Yekaterina Loseva TIE535 Instructional Design AUSL Fall 2012 TPA Task 2: Instruction Commentary Template 1.

In the instruction seen in the clip(s), describe strategies you used to engage students in learning tasks to develop skills and strategies to comprehend or compose text. a. Cite examples of strategies aimed at engaging all your students and examples aimed at engaging specific individuals or subgroups. If you described any of these fully in the lesson plans or the planning commentary, just reference the relevant description. My video clip is recorded during a vocabulary lesson in which students are encouraged to engage in a Think-Pair-Share with their elbow partners on the vocabulary term characterize. The students are grouped based on mixed reading levels in an effort to scaffold student analysis and deepen engagement. The students are encouraged to discuss the synonym map and find more synonyms for the word characterize with their partners. During the Think-Pair-Share the students are very focused and share out what terms they have come up with as seen in the video clip. To add, while the students are sharing with one another, I circulate for student engagement and on task behavior and I scaffold student thinking by extending answers. Extension strategies really work well with this group of student because it forced them to get beyond the knowledge level and focus more on comprehension. b. How did these strategies reflect students academic or language development, social/emotional development, or cultural and lived experiences? Placing the students in mixed level groups for the Think-Pair-Share was extremely effective, because it allowed the higher level students to help the lower level students. To add working in heterogeneous groupings is essential to the social emotional development of the students, because it teaches students how to work with people who are not quite like them. In addition, the language development is evident throughout the entire lesson because the students are asked to begin using the vocabulary word that they have just learned in an effort to cement their understanding and make sure that the concept is solidified. Furthermore, the students are asked to come up with their own definition of the word based on the synonyms to cement their understanding of the term characterize in their own words.

2. Cite examples of language supports seen in the clip(s) to help your students understand that content and/or participate in literacy discourse central to the lesson. a. How did these strategies reflect students varying language proficiencies and promote their language development? The entire vocabulary lesson was anchored on the idea that from this point forward the students would use the term characterize when referencing tone in poetry. Finding synonyms for the term really helps to scaffold student thinking in language development. In the beginning of the clip the students are asked to come up with as many synonyms as they can for the word characterize, for those students who are very advanced and need to be challenged. Then the students are asked to use the Thesaurus to help them find more synonyms to add to their synonym map. For those students who still need more help students engage in a Think-Pair-Share as the teacher circulates, checks for understanding, and extends thinking. 3. Describe strategies for eliciting student thinking and how your ongoing responses further their learning. Cite examples from the clip(s). In the beginning of the lesson students are asked to list as many synonyms as they can for the word characterize. The students are timed which really helps with the pacing of the lessons. Then the students are asked to use a Thesaurus and analyze which words they can add to their synonyms map. Additionally, the students are given an opportunity to share their answers with their peers to really scaffold their understanding. In addition while students are sharing focusing on extending student answers really helps further the learning of the students. For example in one clip one of the students mentions that the word particular is another synonym for the term characterize and while some students agree many disagree. In the middle of the video, I help guide student thinking by concentrating on the synonyms that we already listed and really analyzing if the word particular fits. 4. Reflection a. Reflect on students learning of concepts and academic language as featured in the video clip(s). Identify both successes and missed opportunities for monitoring all students learning and for building their own understanding of skills and strategies for comprehending and/or composing text. Although the lesson overall went well as far as students being on task and focused. I feel that there were opportunities that were missed for student learning. After reflecting on the lesson and my practice, I feel that I could of used more strategies besides the TPS and the WPS to help scaffold understanding. Additionally, I noticed that for some segments of the lesson the students needed more time before being pulled together

whole group. I feel that I could of given students more time when they were writing their own definitions for the term characterize. Furthermore in order to check for time I could have used the fist to five strategy more to give myself an idea of how much extra time the students needed. In addition, I feel that it was hard to share for those students who did not have a partner especially if I could not get to them to share out with me. b. If you could do it over, what might you have done to take advantage of missed opportunities or to improve the learning of students with diverse learning needs and characteristics? If I could teach this lesson again, I would make sure all of my students had partners for the TPS and WPS activities throughout the lesson. In addition, I would give students more time not only while they were writing but also in the TPS. Furthermore, I would try to extend student thinking whole group instead of just circulating and scaffolding students individually. Although that personal extension was present in the lesson, I feel that many students could have benefited from a whole group extension and scaffolding of thinking. To add, I would have used more examples of student work throughout the lesson. I feel that showing students the work of their peers really helps them get their own ideas together.