Department of Elementary Education

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: Heidi Garner

Date: 11/17/14
1. To what extent were learning outcomes appropriate and achievable to your students?
The learning outcomes may have been a little too much for one day. I think this concept would be better
understood when spread over two days to allow for more in depth discussion and exploration. I think the
goal is grade level appropriate, but it requires more time to be achievable.
2. How effective were your instructional strategies? What changes would you make in your instructional
approaches if you taught this lesson again? Why?
I need to be more aware of the time when teaching this lesson in the future. I would also try to use
examples that are a bit more concrete for students because they tended to struggle with some of them.
I also think that a presentation of some sort would have helped the students because some of them
really needed to see the examples we were talking about.
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.)

I think overall my communication of expectations and directions were clear. I think students knew my
expectations, even if they didnt always completely follow them because when they were redirected they
corrected their behaviors. I think that my questions made the students really think about the situation
presented to them and werent too obvious.
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.)

Most of the students were engaged for the duration of the lesson. There were only 2-3 students who did
not participate in the classroom discussion. I attempted to encourage them to participate by asking for
someone who hadnt spoken yet to answer the question, but it was not very effective. During the Playdoh portion of the lesson some of the students got off track and were playing with the Play-doh in ways
that were not beneficial.
5. How effectively did you use instructional materials, resources, and/or technology?
I was not able to display the timer on the Smart Board as expected, so I feel that was not an effective
use of technology because I think the students would have benefitted from being able to monitor their
own time. I think that the Play-doh would have been an effective material if we had more time for
everyone to create their sculptures and to really discuss everyones sculptures.
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?
Because of the time constraints the activity with the Play-doh had to be cut short so I was not able to
fully assess each students understanding. I also had to cut out the worksheet because of time and this
was going to be my summative assessment of their understanding. When teaching this lesson in the
future I will need to execute time management more effectively to ensure time for appropriate
assessments of their learning.

7. To what extent was your feedback to students accurate, substantive, constructive, specific, and/or
timely?
The way that the classroom discussion was set up allowed for timely feedback for students answers.
When students gave an incorrect answer I guided them towards the correct answer by restating their
answer or the question, asking for assistance from a classmate, etc.
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.)

Establishing expected actions and procedures for the discussion and Play-do activity allowed for a much
more structured class. It also allowed for me to be able to quickly redirect students when they werent
following the expectations.
9. Did you make modifications to your lesson plan during the lesson? If so, what were they and what
motivated these changes?
I modified this lesson by cutting out the worksheet because of time constraints. Because I cut this out I
had some extra time at the end of the lesson where I asked for more student examples of items that are
and are not scarce.
10. Was your Teaching Behavior Focus goal met?
I think that my TBF was met because I tried to make sure to ask students if they did know concepts that
they were supposed to already know from previous years. I also think this lesson incorporated students
interests because they could give many different examples of goods/services.