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Case Study: Mr. Roth

Jessica Quap

Grand Canyon University

EAD-530 - Improving Teacher Performance and Self-efficacy

Dr. Steve Debee

April 14, 2021

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Case Study: Mr. Smith

In summary, Mr. Roth is a 4-year teacher of U.S. History. He was continuing a lesson

over the Judicial Branch in which they answered the question if they believed the Supreme Court

was the most powerful branch of government before and after reading the court case Marbury v.

Madison in groups.

Observation Reflection Questions: Overt Activities, Classroom Environment, Instructional

Strategies, and Engagement Strategies

Overall, Mr. Roth gave a rock solid lesson with many key elements of an effective lesson

as well as some great reading strategies a reading teacher would be proud of. Overtly, Mr. Roth

set a positive rapport with his students by greeting them at the door by their name and engaging

in small conversations about things not to do with his U.S. history class. By doing this, he is able

to create an environment where students feel safe and valued because of his interest in their

outside lives. He also did this when he helped a student who was absent know what they missed

in class. Because of these actions he takes, the classroom environment has routine; you can tell

they know what to do and how to do it when completing something for learning. According to

Fisher and Frey, “Engaging the Adolescent Learner,” “ The first 20 days of school is time when

you systematically put into place the procedures on which you will rely throughout the year. In

addition, you establish a learning environment centered on personal responsibility, respectful

discourse, and collaborative problem solving” (2011). The posters related to content indicate a

sign of a classroom environment conducive to learning. The climate of the classroom is a safe

space for students to take risks when learning because when they were going over the questions,

many students raised their hands to speak and those called on did not object to being called on

randomly. Respect is given from peer to peer and teacher to student and student to teacher.
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During the main portion of the lesson, he utilized many great reading strategies. First, he

had them skim and scan the summary and look for keywords in order to make predictions of

what the reading was about. This is an important prereading strategy that engages the brain in the

overall learning before reading for specific details. Students can also able to activate any prior

learning they have of the subject. He then practiced another prereading strategy of introducing

and going over vocabulary that students might not know the definition of that would impact their

understanding of the text. Targeting the words to have students look up meanings for helps them

be able to better understand text when reading the material for the first time. Next, in groups the

students answered questions as he moved around the classroom to check for understanding. This

strategy ensures that he knows if his students understand the material as they work instead of at

the end when it is finished, and he is grading. His final strategy involved the class building the

answers to the questions together. This strategy is great for students to learn from each other. If a

group struggles with a question, many the way another group explains the answer will help them

understand the question better.

Throughout the lesson, Mr. Roth utilized different engagement strategies. During the

warm-up, he specifically made sure to call on two students. Maybe these students do not

typically engage during the warm-up and this is his way of making sure they completing the

assignment because it will be very important to the end of the lesson. Also by moving around

the room during the group practice, he was able to closely monitor the understanding of each

group. Mr. Roth also kept students engaged when he briefly commented on each group's

response to the questions. By doing this, he is ensuring that other groups pay attention and can

add to their answers. Students had to be engaged in order to decide if they were going to keep

their answer or add to it.

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Observation Reflection: Differentiation Strategies, Higher-Order Thinking, Technology

The lesson lacked obvious differentiation. When I am looking for this evidence, I would

look for a way he specifically grouped his students unsteady of just how close to each other they

were, I would look for sentence stems to help students complete the written portion of the lesson,

I would look for him to have a “teacher table” in which he read the article with a group of

students, and I would look for different ways students responded to the questions. The only bit of

differentiation I can pick out from this lesson is that he intentionally picked out vocabulary

words to go over before students read the summary. However, this is also a good pre-reading

strategy he should do for all students. In an effort to help him improve in the area of

differentiation for learning, I would have him focus on this for his next lesson. In reading, “How

to Give Professional Feedback”, Brookhart and Moss, point out that, “Feedback should focus on

the major strengths of the observed teaching and on one or two key areas for improvement

(2015). In addition, it is important to only have a teacher focus on one or two key areas because

of his years teaching. He has only been teaching for 4 years. This is the perfect time for him to

begin to be able to add more into his lessons that will continue to help students demonstrate

mastery.

