Elementary Education Program

Department of Teacher Education & Learning Sciences

Formal Observation Reflection

Name: Megan Mobley Date:

1. How effective were your instructional strategies? What changes would you make in your
instructional approaches if you taught this lesson again? Why?

It was very effective to have the students gathered on the carpet for our lesson because they were more
focused and engaged. If I were to make any changes, I would have gone over some of my behavior
expectations at the beginning of the lessons so that students know what is expected of them. We had
some problems with side conversations and behavior since we did not address our expectations and we
were not their normal teacher,

2. Compare how students actually responded to the lesson verses the way you anticipated they would
respond. Explain how you scaffolded or extended students’ thinking.

More students volunteered to share their language or help with translating Spanish than we expected. It
seemed as though once a few students began sharing, others felt more confident and also wanted to
share.

3. Describe how you assessed whether your students achieved the objective of the lesson. Was this
effective? If not, what would you change about your assessment?

To assess their understanding of the book, we used a story map. Although each student filled out their
own, we went over it as a class. We asked a different student to answer for each part of the story map,
so we did not give them the answers, but they did collaborate as a class overall on the answers. In order
to have a more effective assessment tool, they could have completed at least part of the story map on
their own to better assess their individual understanding.

4. How effectively did you motivate your students, set and enforce expectations, and handle
transitions? Would you change anything and if so, why?

The one transition difficulty we had was passing out clipboards for students to be able to fill out their
story maps on the carpet. I thought it would be best for me to pass them all out so that students didn’t
have to get up and get them and come back. However, once I tried to pick them all up, I dropped them
and the teacher kindly let me know that the students usually get their own clipboards – so that would
have been a normal, easy transition for them.
If I taught this lesson again, I would like to have an hour to do so rather than 30 minutes. With an extra
30 minutes, we could have allowed students to fill out the story map on their own as well as an activity
where they would write a story and draw a picture of one of their family/cultural traditions.

5. Did you make modifications to your lesson plan during the lesson? If so, what were they and what
motivated these changes?

We had originally planned on the students writing a story and drawing a picture of their favorite family
or cultural tradition. However, we only had 30 minutes to teach the lesson and we were just finishing
up the story map at the end of that time, so we did not get to do the planned activity.
 Elementary Education Program
Department of Teacher Education & Learning Sciences

6. How did you meet your Teaching Behavior Focus? If you did not meet it, what would help you to
meet it next time?
Promote Collaboration
● Design learning environments that enable student collaboration  All the students sat in a
group on the carpet during our lesson where they could easily turn and talk to those around
them, and they were more focused with less distractions on the carpet.
● Communicate with other stakeholders—colleagues, parents, and members of the
community—about classroom activities  My field partner and I planned and taught the
lesson together, and we also communicated our lesson plans with our mentor teacher.
● Foster student engagement through discussion  As we read and after reading, we
discussed different parts of the reading. While we read, students who spoke Spanish helped
with Spanish translations and we also discussed key events. After reading, the students
talked about the features in our story map.
● Utilize cooperative learning (e.g., jigsaw, think-pair-share, turn and talk) 
● Offer simple acknowledgments/door openers (yes, tell me more, etc.)
● Paraphrase student verbal content  When students answered the questions about the parts
of the story, we wrote a concise statement on the board.
● Offer congruent non-verbal communication  We nodded or smiled at students as they
were answering to help them feel validated and encouraged.
● Use positive reinforcement (verbal, nonverbal, delayed, and extended)