Professional Documents
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Jusits
Analysis of Lesson
Prior to observing the phonics and grammar lesson, I sat down with my cooperating
teacher to discuss what her planning and preparation looks like. The school in which I am doing
my student teaching utilizes Wilsons Fundations for phonics and spelling and Journeys for their
Scope and Sequence (grammar, vocab, reading and comprehension). Prior to planning out her
own lesson, all of the districts second grade teachers sit down to discuss the goals and timing of
the lessons. Her individual planning and preparation involves tailoring her lessons to meet the
needs of her students (ie. additional short vowel practice, for example, for those who are
struggling), taking adequate time to review previously learned skills, and building on these skills
to challenge her students just enough. She strives to incorporate whole group, small group, and
individual work within a lesson, and tries her best to change setting and pace throughout the
lesson (ie. whole group work on the classroom rug which transitions into individual work at the
student desks, etc.). Her planning and preparation mimics a lot of themes which I have learned
throughout my graduate classes here at Drexel, and I plan on incorporating the change in settings
and pace in my future lessons.
My cooperating teacher holds a seat on the districts literacy committee and attends and
actively participates in monthly literacy meetings. I know this because I have attended these
meetings with her. Her passion towards successfully guiding and molding young readers shines
through in both her planning and lesson delivery. As this lesson focused on phonics and closed
syllable words, it was clear that she has a strong awareness of knowledge of pedagogy and her
students. One of the main focuses of the literacy committee is understanding what the
expectations are at all grade levels, and knowing what should have been mastered prior to
entering second grade. I observed my CT teach on grade level through use of a lot of modelling,
but also take the time to spend additional time with those students who were struggling with the
trick words as soon as the whole class broke out into small group work.
I am confident in saying my CT is a strong proficient in Domain 2; The Classroom
Environment. As mentioned when discussing how she plans and prepares for the lesson, she
organized physical space to maximize learning potential and promote creativity. She also gave
all students an opportunity to actively participate in the lesson through responses and
opportunities to come up to the board to provide answers. Additionally, she frequently gave
students the opportunity to think harder and take additional time on their responses in order to
provide one that met the super star second grader standards, which were constantly encouraged
and rewarded. She constantly reminded students to raise their hands and give the speaker their
undivided attention. She runs a tight ship, but the students respect her, and each other, and
have the confidence and courage to be a huge part of their own learning. The teacher most
certainly heads that movement.
The teacher continued her effective modeling, and once again proved herself proficient in
Domain 3, once the students returned to their desks to work on writing words, and then sentences
to include the closed syllable glued sounds of the day. She used the interactive whiteboard as a
communication device to provide students with a number of sentence starters, and a sample
sentence to get the juices flowing. She then circulated the room while the children worked
independently to help them with ideas, assist them with sounding out words, and remind them of
what makes a good sentence, as they got their ideas down on paper. She assessed them as she
circulated, making revisions as necessary on their rough copy, prior to them rewriting their
sentences on the final project. Just before wrapping up the lesson for the day, the teacher
allowed students to share their awesome sentences if they wished to do so, and almost every
hand went up.
Overall, the lesson which I observed was a great real-life sample of what I expect to see
daily in my future career as an educator. I would have liked to have seen some additional
movement within the lesson to incorporate some sort of kinesthetics or more hands-on learning.
This is a very important area for me. Perhaps I would have incorporated some sort of gallery
walk, or word scavenger hunt throughout the room to get the students up and moving. I also
would have added a small group piece, likely prior to them writing their own sentences, to
brainstorm some additional ideas for super second grade sentences. Lastly, I might have
considered incorporating a technology piece for the students to do. Maybe something along the
lines of a short story read incorporating the letter sounds we just learned, for additional exposure.