Higher order thinking skills were not specifically stated in the lesson summary because

we do not know what guiding questions he had the students answer. From the beginning of the

lesson, students were asked to make a prediction about the text, that is a level 2 skill and

providing synonyms is also level 2. Hopefully the questions students answered in the

independent reading were high level, but without a copy of those questions, I cannot say that

they were. As an administrator, I would ask for a copy of those questions. To conclude, students

returned to their answer in the warm-up to apply their new learning and decide to keep their
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answer, change it or add to it. The exit ticket was the only portion of the lesson that has evidence

of higher level thinking in this summary as students were making predictions as to what the U.S.

and our government might look like if the case was decided another way.

According to this summary of the lesson, Mr. Roth did not utilize technology during this lesson.

Post-Conference Preparation: Questions and Providing Feedback

To begin, I would ask Mr. Roth how he felt the lesson went in order to spark a reflection

of the lesson by him from beginning to end. I would ask what his strategy for grouping students

was and if he felt this strategy was successful. I will come back to this point later during my

feedback of the lesson. Next, I would ask if students mastered the learning objective. We would

look at the stated objective and compare it with the student work products he brought to the

post-conference. His evidence would be the questions students answered and his entrance/exit

ticket. I would dive into the questions he asked students asking him what kind of thinking

students were being asked to do. Was the thinking high level? These questions would allow me

to understand the lesson in a deeper manner. I would also request to see a lesson plan for the

lesson.

As far as positive feedback, I would begin by acknowledging the positive rapport he has

created with his students by greeting them at the door by name and engaging in conversation

about activities outside of the classroom. I would praise his lesson structure and pacing. He was

able to get through the entire lesson cycle during the allotted class period. I would also praise his

way of bringing the class back together to complete answering the questions. This way students

check their own understanding of the summary and ensure that they go away with the impression

intended from the exit ticket. I would share this feedback because it directly aligns with the
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lesson cycle appropriate for teaching. He is able to allow for gradual release of learning in a

purposeful manner.

As stated above, my constructive feedback would be to intentionally plan differentiation

into all parts of the lesson cycle. To be more specific, I would encourage him to look into

differentiating the reading portion of his lesson by having a “teacher table”. This would be a

station that he would pull kids to, once they were grouped according to the level of support

needed instead of proximity, and differentiate specifically for that group. According to the

article, “Differentiated Instruction: Making Informed Teacher Decisions”, Watts-Taffe and others

cited that, “students made greater gains in word reading and reading comprehension when their

teachers differentiated instruction, using small, flexible learning groups during a center or station

time, than did students whose teachers provided high-quality but primarily whole-class

instruction” (2012). So many other content teachers other than reading need to realize that they

teach reading as well, just in a different class.

Post-Conference Preparation: Technology and Additional Comments

In order to make a suggestion about how to utilize technology to enhance student

engagement, I would suggest that Mr. Roth look for a way that technology could have been

utilized for the vocabulary portion of his lesson. For example, he could have had students utilize

an online dictionary to look up the words or use a program such as Jamboard to post their

definitions to the words for their peers to learn from. He could also have had students answer the

questions using technology instead of pencil and paper, but I would also say that the goal of

technology use in the classroom is not only to replace pencil and paper (substitution according to

the SAMR technology integration model) but to create an opportunity for students to synthesize
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their learning in an online collaborative environment (modification according to the SAMR

technology integration model).

As closing for the post-conference, I would ask if there was anything he would like to

mention or give evidence for that was not present on the rubric I would present him for his

observation. I feel it is important to give teachers the opportunity to make sure I have all of the

information about why they conducted their lesson the way they did. From personal experience

when an observer missed my intentions over student grouping to her own opinion of how I

should have done it, I want to make sure I do not make an assumption that was wrong and a

teacher did not have the opportunity to explain.

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References

Brookhart, S. M., & Moss, C. M. (2015). How to Give Professional Feedback. Educational

Leadership, 72(7), 24–30.

Fisher, D., & Frey, N. (2011). Gradual Release of Responsibility (GRR) Instructional

Framework. Retrieved 14 April 2021, from

https://dpi.wi.gov/sites/default/files/imce/ela/resources/Fisher_and_Frey_-_Engaging_the

_Adolescent_Learner.pdf

Watts-Taffe, S., Laster, B. P. (Barbara), Broach, L., Marinak, B., McDonald Connor, C., &

Walker-Dalhouse, D. (2012). Differentiated Instruction: Making Informed Teacher

Decisions. Reading Teacher, 66(4), 303–314.