Alternative Observation Reflection

Luisa Silva

EDU 203

Field Observation and Reflection-  Artifact #2

Constantina Pappas M.Ed., BCBA

 Part 1 (Instruction): Select the best video (only one video and not one that is short in duration)
that demonstrates instructional time (teacher methods) with special needs students and record
your observations when presented with the questions below:
Video Selected: Miss Reid Teaching Reading (Special Education Classroom)
1: Is instruction delivered in small groups, centers, whole groups, individually?
Instruction is delivered in small groups.
2: Describe your the teacher’s teaching style.
She continuously walks around the classroom, assisting each group in every step of their
assignment.
3: How does the teacher incorporate the sensory modalities (learning styles)? Give examples.
She has them saying the words aloud, tracing them, and finding and underlining those words in a
sentence. This provides the students with multiple different ways to learn, comprehend, and
remember the words they are learning.
 4: Do the students seem engaged in the lesson(s) presented? Please explain.
Depends on the student. For the most part yes, they are all engaged, because the teacher is
coming around to each student to have them read/ perform a certain part of the worksheet. When
the teacher moves on to her next group is when some students become unengaged, and others
continue the worksheet on their own.
 5: Are there any students isolated or not present/participating in the class? Explain?
No, the smallest group in this classroom is the two students in the second row and they are
working together, other groups have even more students.
6. Did you see any accommodations or modifications made to the lesson for the student? If so
what were they?
None that I noticed.
7: How does the teacher handle transitions from subject to subject or activity to activity? Are the
transitions efficient?
When they were moving on to the second page of the activity, she announced it loudly and even
flipped some of the students’ packets for them, she also made sure everyone had gotten to the
right page before continuing with her instructions, I’d say it was efficient, yes.
8: List ways the teacher uses “attention getting” commands, word phrases, signals, etc. Are they
effective?
She points to the part of the worksheet she wants them to read, and lightly touches their arm to
get their attention if they are not listening, these did seem effective.
9: What specific behavior issues does the teacher have to deal with? How does the teacher handle
the behavior issues? Be specific.
The only issues portrayed in the video were students not reading loud enough or getting
distracted from their worksheet. The teacher handled said behaviors by asking them to speak up
and by redirecting them to their tasks, she also repeated herself very often.
10: What positive reinforcements were used if any? 
She would say thank you to the students when they were doing what was asked of them. She also
very enthusiastically told a student he did a good job when he finished saying his alphabet.
11: Are there any policies or procedures that help or hinder instructional time? Please explain
them and how they help or hinder instructional time.
Her incorporation of groups helped instructional time because the students would take turns
reading the sentences and they would get through their worksheets quicker, also with groups if
the teacher is not nearby and a student is confused, they have the extra help of the students they
are working with who understand the lesson.
12. What could the teacher have done better to assist the student(s) with learning the material?
 I think she did an incredible job helping every single student in her classroom, she constantly
walked around making sure everyone was on task and understanding the material and helped
anyone who needed it.
Part 2 (Observing a student): Select a different video to focus on one student in one of your
videos where the teacher is using direct instruction.
Video Selected: Correction of Reading Disabilities- Formal Observation
 1: What drove you to choose this student?
There were only two students in this video, I just randomly decided on one.
2: Explain what the student did during the observation.
Maddox got out of his seat a couple of times and complained that it was small at one point, but
despite his fidgeting he was very attentive in the lessons and taking part in it every step of the
way.
3: Summarize the lesson given and the student’s responses to the lesson.
The lesson was about vocabulary and the importance of the order of a story, Maddox was very
responsive in his guesses of what the vocabulary words might mean and while the teacher read
the book. After the book they were given a sequence map for the story and Maddox announced,
“I don’t want to do this.” The teacher expressed that she was sorry but gave no indication that he
would be able to get out of doing the worksheet, after that Maddox quickly decided he was on
board and worked through the questions with Josh and the teacher. Once that worksheet was
done, they played a connect 4 game of reading their words, they got to choose their colors and
Maddox was very excited to read his words aloud and dot them on the paper, he even requested
that the teacher play it with them. By the time they got to the last activity you could tell he was
about at his limit with sitting and listening. They were to cut out sequences to a story and glue
them in order. Maddox, who was ready to be done with schoolwork at this point, decided that the
boy could absolutely put ketchup on his hot dog after he had already eaten it, which is not the
case. The teacher did have to walk him through it a little more thoroughly and he was very antsy
and not gluing them immediately, but he did still try his best to be present and was very polite
when the teacher would remind him to do what he needed. Overall, I think the teacher did a great
job of keeping them interested and moving around and Maddox seemed to really enjoy his
teacher and the lesson.
4: Make sure to document ALL behavior in relationship to what was being presented by the
classroom teacher.
Maddox was polite, attentive, interactive, but also fidgety, and toward the end he started trailing
off in conversation about the time he had a sleep over at Josh’s.
5: Please describe what you discovered about the student’s learning styles, involvement in class,
and his/her educational needs.
I believe Maddox does better with hands on learning, and shorter lessons, the way the teacher
had various lessons for the vocab and each one was fairly short and kept their attention was
perfect. He seemed to really enjoy the ones that were portrayed as games, as any kid would. He
was very involved in every activity and seemed enthused to do so.
6: What positive reinforcements were used successfully? What behavioral consequences were
used?
She praised them with verbal compliments, allowed them to choose their colors as many times as
they wanted because they were behaving and playing the game nicely, and there was mention of
iPad time once the lesson was over. There weren’t really any behavioral consequences in the
video, both boys did amazing throughout the lesson. The only thing I could mention is she had to
steer them away from inappropriate conversations, and simply telling them was enough to get
them back on track.
 
