Sarah Al-shdifat

Video Analysis
Nov 16th, 2015
As I reflect on my video analysis, I see many things that I thought I did really
well and some things that I can perhaps improve on the next time I would teach this
lesson. The goals of my lesson were to teach the eight characteristics of life and to have
the students distinguishing between organisms/items that are alive or not alive. I
communicated the goals by giving the students a sheet with a set of organisms and items
that they should be familiar with and allowed the students to explore their ideas on
whether or not they are alive. I also created a chart with all the characteristics and went
through each part of the eight characteristics of life and talked about those things that
classify things as alive.
My goals were certainly accomplished because I was able to have the students
explore items and organisms and place them into the categories: alive, not alive, once was
alive and not sure; I was then able to go through the characteristics of life and briefly
explain each one. By doing so, students and their partners were able to think and discuss
why or not they thought certain items went into certain categories, helping them create
their own thinking. At about 5 minutes into the video, I have the students begin to explore
the list of organisms/items that I have provided for them and allowed them to discuss.
You cant hear it very well on the video, but I heard a lot of good discussion,
going on in the background, of students trying to figure out what goes where and why; I
also got a few questions as I allowed the students to do their own exploring. You can also
see, in the video, at about 33:30 where I begin to talk about those eight characteristics of

life and explaining each one so that the students can have a brief introduction on the
characteristics before we begin to explore them more in depth the next class day.
Watching the video, I would say that my instructions for the activities done were
clearly and that the students did a great job following the directions. Towards the end (at
~42 minutes), I got a little flustered about the time when I was handing out the
worksheets that I felt my directions were a little unclear because I first told them to not
start the worksheet and to just look at it, and then I said to start it, then Mrs. Chapo told
them to not start and to just look over it briefly, specifically at the examples given of the
eight characteristics of life. To change that aspect next time, I think I will pay attention to
the time a little closely and to make a decision and stick with it, instead of going back and
forth. So if any part of the directions were a little messy, I would say it is towards the end
of the lesson, when I began to worry about time.
For the level of student involvement throughout the lesson, I felt like I really had
students collaborating, discussing and participating throughout most of the lesson. The
explore part allowed students to talk to each other and explore the different concepts.
After doing so, I had the students explain to me where and why they put in their
organisms/items, which I thought was really useful because I was able to see what the
thought process was throughout the explore. Having students do a warm-up at the
beginning of class and an exit slip at the end of class was also beneficial for student
learning because they were able to explore and learn throughout the lesson in order to
answer the questions at the end with the exit slip.
I thought the results of the lesson were good because the students seemed to of
learned about the characteristics and distinguishing why or why not things are alive,

which was the purpose of the lesson. The student explain after the activity with the
worksheets really helped me understand where there were misconceptions and what
students did understand. Also, I was happy with the results of the exit slips because the
students were able to respond to the question and the vast majority of the students did
have something that they learned. I think that if I would ask them a question from this
lesson, perhaps if they can name me characteristics of what living things need in order to
survive, I would be confident that the students can answer the question because they had
a lot of practice with understanding and recognizing those eight characteristics.
Although I do think that this lesson was successful, something that I would
change if I would teach this lesson again is to omit the sticky note part because it was not
what I envisioned when writing the lesson. I think next time I would want the students to
do the sticky note activity as the elaborate and to have something else to engage the
students with at the beginning. That part of the lesson just got really confusing for me and
I wouldnt want the students confused as well, so I definitely would change that the next
time around.
My ability to engage the students came through when students did the explore
activity at the beginning of the class after thinking about what characteristics constitute
living things. As I heard the chatter in the background and questions that the students
were asking, I felt that they were really engaged and discussing their opinions with their
partner to come to conclusion of where to place the organism/ item on their list. I also
really felt that they were engaged when we did the student explain because they were the
ones having to tell me what they discussed and why; all students were able to vocalize
their thoughts.

I found that the prior knowledge was shown when the students were discussing
and explaining their answers of what makes something living or not. This really came
through during the student explain where the students were answering the questions from
their activity based off of what they know about living things. For example, when the
students talked about whether or not a pencil was alive during the student explain, many
of them said no, which is true, however they were aware of the fact that pencils may
also fall under once was alive because if we were talking about wooden pencils that
came from once alive wood, it would be considered once was alive but for the purposes
of the activity and for students to construct their own learning, those detailed were not
included.
As for student involvement, I felt that students were involved during the lesson by
moving around throughout different parts of the lesson and talking out/discussing their
answers with their partners and eventually, as a whole group. I would say that their
involvement in the lesson was there considering I had them do most of the talking, while
I listened and allowed them to do so.
Throughout the lesson, I felt like I created many opportunities to help the students
develop the concept. Although the students did most of the talking throughout the
activity, I chimed in when necessary and gave students plenty of time to think, discuss,
and ask questions. I also used many different activities, such as a warm-up at the
beginning, creating their own knowledge by talking to their partner and doing the is it
alive? activity, explaining to the class their answers and why, allowing students who
didnt understand to learn through their classmates, having the student determine where
their sticky notes from the warm-up would fit on the chart of the eight characteristics of

