I.

INSTRUCTIONAL DECISION MAKING

MDD Standard 5
The teacher candidate makes adjustments to the lesson plans based on
assessment data and pupils engagement, communicating the analysis and
conclusions regarding the impact of instruction.
3.1 Student Response to Lesson 1: Did the student(s) respond in the ways you had
predicted? What do you think accounts for differences in student responses and
learning? Consider motivation, management, understanding of instructions,
complexity of task, and individualization to student ability.
To begin with, as I had been most of the semester with students, sharing with
them, talking to them, and of course, gaining some confidence and respect from them,
so I expected total attention from them while performing my lesson plan. However,
students started responding the way I did not predict. They became very talkative
while I was trying to give the instructions, so I lost of time trying to calm them down. I
thought they felt my class was not important and they did not have any motivation or
objective to achieve during my lesson. Although, my teacher was very experienced and
as I knew that students would work when giving them reward, she gave them 1 point
for the test if they participated it was quite helpful for me.
As I planned a Listening SDL, I needed to gather all students attention in order to turn
my class into a success. My aim was slightly simple, they only had to understand the
song, nothing else than that. Therefore, after teachers offer, I started introducing the
music group, then I asked them if they knew something related to the song, which was
Coldplays Shiver, and also if they had experienced that type of feeling before. I used
body language in order to explain them what shiver is, and affirm to them that they
had learnt a word they will never forget. I think that instructions were very clear, they
knew that they had to listen first and then complete the worksheet as I wanted them
to go top-down and use the scanning strategy for listening and then bottom-up while
listening to specific details. Hence, I thought the worksheet was going to be such a
difficult thing to complete; however, it turned out that they found a mistake in it and
completed successfully before I even asked them. It is important to also note that after
the first listening the whole class maintained so quietly that I did not had to raise my
voice to instruct students with the strategies they had to use for the second listening.
To finish the activity and reach the main objective, I asked them what was the song
about and one student raised her hand and answer. While doing that, I saw doubtful
faces and asked a student if he understood the song he told me he did not so I
asked another student to explain him what was the song about.
3.2 Adjustments for Lesson 1: Describe how you will adjust your second lesson in
response to your analysis above. Consider instructional strategies, the
organization and content of the lesson, motivational strategies, preventative
management strategies, procedural changes, materials, activities and
assessment. Explain why you believe these adjustments will improve student
learning.
First, I would start by being prepared to find the motivation students need to
have without a reward they must think that learning is not a rewarding system.
Consequently, I would start by touching something more personal as I will have known
them even more, I may find something they care about and might feel that there is
something inside them that accuses their consciousness and willingness to participate.

I would also find a more active lesson where they can talk, move and provide them
more freedom while doing the activity, but with a learning framework involving the
class.
3.3 Analysis of Learning Results
3.3.1 Whole Class:
I could not gather material data of students performance and results during my
class, but I did evaluate their results when they answered the worksheet I
provided them.
3.3.2 Individuals:
3.3.2.1 Student 1
This student represented the highest performance during the class. As I finished
the listening, she had already done all the worksheet and was helping her classmates
with the answers.
3.3.2.2 Student 2
This student represented the lowest performance of the class. Although he
could not complete all the worksheet, he seemed eager to work on that but his level of
understanding in English was not as high to fulfill the task. He looked a little bit
worried and got frustrated when he could not understand the words needed for each
activity in the worksheet.
3.4 Impact of your instruction on Student Learning
3.4.1 Identify what you believe to be the instructional strategies and activities that
contributed most to student learning.
I think that the listening worksheet made them aware of verbs use in a sentence
and how to use strategies while listening in order to get what is asked. In fact,
when the first listening finished, I told them some helpful strategies to get at
least the idea of the sentence in context.
3.4.2 Explain how your teaching behaviors affected student learning. Consider student
response to explaining, giving directions, modeling, organizing activities, leading
discussions, the pacing of the lesson, and the overall organization of the lesson.
As I witnessed students learning during the semester, I could identify that they
needed linguistic inputs in English as the teacher felt tired when using the L2 and
not getting students attention. Consequently, I decided to implement a listening
class in order to promote and foster their listening skill as they seemed to be
displaced in the learning process of English they thought it was about
translating. Moreover, I also minded students with a low level of English who
would always expressed their discontent as they did not understand a word of
teachers instructions or activities. As a result, I tried to teach them strategies
which could help to get at least what is important in a sentence so they could
perform better in their lessons afterwards.

Repeat same sequence of prompts for Lesson 2

3.1 Student Response to Lesson 1: Did the student(s) respond in the ways you had
predicted? What do you think accounts for differences in student responses and
learning? Consider motivation, management, understanding of instructions,
complexity of task, and individualization to student ability.
Regardless students behavior during my first class, this time I could gather all
students attention as it was quite a touching topic I took previously intended by
me. I showed them an advertisement in a newspaper of a man beating her wife in
the 70s which promoted a booklet that encouraged this behavior. Students
seemed a little bit shocked about the advertisement and started asking me
questions regarding the topic. As they were asking me questions about this, I was
introducing the topic which was Social Issues and I modeled the creation of this
type of advertisement for them to see what was going to be the task. Therefore, I
planned on giving them 30 minutes to draw their own advertisement. This time
everybody was working and I monitored their work helping them with ideas or
trying to guide them with their own ideas, English use questions, etc. Finally, they
completed their own ads, adding some touch of humor to them which I thought
was a very interesting of the English language I draw the conclusion that they
needed to use the English they had been learning, and it made me glad of what I
did, so they seemed to be also.
3.2 Adjustments for Lesson 1: Describe how you will adjust your second lesson in
response to your analysis above. Consider instructional strategies, the
organization and content of the lesson, motivational strategies, preventative
management strategies, procedural changes, materials, activities and
assessment. Explain why you believe these adjustments will improve student
learning.
I would do this activity in a computer lab for students to use their technological
skills to create a better advertisement. Concerning this, I think students would
improve their ICTs and also be more comfortable as they are more used to the
computer world.
3.3 Analysis of Learning Results
3.3.1 Whole Class:
The whole class worked and I helped them, as the lesson had different
objectives, I think students were able to achieve them.
3.3.2 Individuals:
3.3.2.1 Student 1
This student represented the highest performance of the lesson. He seemed to
be eager to work on this as he could show off what he had learned during the
semester. He made the advertisement with a very catchy message and followed the
instructions for the task.
3.3.2.2 Student 2

This student represented the lowest performance of the lesson. She was a little
bit upset because of a problem she had at home, so she was not even thinking on
staying in class. She started her drawing but never finished I tried not to blame her
as I know that people have some days in which their feelings turn them down.
3.4 Impact of your instruction on Student Learning
3.4.1 Identify what you believe to be the instructional strategies and activities that
contributed most to student learning.
Leaving students the responsibility of their own performance was one of the
strategies that work very well, regarding the whole TBL which was considerably
made for a let it all flow environment.
3.4.2 Explain how your teaching behaviors affected student learning. Consider student
response to explaining, giving directions, modeling, organizing activities, leading
discussions, the pacing of the lesson, and the overall organization of the lesson.
I believed that modeling was the best strategy this time as students could see
something to be attained of while creating their advertisements.
4.1

Identify two concrete aspects of your lesson planning, assessments or

implementation of the lessons that you will do differently the next time you are
asked to plan and deliver instruction to a group of students.

As I wrote before, taking students to the computer lab would have been really helpful
for the timing, performance and final products of each lesson. However, I think I
managed well with the resources I took to the class.