Monique Davis

Lesson Reflection- Community Helpers

My observed lesson focused on community helpers. The beginning of my
lesson was delayed due to technical difficulties with the computer. However, I
improvised on the spot and thanked the children for waiting so patiently. Overall, I
think my lesson went very well.
I began the lesson by activating students prior knowledge on the different
communities they have been learning about (urban, suburban, rural). I used a brain
pop video to introduce different community helpers. Students were extremely
engaged and responded well to the video. Following the video, I asked students to
turn and talk with their partner and share a community helper they saw in the
video. Something I would have done differently, is rather then having students recall
a community helper they saw in the video, I would ask them to think of a community
helper that they video did not mention.
Before giving instruction for the independent activity students played a game
called Who am I? I thought the game was awesome and the students were so
enthusiastic and eager to participate. The game allowed students to use higher
order thinking skills and match a description to a community helper. The
independent activity was creating All Star community helper cards. I modeled for
the students exactly how to do the activity and asked them to repeat my directions
to check if they understood what they were doing. I differentiated the independent
activity by providing a work bank of different community helpers at the bottom of

the worksheet. This guided underperforming students if they could not remember
or spell the community helpers.
One of the areas I have continued to work on throughout my student
teaching experience is providing the students with an appropriate closure. I closed
this lesson by having two students share their independent activity on the Elmo. I
think this was a great way to close the lesson and to praise the students for a job
well done. The closure also allowed me to assess how well the students understood
the activity. The two students that shared their work made it clear that they
understood they activity and enjoyed learning about community helpers!