Department of Teacher Education & Learning Sciences

Elementary Education Program

Formal Observation Reflection

Directions: Complete the reflection questions and submit your response to your observer prior to having a post-
conference to discuss the observation. If a conference is held immediately after the observation you will submit
your responses to the observer the following day via email.

Name:Christine Kim Date:19 April 2017

1. To what extent were learning outcomes appropriate and achievable to your
students?
The learning outcomes were appropriate, achievable, and relevant to the students. All
the students had prior knowledge and experiences to bring to the conversation
regarding this topic.

2. How effective were your instructional strategies? What changes would you
make in your instructional approaches if you taught this lesson again? Why?
I believe my instructional strategies were effective. If done again, I would have the
students bring a clipboard to the carpet so that they could write on their sticky notes
during the buddy/bully chart activity. If I had more time, I wouldve modelled the writing
activity a little better so students could understand my expectations.

3. Evaluate the effectiveness of your oral and written communication with

students. (Consider how well you communicated learning objectives, clarity of directions, use of
standard English, quality of questions and effectiveness of discussion techniques.)
Overall, my oral communication was effective, but I think there needed to be more
modeling and use of the gradual release of responsibility model for the writing activity.
Half of the students did not understand my initial directions, so I had to redirect them
individually.

4. Evaluate the level of student engagement in your lesson. (Consider how you presented
the content/skills, the activities and assignments for students, grouping of students, and structure and
pacing of the lesson.)
Students were highly engaged during the classroom buddy pledge, but there were
some off task behavior during the buddy/bully chart and the writing activity.

5. How effectively did you use instructional materials, resources, and/or

technology?
I believe that my activities were engaging and were valuable aids to learning. I did not
use technology, but if I were to do it again, technology would be a great instructional
aid.

6. To what extent were your assessment strategies effective? What changes would
you make in your assessment approach if you taught this lesson again? Why?
I used informal assessments to monitor student understanding of the topics. The
 buddy/bully chart was an assessment method that I could use to directly see if
students understood the difference between buddy behavior and bullying behavior. If I
could change my assessment approach, I would include an exit ticket or maybe a
Kahoot for students to engage with to dive deeper into the difference between buddy
and bullying behaviors.

7. To what extent was your feedback to students accurate, substantive,

constructive, specific, and/or timely?
I believe that my feedback was very minimal. During the buddy/bully chart activity I
read the sticky notes and commented on them, which went well. However, during the
writing activity, students were confused on the prompt and the directions. I redirected
them in that moment, and some students were able to go back on task, but others did
not.

8. To what extent did the classroom management and environment contribute to

student learning? (Consider your classroom procedures, your use of physical space, and the
students conduct.)
My implementation of Give Me Five contributed positively to the classroom
environment. I had the students on the carpet during the buddy/bully chart activity so
that they would be more engaged, but the students in the back were distracted.

9. Did you make modifications to your lesson plan during the lesson? If so, what
were they and what motivated these changes?
Right before the Buddy/Bully chart, I decided to state a disclaimer to the students that
they should be respectful during the whole lesson and that they should not call out
specific students. I knew that the students all felt a certain way about a specific
student, and I did not want that student to be singled out. During the Buddy/Bully chart
activity, I decided to review the sticky notes before adding them to the chart instead of
letting students stick them on themselves in case some students included some
unkind statements. Also, right before the lesson, my mentor teacher told me to refer to
the narrative writing as realistic fiction writing because the students were not familiar
with narratives. She also had a realistic fiction anchor chart in the room that I used to
refer to. I also decided to refer to the anti-bully pledge as the buddy pledge instead
to focus on a positive classroom climate.

10. Was your Teaching Behavior Focus goal met?

Yes, the teaching behavior focus goal was met. A positive classroom community was
emphasized through the Buddy Pledge.