Department of Teacher Education & Learning Sciences

Elementary Education Program

Formal Observation Reflection

Directions: Complete the reflection questions and submit your response to your observer prior to having a post-
conference to discuss the observation. If a conference is held immediately after the observation you will submit
your responses to the observer the following day via email.

Name: Casey Bohnenblusch Date: April 10, 2017

1. To what extent were learning outcomes appropriate and achievable to your students?
Given that students have been working on the concepts of cause and effect, they
had a good foundation of the ideas. All students can relate to the ideas of friendship
and kindness so I think they were able to easily connect that to the ideas of cause and
effect. Based on student participation and student discourse, I think the tasks were all
manageable and appropriate for the students to achieve.
2. How effective were your instructional strategies? What changes would you make in
your instructional approaches if you taught this lesson again? Why?
I think I may have focused heavily on the social justice portion of the lesson and
seemed to shy away from the explicit cause and effect aspects of the lesson. Although
the ideas connected and were explained in their relationship, if I were to teach this
lesson again I would be more explicit with my literacy instruction as well as the social
justice concepts.
3. Evaluate the effectiveness of your oral and written communication with students.
(Consider how well you communicated learning objectives, clarity of directions, use of standard English, quality of
questions and effectiveness of discussion techniques.)
Overall I believe my communication was clear and straightforward to the students
both orally and written. There were a few students entering the classroom at various
points of the lesson so some directions had to be repeated and clarified for those
students. If I were to teach this lesson again I would be slightly clearer on the purpose
of the exit ticket. As students were thinking of things they can improve on to build a
positive classroom environment, I want them to better understand that the action they
write is the cause for the effect of a positive classroom. This wouldve brought the
lesson more full circle by reiterating the concept of cause and effect.
4. Evaluate the level of student engagement in your lesson . (Consider how you presented the
content/skills, the activities and assignments for students, grouping of students, and structure and pacing of the
lesson.)
Students seemed engaged and interested in each step of the lesson. The apple
activity encouraged student discourse and participation of all students. Throughout the
reading of Because Amelia Smiled, students were eager to answer questions and
predict future events within the text. During the Friendship Pie activity students were
able to move around the room and work collaboratively which increased engagement.
Lastly, the final debrief of the concepts encouraged students to share what they
learned and how they can help create a friendly environment for student learning
which helped me to determine if students were engaged and learning throughout the
lesson.
5. How effectively did you use instructional materials, resources, and/or technology?
I used several materials to aid in the instruction of this lesson. The apples used in
the introduction activity helped students have a visual of the effect they have on those
around them. The book was used as reinforcement to the ideas of cause and effect,
which helped students see how the concepts can connect to real world experiences.
Lastly, the Kahoot! activities made great use of technology, as students worked on
their one-to-one iPads and the Kahoot! was displayed on the Document Camera.
6. To what extent were your assessment strategies effective? What changes would you
make in your assessment approach if you taught this lesson again? Why?
After completing the Kahoot! activities, it was clear that the students grasped the
learning outcomes of cause and effect. The exit ticket helped me to asses their
understanding of how their actions affect others and how that relates to the learning
environment. I think if I were to do this lesson again, I would make the connection
between the exit ticket response and the concepts of cause and effect more clear. I
feel like students focused on the social justice aspect more heavily than the cause and
effect concepts.
7. To what extent was your feedback to students accurate, substantive, constructive,
specific, and/or timely?
The activities that required feedback of student responses were handled
immediately. As students shared ideas during class discussion, misconceptions were
corrected and classmates were able to add onto or share different ideas related to the
topic. During the Kahoot! activities if there were questions with multiple wrong
answers, we would discuss the question and review as a class, which answer is
correct and why.

8. To what extent did the classroom management and environment contribute to student
learning? (Consider your classroom procedures, your use of physical space, and the students conduct.)
Due to the hands-on activities and flexibility in communication and movement
throughout the lesson, students stayed engaged and focused. The engagement
seemed to keep the behavior issues to a minimum and helped with the classroom
management aspect of teaching. There was a slight disruption during the apple
activity where students were talking and playing with something they had found on the
floor but the event ended quickly.
9. Did you make modifications to your lesson plan during the lesson? If so, what were
they and what motivated these changes?
I followed my lesson plan pretty closely as I taught. There were very few
modifications pertaining to the lesson development, activities and formative
assessments included in the lesson. As I was monitoring student work and progress,
time frames may have been shifted to allow more time for students to finish the
Friendship Pie activity.
10. Was your Teaching Behavior Focus goal met?
I think overall my teaching behavior focus of student engagement and participation
was met, which led to success with classroom management. The activities were
broken up in a way that encourages student engagement and participation which
limited behavioral issues throughout the lesson. Students were eager to share and
answer questions when asked and seemed to stay on task for the duration of the
lesson.