FEEDBACK OFFERED A STUDENT AFTER A DAY’S OBSERVATION OF PRACTICE TEACHING

OBSERVATIONS OF XXXX LESSONS

Leanyer School

Tuesday June 13 2012

Social and Cultural Education, Poetry and Maths

My observations were from 9.00 am until 10.15 am then from 11.45 am until 12.30 pm. This was a quite extensive period of observation.

With the SOCE work, children were working, both in the classroom and also on computer in an adjacent room. They seems to be quite significantly engaged, this being evidence of their interest. When children are working next door in the, computer room, make sure you keep a regular eye on them. Children need this under duty of care arrangements. It is a legal requirement that supervision be constant.

You grouped children on the floor for the introduction and continuation

of poetry development.

Commendations

Good management of children go tended to due focus -at least initially.

Recognition and naming of children who needed to be brought back on task.

Affirming that ‘poetic license’ applies when developing poetry meaning that writers can go outside the boundaries of conventional script writing.

Revision of what had gone before was a good idea – recap is always necessary.

Your suggestion that poetry is a medium through which feelings can be

expressed was good thinking as sometimes children and adults feel restrained when using this medium.

Your speech was generally loud enough to be quite audible to children.

You talked about poem types, in terms of humor, scariness, the invoking of mood and so on. This was done initially and then when children moved on to poetry writing.

You encouraged children to persevere when they were having some difficulty in becoming motivated to write their poems.

Toward the end of the lesson, some of the children shared their efforts. Your invitation to share, their responses and the conversations children had around completed work (of their peers) was a good strategy.

Suggestions

While your voice was loud, your enunciation was not always clear. Aim for precise and deliberate speech.

Revision of your previous lesson tended to go on for too long. It need to be crisp and brief. Don’t overdo revision by going back over countless examples of what has been done, because this loses children who turn off after s period of time.

At one time a child threw a rubber at or toward another child. Be aware and make sure things like that don’t happen.

The children generally went to the writing of poetry without too much fuss.

Make sure when you go from one point of a lesson to the next, that children clearly understand what they need to do.

When using the whiteboard, make sure your writing is clear and legible. That legibility is helped by the use of fresh and ‘visually friendly’ marker pens.

Generally the darker colors – black, blue and purple stand out better than some of the lighter shades.

MATHEMATICS LESSON

The major lesson focus was on the conversion of fractions to decimals.

This concept is one that can be difficult to show and have children understand from the viewpoint of translation. Your lesson focused on whole class work with children sitting on the carpet and working with you on the whiteboard from 11.45 am until 12.10 pm. At that time children returned to thei desks in order to work the subject individually. I took this to be aimed at both consolidation and extension.

Commendations

You thanked children from time to time for the way in which they were cooperating with you. Praising endeavor is important.

You aimed to clarify the difference between mathematical expression using factions and decimals including conversion.

When children commenced written work during the second part of the lesson, you moved around and engaged with them at desk level.

Suggestions

Whiteboard markers were too light for script to be easily read. Children had some difficulty in understanding what you were writing.

Your lesson was ‘two dimensional ‘ in that it was what we call ‘chalk and talk’. It was about teaching from the whiteboard with children responding to script. Your lesson (and this applies to all Maths lessons in my opinion) would have been enhance if children had had concrete materials with which to manipulate and explore fractions and decimals concepts. “Hands on” can involve quite simple materials. If children are allowed to explore and play with concepts using concrete materials, moving to whiteboard and paper (the abstract extension) becomes easier and more meaningful.

I felt that the way in which your lesson unfolded left quite a lot of the children feeling quite unclear about both process and reason for why this knowledge is important.

From the above point, it can be more than useful to ‘set the relevance, of mathematical learning by having conversation with children about how fractions and decimals are applied in real life. This could engage an understanding of area, money, weather and climate, to name just three examples of where an understanding of fractions and decimals is applied.

Always make sure that children clearly understand when they are moving from one part of the lesson to the next. It can help to outline for children the lesson plan, so that as an introduction the lesson sequence is briefly elaborated.

GENERAL

I felt that today you were not sufficiently in control of the children. Their focus and concentration was minimal and frequently lapsed. This meant you had great difficult in keeping children on task. The general noise level was quite elevated. While you don’t want children to be as quiet as mice or so still you can hear a pin drop, neither do you want the level of conversation to be up there in terms of decibel output. Control management and classroom organization are areas that continue to challenge your authority as a teacher. I am not advocating that you bawl children out, but rather that you work on strategies that will help you gain and maintain control.

Set the boundaries and parameters of behaviors that you expect and that at acceptable at the beginning of your practice teaching periods

Make sure to stick to time when it comes to lesson development.

Plan for shorter, sharper and more engaging activities as part of the lesson constructs. Too much of the same approach for too long is a turn off for students.

CONCLUSION

There are some elements of language I will write up and share with all International Students with whom I am working.

All the best for your continuing development.

Regards

Henry Gray

14 June 2012