Part 3 (Summary): Thoroughly summarize and reflect upon your entire 10 hour Field
Observation review of each video. What did you observe, learn, realize about teachers, students,
instruction, the school environment? How has this observation better prepared you to understand
the teaching profession? How does the observation relate to the text information and class
activities? What specific ideas on teaching will you remember to include in your classroom? (2-3
paragraph essay)
This 10 hour field observation experience was extremely insightful. Though doing it
online through videos had certain fall backs like not being there in person, it also allowed us to
gather insight on all age groups, which we would not have been able to do in one classroom. We
were able to observe so many different children as well as teachers and how they do things.
The videos varied from preschoolers learning how to use their bodies, elementary
students learning how to read, secondary schools and students’ social obstacles, to large group
lessons, small group lessons, and everything in between. We were able to observe not only how
children with autism learn basic school subjects but also how they learn to interact with others
and how to communicate. They must be taught how close they should stand to a person when
having a conversation, keeping eye contact, and taking turns speaking. These are things most
people just know but people with autism struggle with. In one of the videos, they talk about how
these kids typically don’t know when they’re being bullied and it shows these boys telling a
student to call his crush fat, he didn’t understand that she wouldn’t like that, and she clearly had
her feelings hurt by this comment and the young boy was confused. In another video students
were learning basic tasks they might need when looking for a job, and it showed students
learning to vacuum and shred papers. In the elementary video they had a whole motor room
dedicated to getting students moving, with a swing and a trampoline, it allows students to get out
any excess energy and ready to work or even gets them alert when they’re feeling sleepy.
There is so much more to special education than simple English and Math. These
students are learning life skills, social skills, and so much more. It was so cool to get to see
everything that goes on in the inside of these classrooms, these teachers were all incredible and
so good at transitioning into new subjects and keeping their students interested. There were
lessons that simply involved sitting and listening and chatting, and there were lessons where the
kids had to get up and move their bodies, ones with facial expressions and learning how to tell
what people were feeling. It ranged so much, because every student has specific needs, and these
teachers knew exactly what those needs were and how to meet them.