Primary School Experience Observations

Observation Sheet Questioning Primary

(Please complete this form for both primary and secondary professional experiences and
place in your ePortfolio)
Graduate Standards - AITSL
Professional Knowledge:
Professional Practice:
learning

1. Know students and how they learn

2. Plan and implement effective teaching and

Question Type

Do you feel your questions

were clearly structured and
readily understood by the
students?

Did you use a variety of

question types?

What balances was there

between the various
questions types?

Consider both why and

when you made use of the
different question types?

I feel that my questions were clearly structured and readily

understood by the students because the students were quick to
respond to my questions and were always on the right track.

I used convergent questions such as How many Kangaroos are in

this picture? as well as divergent questions such as What is your
favourite Australian animal and why?

I mostly only used convergent questions as I observed that they

often became confused with some divergent questions.

I used the divergent questions when I wanted them to think about

their opinion and I used convergent questions when I wanted them
to think about the right answer.

Distributing and Directing Questions

I noticed that I tended to ask more convergent questions because I
Did you recognise any
did not feel that they would know how to understand and
pattern in the distribution of appropriately answer too complex divergent questions.
your questions amongst the
students? Consider
reasons for this pattern?

How have you directed

questions to the group?

When asking to identify the numbers, I asked what branch the

numbers were (on the tree number line), referencing the tree
number line.

I struggled to use wait time.

Have you used wait time?

Did you make eye contact

with the group as you
directed your questions?

I did make eye contact with the group when directing the
questions.

Reactions to Students Responses

How do you deal with
correct responses? Do you
qualify any praise given?

How do you deal with

incorrect responses? How
do you deal with students
who stumble and grope for
an answer?

When a student answered a question correctly, I praised

them by saying well done or good job and qualified that
praise by proving that the answer was correct.
When a student answered a question incorrectly I said good
try and asked them to try again and helped them if
necessary.

What use do you make of

the students responses to
develop the teaching point?
Have you redirected any
questions in order to add to
an initial response?

Are you the only evaluator

of the students answers?

Overall Comments

When a student responds to a question correctly, I will qualify the

response and explain further information.

I was not the only evaluator of the students responses as I had two
other adults to help me including the education assistant and the
other practicum student.

Observation Sheet Management

(Please complete this form for both primary and secondary professional experiences and
place in your e portfolio)
Graduate Standards AITSL
Professional Practice:
1. Create and maintain supportive and safe learning environments
2. Planning for Effective Management

Was your lesson plan

effective for managing the
class?

My lesson plan was effective for managing the class because the
were all engaged and busy which resulted in a reasonably quiet
classroom.

e.g. How did the students

react to your lesson overall
and to your planned
activities?
It was unexpected that the students were not listening or paying
attention when I initially tried to conduct the review of the lesson.
It was also unexpected that some of the students did not want to
Did you provide a variety of pack up when I asked them to.
activities?
Did anything unexpected
happen?

Were you satisfied with

your timing, particularly for
the end of the lesson?
Did you feel you were able
to change things if needed?

Were you aware of

classroom procedures and
school disciplinary policy?
How much did you know
about your students?
How did your mentor
teacher maintain a safe
learning environment?
What strategies did your
observe your mentor
teacher using to maintain
this?

All the students were colouring in however they were colouring

different pictures.
I was satisfied with my timing because I was able to complete
everything I wanted to complete in the given time.
I did not feel that I was unable to change things because I did have
to adapt my lesson conclusion by taking the students back to the
mat instead of having stay at their desks.
I was aware of the classroom procedures and school disciplinary
policies because the mentor teacher had taken me through them
prior to the lesson. Though I was only there for a short amount of
time, I found that it was easy to get to know the students and their
ability levels because I was able to interact with them constantly
throughout the week.
In order to maintain a safe learning environment, the mentor
teacher had enforced rules throughout the year, such as no
running inside, hands to yourself, washing hands after using the
toilet and before eating and hats must be worn outside at all times.
When students would break a rule, they would get a warning
which would usually encourage them to follow the rules. If
students continued to break the rules, the mentor teacher would
continue with the disciplinary procedure.

