WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY TL330

Classroom Observation (for your Final Integrated Social Justice Lesson Plan)
DUE: Oct 27th on Blackboard
To help prepare you for your group Final Integrated Social Justice Lesson Plan, please engage in
a targeted observation of the classroom, and engage in discussions with your teacher around the
following areas. Remember, these are things for you to consider so that you can ensure, to the
best of your ability, that your lesson plan is culturally responsive and accessible to all of the
students in your classroom. Some of these questions can be answered via your observations, but
many will require some discussions with your teacher. Please remember, each individual in
your group needs to submit a classroom observation sheet on Blackboard by Oct 27th.
1. What is the general layout of the classroom and resources available for you to use for
your lesson and stations? Whiteboard, projector, laptop, document camera, smartboard,
Chromebooks, etc.? What supplies do the children generally have in their desks that they
can use?
The classroom has a projector, a document camera and a whiteboard. In their
desks, students have pencils, markers, crayons, colored pencils, scissors and glue.
2. What are some of the classroom dynamics to consider? Number of boys and girls in the
class? What grouping strategies might you consider for your stations?
There are 17 boys and 8 girls in our class. The desks are arranged in an L shape
with 4-5 students at each group. Each group of desks is identified by a color (blue, red,
orange, purple, yellow and green.) Since the desks are already grouped by color, I think
this would be a great strategy to group the students together since they are already
familiar with which color group they belong to.
3. What are some of the general mathematics concepts that all of the students in your grade
level can understand/use, regardless of their math grouping? Are there particular
mathematical concepts that the teacher thinks would be useful for your lesson to use?
All students should understand the concept of number patterns, multiplication
(single digit), and basic geometry. Our teacher mentioned that distance and simple
statistics might be a good math concept to include in our lesson.
4. What are some of the main themes in the social studies curriculum for your grade level
that might be a good tie in for your lesson?
Currently in social studies, the students are learning about maps and what the
different symbols represent on the map. The main focus of this years social studies
curriculum is The Pacific Northwest and Coastal tribes. The book that they use is called,
The Washington Adventure by Ruth Pelz.
5. What social studies resources do you observe in the classroom (maps, texts, books, etc)?
In our classroom, there is a blow up globe and a world map. The students dont
have their own individual textbooks at the moment.
6. Regarding ELL students, what is the first/home language? Are they receiving services in
the school? How many years? What strategies have teachers used that were helpful?

WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY TL330

There are a few students in our class whose first language is not English, however
they are not pulled out from the classroom. All three ELLs are no longer receiving
services. There are two students who speak Arabic and one student from Micronesia, the
teacher was unsure what language the student from Micronesia speaks.
7. Regarding students with special needs, what accommodations do you need to consider for
reading, math, language arts, social studies? Think about students with documented IEPs
and 504 plans as well as those that do not have official plans on file. What strategies have
been successful?
In our class, there are 3 students with IEPs for both reading and math. Two of
these students struggle greatly with reading. There is also one student with a 504, this
student has ADHD, but manages it very well. He knows when he needs a break and will
work in the teachers office when necessary. For the students who struggle with reading,
we will pair them up with a strong reader, or assist them in reading the directions if they
dont understand the task.