Clinical Field Experience B: Peer Instructional Planning Review

Jennifer Amato

Grand Canyon University

EAD -533

Dr. Hattabaugh
 Establish Rapport

For this assignment I observed and collaborated with my instructional coach, Luanne Donkle

and our fourth grade math teacher Lisa Peterson. Lisa is a second year teacher, and this is her

second year working with Luanne. She is eager to take any feedback, though she can be hard on

herself about not performing the way she thinks she should. Her lesson plans are thorough and

well done, but she struggles with the execution of the plan in the moment. Luanne has done well

building rapport with Lisa because she is willing to give her as much support as possible to help

her succeed. Not only do they plan and review data together, but Luanne has modeled

instructional strategies in her classes and co-taught with her to help her feel more confident about

what she needs to take on.

Positive and Constructive Feedback/ Instructional, Engagement, Differentiation

Luanne and I worked together to create feedback for Lisa. The positive feedback

provided for this session included the well thought out plans, chances for student discourse in the

plans, and adding higher level DOK questions in appropriate spots. Though Lisa’s plans seem to

have all her bases covered, they lacked cues she needed to execute the strategies the staff is

tackling as part of our Unified Improvement Plan. For example, Lisa added DOK 4 question

opportunities into her plans but would rush through instruction and not give students the time to

engage in answering the question, or she had not planned for the ideal responses so was unsure

of how to guide the conversations or keep students on the right track when they struggled to

respond correctly. Some of the feedback provided for this included creating a progress

monitoring tracker with exemplar responses to better assess students’ understanding. We also

suggested creating scaffolded questions within the notes of her slide deck or on a clipboard, so
she did not have to try to steer a discussion on a whim, but instead be prepared with possible

guiding questions to keep students on track.

Suggestions for Instructional Leader / Improve Peer Observation

When Luanne asked for more suggestions for how we can help Lisa, I suggested allowing her

to observe exemplar classrooms and then immediately practicing the desired instructional

strategies. It is difficult to figure out the right feedback for Lisa. On paper, she knows what needs

to happen, plans for it, practices it, and then it does not happen in class. Her next steps need to

include classroom management and should include very specific, bite-sized, steps for her to work

on. Luanne agreed with me about my suggestions, and we are going to implement them with her

mentor and through our PLC time as well to support Lisa the best we can.