Taylor Wisniewski

EDUC 359 Prof. Reilly

SIOP Live Lesson Reflection
I was fairly confident about the presentation of our live SIOP lesson to Taralyn. Taralyn had
very little experience with different types of triangles and seemed eager to learn about them. There
were a total of two objectives for this lesson one content objective and one language objective.
The content objective for this lesson was for Taralyn to be able to classify triangles by side length
and angle measure using the six vocabulary words taught during the lesson. The language objective
was for Taralyn to be able to explain in detail the characteristics that were being used to classify the
different types of triangles. I feel that Liz, Megan, and I were successful in achieving these
objectives during our live lesson. At the beginning of the lesson, Taralyn was unfamiliar with about
half of the vocabulary words. By the end of the lesson, she was able to provide a definition for each
word and also to use the vocabulary words in the classification of triangles. She was also able to
explain to us why a particular vocabulary word matched with a particular triangle (i.e. why she was
using that word to describe that triangle).
I believe that we challenged Taralyn in vocabulary and language development through some
of the activities that we had her complete during the second half of the lesson. The first half of the
lesson was spent teaching the vocabulary in two categories: words relating to triangle sides and
words relating to triangle angles. Once all six words had been reviewed, Taralyn completed
activities that had her classifying triangles by one category or the other: by sides or by angles. In the
second half of the lesson, some of the activities required Taralyn to classify triangles by both sides
and angles. Further, questions in the activities were given to Taralyn both visually and in word form.
For example, one question may provide a picture of a triangle and ask her to classify it. Another
question would ask her to draw a right isosceles triangle. Answering these types of questions that

appeared in the second half of the lesson required Taralyn to use two vocabulary words at a time one for sides and one for angles.
I was incredibly pleased by the overall presentation and execution of our lesson with
Taralyn. I think we were very successful in conveying the meanings of the six vocabulary words
and also giving plenty of opportunities to practice using those vocabulary words in multiple
contexts. The most engaging part of the lesson was definitely the use of the SmartBoard - Taralyn
seemed so excited to get the chance to complete activities using it. Further, while the activities on
the SmartBoard were fun, they also acted as reinforcement of the vocabulary words since Taralyn
had to use the vocabulary words to complete the activities. I dont believe any parts of the lesson
were too easy or too difficult. Taralyn was able to complete all of the activities that we put in
front of her during the lesson. Although some of the questions certainly took a little bit longer for
her to figure out, she was never so overly challenged that she got frustrated or gave up. There was a
nice balance between straightforward and more challenging problems throughout the lesson.
The lesson definitely would not have gone as smoothly with an actual ELL student as it did
with Taralyn. Being able to speak freely with Taralyn made it much easier to guide her and assess
her learning during the lesson. To teach this lesson to an actual ELL student, we would most likely
have to spend much more time reviewing the definitions of the vocabulary words before jumping
into the activities. Taralyn was able to pick up the vocabulary pretty quickly, but most ELL students
would probably struggle a lot more with words like scalene and isosceles. We would have to spend
more time with an ELL student emphasizing which vocabulary words describe sides and which
describe angles. We would possibly even split this lesson into two lessons for an ELL student. The
first lesson would be learning the vocabulary word and classifying triangles by sides or angles and
the second lesson would be classifying triangles by both together.