Karisma Cruell

TWS 8

December 2, 2014

TWS 8
Reflection, Self-Evaluation, &Professional Development
Lesson 1
1. Whole Class
A. This lesson had a positive impact on student learning. Students
were assessed on the life cycle of a pumpkin the next week and
they still remembered the life cycle of a pumpkin from this
lesson.
B. I had to implement extra stopping points in the story because of
some of the answers presented to me during the preassessment. For example, I asked students if pumpkin were
always orange and they all answered yes so, when I got to the
part in the story where the green pumpkin starts to grow on the
vine, I stated, So, pumpkins are not always orange and we
discussed it.
C. The only thing I would change about this lesson is allowing the
students to sit on the carpet while I played the pumpkin video.
If they had been able to truly interact and dance along with the
video, they may have retained the information even greater
than they already had.
2. Three Individual Students
A. The student most successful during this lesson was my high
achieving student because the student was engaged in the
lesson and sought to find answers during the lesson.
a. The student was appropriately challenged and even went
above and beyond and actually colored the stages in
their booklets the actual colors that they are in real life.
B. The student that was least successful during the lesson was my
low achieving student because the students attention span is
not great and the student tends to copy others work.
a. If I taught the lesson again, I would split the class up in
small groups for the book and the booklet portions of the
lesson but she is a student I would have worked with
one-on-one to ensure she had gotten the idea.
C. The student who remained average in performance was my
average achieving student because the student is focused on
other students sitting at the table and the student tends to be
very talkative.

Karisma Cruell

TWS 8

December 2, 2014

a. This student could be more successful if she sat in a desk

by herself, rather than at a table with the rest of the
class, so that she focuses on her own work and not
everyone elses work at the table. She is very friendly and
talkative so it is difficult for her to stay focused during
instruction. If I taught this lesson again, she would
benefit from certain portions of the lesson being one-onone.

Lesson 2
1. Whole Class
A. This lesson had a positive impact on student learning and gave
the class an opportunity to do some things with the SmartBoard
that they had never done.
B. After the pre-assessment and having some students blurt out
the answers without raising their hands, I decided to choose
their names out of the name cup to come up to the board and
answer the questions. It also made it fair for everyone in the
class to have a chance to come up and help answer on the
SmartBoard. Also, if they blurt out the answer and their name
comes out of the name cup, I will put their names back in for
the next go around and they would not get to come up to the
board.
C. If I taught this lesson again, I would modify the postassessment and make more than them just draw one details
from the story. Now I know that the students would have been
able to complete a more challenging post-assessment.
2. Three Individual Students
A. The student most successful during this lesson was my high
achieving student for the same reasons listed in the first lesson
reflection.
a. The student was appropriately challenged (although the
post-assessment could have been more challenging) and
went above and beyond, once again, to draw multiple
details from the story and even one of the characters from
the story.
B. The student least successful during the lesson was my lowachieving student for the same reasons listed in first lesson
reflection.
a. If I taught the lesson again, I would work with her one-onone during the post-assessment and explain the

Karisma Cruell

TWS 8

December 2, 2014

instructions three different ways and then leave the

student to do the illustration individually.
C. The student average in performance during the lesson was my
average achieving student for the same reasons listed in the first
lesson reflection.
a. To improve her performance, I could have given the
student a few details to illustrate on, instead of giving the
student a choice.
Lesson 3
1. Whole Class
A. The lesson had a positive impact on learning and the students
were very engaged. This lesson actually landed on Veterans
Day, which worked out well since the lesson was on Community
Helpers and we were talking about soldiers.
B. This lesson went exactly as planned and there was no
modifications made based on content. A student did fall asleep
on the carpet during the video and I arranged his seating to be
relocated to his desk.
C. When teaching this lesson again, I would try to find a shorter
video for students to watch and I would allow students to cut
out their own cutouts instead of the pictures being cut prior to
the lesson.
2. Three Individual Students (ABC in one bullet*)
A. All students were successful during the lesson (none more than
others). That was so because the students had already started
talking about community helpers earlier in the week, prior to
this lesson, and this lesson was a review for students. All three
of my chosen students did an amazing job on the assessments
presented during the lesson.
a. The students were appropriately challenged and I could
have improved performance by having students complete
two worksheets instead of one.
b. If I could teach the lesson differently, I would incorporate
a massive chart on the SmartBoard with a variety of
community helpers to match and we would have done it
all as a class, allowing every student to have a chance to
participate.
Lesson 4
1. Whole Class

Karisma Cruell

TWS 8

December 2, 2014

A. The lesson had a positive impact on the class. This was the first
time story maps were introduced to the students and it showed
them that they actually read for meaning; there are different
parts to every story.
B. I made some instructional decisions and incorporated some
discussion time because the students were confused about the
setting. It gave the students a better understanding of the
setting and helped them to retain the information.
C. When teaching the lesson again I would incorporate technology
to make the lesson more engaging and spark student interest.
2. Three Individual Students
A. The student most successful during the lesson was my high
achieving student for the same reasons listed in the first lesson
reflection.
a. The student was appropriately challenged and was very
eager to seek answers.
B. The student least successful during the lesson was my average
achieving student because she was absent on the day of the
lesson.
C. The student average in performance was my low performing
student because she was eager to answer questions and she
participated throughout the entire lesson.
a. One way to improve performance would be to go back
through the lesson briefly with the student to improve
learning.
Lesson 5
1. Whole Class
A. This lesson had a great impact on learning in the classroom,
positively.
B. The students were very rowdy all morning so I decided to
modify instruction and only use the manipulatives to go around
the room and show them (rather than giving each students four
different manipulatives to use during the lesson). This helped
the students stay focused on their work and less on other things.
C. If I taught this lesson again, I would incorporate a video at the
beginning and end of instruction, not just the end.
2. Three Individual Students
A. The student most successful during the lesson was my high
achieving student for the same reasons listed in the first lesson
reflection.

Karisma Cruell

TWS 8

December 2, 2014

a. The student was appropriately challenged and made sure

to stay with me as we went through the lessons to be sure
that she was listening to all directions and answered
correctly.
B. The student least successful during the lesson was my low
achieving student for the same reasons stated in my first lesson
reflection.
a. For lessons like these, where the directions are read
aloud, I would work with this student one-on-one or in a
small group.
C. The student average in performance during this lesson was my
average performing student for the same reasons stated in my
first lesson reflection.
a. This student needs to be in a place in the classroom where
she can focus better and I think her performance would
improve.
3. Reflection
I based all of my lessons off of student demographics and that is
what geared my lessons to be engaging to the students
My knowledge and understanding of the content geared my
lessons. I could engage the students more because I was
knowledgeable, and because I was knowledgeable, the lessons
were more exciting for me and I made the lessons exciting for
the students.
The other bullets under the reflection section have already been
addressed in TWS.
4. Reflection for Professional Development
Two developmental goals I have set are to establish a better discipline plan
for my students, and to make my lessons more engaging. Some steps I will
take to improve my performance will be to implement some positive
reinforcement strategies in student teaching and watch how my teacher
does her discipline system. In order to make my lessons more engaging, I
will start to plan them earlier that usual and after the plans are done I will
do some research and incorporate more creativity (songs, movement, etc.).