Maintaining a Positive Attitude in the Classroom

While at the school, I maintained a happy and enthusiastic
How did you demonstrate to nature and talked to the students on a more personal level in order
the students that you valued to get to know them. By doing this, I was showing them that I was
them, and enjoyed
interested in them and valued them as people. I also showed that I
learning?
valued them by tailoring my activities to suit their interests (e.g.
colouring).
e.g. Tone of voice, facial
expression, sense of
humour, introduction to
students and topic.

Which aspects of your

teaching style do you feel
helped you maintain class
attention?

I believe the toy koala and the colouring in helped me to maintain

the class attention because these were the things that the students
were interested in and most engaged with.

e.g. Variety of activities,

class or group discussion,
pace of lesson, interest at
class level.
Did the students know what
was expected of them?

Were you able to redirect

energies of attention
seeking students? Did the
students have enough
to do?

The students did know what was expected of them because my

questions were very clear and easy to understand. However, some
students were confused when they had the kangaroos to colour in
and whether or not they were to count the joeys in the pouches.

Attention seeking students were encouraged to help other students

that were having trouble. The students had plenty to do as there
was a lot of detail in the pictures to colour in.

Dealing with Minor Misbehaviour

Were you aware of what
was happening in all parts
of the classroom? Did you
know what each student
was doing?

When doing the mat session with the number line, I was aware of
everything that was happening because I was in a position where I
could see all the students. However when doing the colouring in,
it was harder to be aware of what every student was doing because
they were working individually and I had to try and ensure that
every student was on track.

Did you take any action

when you observed poor
behaviour? Why? Why
not?

There was not a lot of poor behaviour expect for a few occasions
when students were not sitting nicely on the mat. If they were
still paying attention and not disturbing other students around
them, I would take no action because they were still doing what I
had asked. However if they were not paying attention and/or
disrupting students around them, I would stop the lesson and ask
them to sit nicely on the mat. After I asked them they usually sat
nicely however if they hadnt, I would have asked them to move to
another spot on the mat.

Did you use non-verbal

cues? e.g. Contact, pause,
gesture, movement toward
student/s concerned.

When I noticed that students were not doing what they were
asked when colouring in, I would stand by them to encourage
them to work.

Overall Comments

Schools as text looking at the whole school

Describe the school in terms of
its demographics, appearance
and resources (be general here
and do not name the school).

The school seemed to be very clean and had a multiple of

resources. The classrooms had very good technology
resources as well as non-technology resources (such as
educational games).

What were the roles and

responsibilities of the teaching
staff you observed?

The roles and responsibilities of the teaching staff were to

provide the students with appropriate education to help
them with further study and also to become successful
citizens in the future. They also had a role to help shape
and mould the students to become kind, considerate and
nurturing people now and in the future.

After discussion with your

mentor teacher describe how
policies and processes of
government, administration and
schools have an affect on the
work of the teacher?

The changing of the curriculum has an extensive effect on

the work of the teacher as they must rewrite their entire
plan for the year. Also, students who move into primary
school are expected to know a multiple of things that they
may not know if they did not go to kindy (which is not
compulsory like pre-primary). This makes it harder for the
teachers as they will have to set aside more time in order to
help those students catch up.

What did you observe non-teaching

staff doing to support teaching and
learning in the school?

The non-teaching staff were often doing a lot of behind

the scenes work such as setting up the classroom for
lessons and taking care of student lunches and
medications.

Students
You will have observed the
diverse nature of your classes.
How was this diversity
supported?

The diversity of the students abilities was supported by

having the students sit in their ability groups when doing
activities. This way, the teacher was able to focus on all
the students in that ability and know that they are all very
close ability wise.

Function of Schools
Did you observe the connection
of your schools with the broader
community? How did this
happen?

The school was connected to the broader community. This

was evident through the parents staying for a few minutes
to help their kids with the daily early morning activities and
also through various incursions such as the wildlife
incursions.

What do you think the function

of school is?

I think the function of school is to educate, shape and

mould students to be able to further their education and
become good, law abiding and successful citizens.