RUNNING HEAD: CLASSROOM OBSERVATION

Classroom Observation
Angel Noriega
California State University, Dominguez Hills

Abstract
This paper analyzes a language arts lesson, common core standards, strategies and activities, and

suggestions for a lesson. The observation based on a 7th grade ELA dual bilingual immersion

class program taught by Ms. Taylor. She showed her students new words that can replace dead

words in their essay. She used an activity so that all of her students can participate.
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Classroom Observation
The learning process has to be successful in order to make an engagement between

students and the lesson being taught. To make each student become more active in the learning

process, teachers must make the classroom environment well organized and encourage students

to participate in the activities. Mrs. Taylors lesson encouraged teamwork and made sure students

were engaging in the activity by rotating their partners. She provided the students with several

worksheets that they could refer back to while they revised their papers. She covered the writing

standards for grade 7 by providing guidance to help students improve their writing. Mrs. Taylor

offered strategies and activities for her students to replace dead words in their essay. This lesson

taught her students to use alternative words to better explain their topic. Students like to be active

and this lesson was perfect to adapt to the students needs. When analyzing a language arts

lesson, the Common Core Standards, strategies and activities, and suggestions for a lesson,

people will understand how effective games are in a classroom.

Classroom Lesson
In Mrs. Taylors lesson, she allowed open class discussion, small group discussion, and

teamwork activity. The classroom discussion served as an icebreaker to let students become

comfortable in the environment they were in. The lesson was very interesting and was a creative

way to explain to the students what dead words are. It was a fun way for teaching students to use

an alternative word to better explain their topic or opinions in writing. Many times, students will

reuse words because they can not think of another word that fits best. In Mrs. Taylors lesson, it

helped her students acquire those words. For instance, when she explained that using some

words might not be as precise as others so she used the example of the dead word bad because

some people do not know if it is meaning bad as in something rotten or is it bad as in the person
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being a delinquent. Rather having her students do worksheets, she had them play a game. This

way the students thought of other words to describe a dead word in a fun and engaging way. The

students understood that they needed to use specific and precise words to describe what they

were writing so that their readers can better understand what they were trying to convey.
Common Core Standards
The Common Core System helps students to critically think and analyze every situation

in the material being taught. The Common Core Standards for writing in grade 7 states, write

narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective techniques, relevant

descriptive details, ad well-structured event sequences and use a variety of transition words,

phrases, and clauses to convey sequence and signal shifts from one time frame or setting to

another (2010). In Mrs. Taylors lesson, the students were able to identify and learn transition

words and phrases to improve their essay. Another Common Core Standard (2010) that Mrs.

Taylor met is standard W. 7. 5 which is using guidance and support from peers and adults,

developing and strengthening writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting or

trying a new approach to focus on how well purpose and audience have been addressed. Mrs.

Taylor accurately demonstrated this standard by have the student play the game before revising

their work. It gave the students an opportunity-with the help of the teacher and classmates- to

learn new words and substitute the dead words. The common Core Standards for 1st grade in

writing is that students are asked to state the topic and name of a book and focus on the students

opinion. The standards for 1st grade are much simpler than 7th grade, but teachers must help guide

students to find a topic and respond to questions and suggestions from peers and add details to

strengthen their writing just like in 7th grade. The Common Core Standards for 4th grade gets

more difficult as students are expected to have an opinion, explain why they came up with those

ideas, and then provide concrete evidence. Students in 4th grade are supposed to use concrete
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words and phrases to convey an experience of a story. They must critically think about a certain

aspect that happened in the story and be able to explain what happened. Although the difficulty

level of each standard is different, there are still similarities between them that all students must

learn before moving to the next grade.

Activities and Strategies
When education feels dull, students are not being engaged and motivated in the

classroom. By applying games into a lesson plan, students will be highly motivated to learn

about the topic. Games motivate students to look for information in order to successfully

complete a challenge. In Mrs. Taylors class, students were having a hard time coming up with

words to describe a dead word so she used a game for students to understand the different

meanings of the words. This activity, not only helped them thinks of new words, but it also

allowed students to take the time to distress. A student will be able to retain the information that

is being taught when he or she is stress free. When a student is feeling anxious, the least of his or

her worries is classwork. It is up to teachers to incorporate these activities for their students.

Another strategy that is beneficial for students is when teachers check on their students to see if

they understand the lesson. They need to realize that every students learning intake is different

and must provide different ways for students to learn. It allows the teacher to recognize those

students who need further help with the lesson. The more help a student receives from a teacher

or a classmate, the more he or she will understand the material.

Suggestions for Lesson
Overall, Mrs. Taylors lesson was a great exercise to help students replace dead words. It

was a good strategy on keeping her students engaged in the lesson. One way her lesson could

have been better is having the whole class participate instead of the same students playing the

game. In order for each student to learn effectively they must all participate. Fostering whole

class participation is an effective method for students to retain information and understand the
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concept of the lesson (Lengeling & Malarcher, 2005). If the same students are constantly

participating in class then the rest will not learn or want to engage in any class activity because

they will know that the same students will be the ones to cooperate. Students learn best when

everyone participates and the content is relevant to them. It is the teachers job to take this into

account and fix the problem. Another method Mrs. Taylor could have used is facilitating the

class and time. While students were playing the game, many others were talking, moving form

one place to another, and distracting those who were listening. Mrs. Taylor took the entire class

period to play the game. She could have set the game for a shorter amount of time and used more

time for student to revise their papers. Games are often used as short warm-up activities or when

there is some time left at the end of a lesson, not the entire class time (Uberman, 2008). A game

should not be an activity that fills in odd moments when teachers have nothing better to do.

Students are there to learn and take in as much as they can within the time they are there. If a

teacher just plays games in the classroom, they are wasting the students time for learning.
Conclusion
The video shared great learning strategies to prepare the students to revise their rough

draft. Mrs. Taylor engaged her students and made sure she expressed what was expected of them.

She used experiential learning as an approach to make connections with experiences when

students had trouble finding the right word when speaking to someone. This is a great method to

show students the importance of building their vocabulary. What was great about Mrs. Taylors

lesson was that she incorporated the common core standards into her lesson. Students were able

to identify dead words with the help of their classmates. It was fun and exciting so that students

are actively learning.

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References
Lengeling, M. M & Malarcher, C (2005). A natural resource for teachers, 34(4), p 42.
Macias, A. (2015, October 5). Ms Taylor. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=0zpJ8qH0jkI
National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, & Council of Chief State School

Officers. (2010). Common Core Standards for English Language Arts.

Uberman. A (2008, January). The use of games for vocabulary presentation and revision. 36(1),

p. 20.