Class Observation Form

Faculty Member Observed: Mr. Graham Parker (Clive) Observer: Ms. Basma Abdulla
Class Observed: Foundations Level 2 Date and Time of Class: 30/10/2014, 8:30 10:10

To be completed by the faculty member being observed:

1) The goal or outcome for students during this class session is:
- Listening and speaking
- vocabulary
The outcome would be for the students to work in small groups and large groups to answer
different types of questions on a listening passage.
2) Describe what happened in this class session.
The teacher took attendance and asked students to move everything away and only keep their
pencils. He then numbered all the student 1 4. He asked them to move so that all the 1s were
together, all the 2s, and so on. Then he said that one half of the class would be Group A and the
other half would be Group B. The task for all the students in the small groups (number groups) to
decipher meanings of words. Then all of the students in Group A would explain some terms to
Group B, and vice versa.
There was a lot of cooperative learning in this lesson. The activities were effective in getting the
students to work together and complete their tasks. There was a slight competitive nature to the
lesson which enthralled the students and there were many moments of laughter and screaming as
students tried to figure out the correct answer. The teacher had gone through the lesson but
prepared to remove some parts of tasks if the students found the listening difficult. They didnt
so all tasks were completed. The final activity was a quick game which had the students leave
feeling good about the class.

3) What worked particularly well during this class session?

What worked particularly well was the movement of groups. There was a small-group activity
within a large group activity. They had their assignment in front of them and there was smooth
flow between one task to the other. The activities ranged from easy to difficult, but were
connected with the same vocabulary. Speaking and expressing themselves was allowed freely,
and the students were comfortable in their talking even when they made mistakes. They had no
problem laughing at themselves and trying again.
4) Was there a point during this class session when the faculty member lost student
attention?
There was no point in the session where the teacher lost attention. They were all invested in
their learning, and liked being in groups. They were focused and tried hard to help each
other.
5) How did the physical surroundings or environment of the class session affect the
learning experience, if at all?
The room was large enough for students to move freely from their desks without being
squashed. The windows were open and the lighting was clear. It was a small group of
students so there was a lot of sharing of ideas without it becoming chaotic, but even when it
did become too loud they quickly got their answers and calmed down.
6) What suggestions do you have for the faculty member you observed in terms of
expansion of particularly effective teaching strategies, improvement of teaching
strategies that didnt work well, solving problems you observed, etc.?
I liked that technology was used as a resource rather than the main tool for the learning
experience, but maybe at the end of the lesson or the beginning I would incorporate an iPad
activity that gets them to use technology for learning. The faculty member explained to me his
reasoning and it made sense that sometimes, technology can get in the way of a truly productive
lesson. All his teaching strategies, despite not being technological, were very effective and the
students did not face any problems learning without technology.
7) Other comments or observations:
What I plan to use that I really liked from the lesson was that the teacher asked them what they
thought they were going to do next, and that got them interested in the task right away.