life, and having the students do an exit slip writing down something they learned while
including examples. Based from the videotaping feedback response I received from my
cooperating teacher and the observer, I felt that my instruction to deliver the lesson was
effective.
I felt that my questioning strategy was really effective during this lesson because I
worked really hard to probe students and asked many questions. Some probes that I used
were asking students, why or what else did other people have, can someone explain
to me which I think really helped the students. I felt that I really allowed the students
to do most of the talking, especially during the beginning of class where the students
explored the activity and had to explain to me what their responses were but I also asked
the students many questions to help smooth out what it was exactly that I was looking for.
The questions I asked were a lot of, what do think? Why do you think..? Who
had the answer to..? Explain to me why? I asked way too many questions to have a
specific number, however I felt that questioning was a strength throughout this lesson.
For wait time, I thought I did a good job giving students time to work, to think,
and to response to the questions. At no point did I feel that I rushed the students to answer
my questions as I watch the video. I would say my average wait time is approximately
one minute as I waited for responses to my questions and I gave the students plenty of
time to work on the activity exploring what is alive and what is not. Students were really
involved and engaged throughout the whole lesson and from the feedback I received from
my cooperating teacher, she thought that the lesson was really engaging and that the
students did a good job following the directions, discussing, responding and being
involved.

Classroom management is a tough one for me. Although I didnt really struggle
much with it in this lesson, I feel like where the students were doing the exploring of the
living/nonliving things, that I could have been more involved by walking around the
classroom more and monitoring exactly what the students were doing. Even though I
heard a lot of good discussion among the groups, Im sure that there were probably
students that werent doing what they were suppose to be doing as effectively as I wanted
them to.
Allowing students to spread out and give themselves space also helped with the
management aspect of the class. With classroom management, especially as practicum
student, I feel like there is always room for improvement. Overall, I thought that there
wasnt really any specific issue I needed to worry about or foresee due to classroom
management, but as like I said, theres always room for improvement and some things
that I could do in the future to make classroom management go smoother is to assign kids
groups and not give them a option of who to work with, assign where I want those
students to spread out too, and maybe finding a more effective way of delivering the
activity at the end with the sticky notes.
Going into this teaching experience, my expectations were set pretty standard; I
didnt honestly know what to expect since this was my first time in a practicum
placement. Although in the summer we had a short practicum experience in a science
classroom at the summer school at North Star HS, I didnt really learn much from that
because I wasnt really allowed much interaction with the students in the class I was in.
But as far as this semester has gone, my expectations and more were met. My
cooperating teacher is excellent and I really feel like I had a teacher role in her classroom.

Positive things that happened from this lesson for example, is that the students
were really engaged. I did not think that I would get such a good response from the
students. The students really seemed to enjoy discussing and solving the is it alive
activity within the class. I really appreciated how well this activity went. Something that I
think was negative that has happened throughout this semester is how disrespectful some
kids can be. I know that this is a tough age with students going through changes and
transitions, however some kids were just plain disrespectful at some points and I think
that comes with being a younger, new teacher.
I certainly think that this lesson was appropriate for this age group. The students
in this class are 10th grade biology students (with a few upperclassmen) and I thought that
this lesson was engaging yet metacognitively challenging where students really had to dig
in and do some critical thinking along with responding to many different questions
throughout the lesson and I also think that all the needs of the few students who are
special education and ELL were met because I had students discuss with each other as
well as a whole class and I had a chart on the board of all the characteristics of life. I
think something that would of helped the experience is if I would of added visuals to the
items/organisms from the explore section that they did. Other than that, I thought this was
a great lesson for all learners in the class.
Overall, I have been very pleased with this experience. I got to really dig into
content, get to know and make bonds with my students, learn from my teaching mistakes,
have an excellent example to work off of for a cooperating teacher and I certainly
enjoyed doing it. If I had to choose, I would say what pleased me the most about my
practicum experience is being able to help and teach the students. This is what I want to

do and something that Im passionate about and Im glad Im having such a great
experience doing so with a great group of students and wonderful cooperating teacher.