2
The second lesson I observed was a writing lesson. The students are working on poetry,
specifically meaning vs. music.
Space: The teacher reminded the students of their
expectations for a mini lesson before starting to teach. This included how they should have their
bodies, cross legged and still. The
students started on the carpet. The
teacher read example poems before they started work time. She said they could lie down if they
chose. The students all spread out on
their own and laid down. This was a
small problem for some students who tried to sneak under the table. Despite a few redirections, they did pretty
well with this. The students then had
work time at their desks. The teacher
pulled name sticks for five students to work on the carpet. She also moved one student from his table to
her table. Changing his space had a
strong effect on his work time and he stayed on task after this change.
Time: The teacher got excited about the example poems she
was reading and ended up going ten minutes over her original plan. When work time began, she told students they
had “20 good minutes to write as many poems as you can”.
Materials: The only
attention given to materials in this lesson was when the teacher said “When I
say ‘go’, you have 30 seconds to get out your notebook and a pencil.” The students responded to this well and
did their task quickly, although the
teacher didn’t follow through with the timing.
Instruction: Students were on the carpet at the beginning of
the lesson while the teacher did some direct instruction, filling in a
chart. At one point, instead of just
telling students what onomatopoeia is, she all of a sudden said, “Bang! Crash!
What are those words called?” It
had a great element of surprise and kept the kids engaged. I also really liked
when the teacher had students do a quick partner share with their 5 o’clock
buddy one idea for a poem. She also
reminded them of their goal of making their own anthology of poems before work
time. Students are excited about this
and it seemed to help them work.
Behavior: The student with the most noticeable behavior
issues was sent to take a break twice during this lesson. The students got a little excited/rowdy
during the poem reading, and this was not strongly corrected. This was good though; they were excited about
the poems and were only slightly off task.
It was a little harder when the teacher wanted attention. She used “But I’ll wait” before talking, and
the students quieted down fairly quickly.
During independent work time, she told students she was doing a dojo to
keep them on task. This got a bit
interrupted at the end when she realized her difficult student had had the
bathroom pass for about ten minutes and was playing in the hallway. I did not see how this was dealt with,
although another adult spent time with him after that. I am curious to learn more about this
student.
Question of the Day
I asked my teacher what the most valuable part of
collaboration is for her. She told me
that the thing she talks about most with her peers is lesson planning and ideas
for lessons, projects, etc. She had just
been telling me about a poem planning strategy she learned about from a
colleague and had used with one struggling student. This definitely reinforced the idea that this
is happening all the time for her. She
also said that the third grade team collaborates a lot with social
studies. They don’t have a lot of
guidance for social studies and my teacher is not confident in that subject
area, so she is constantly talking to others about how to teach best for her
students. She also mentioned adapting
their set curriculum. I liked this,
because as I student taught, there were many things with Everyday Math that
were hard in lessons, or just seemed unnecessary or uneffective. Collaborating on better ways to do something
from the book is very wise-making sure that things are still getting taught,
but perhaps doing it in ways that are better for the group of students. My teacher added that she hopes grade
planning can be done in the future. It
sounds like this collaboration is informal, and she is hoping to have sit down
meetings about certain topics and perhaps do more as a whole grade.
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