EDUC 5312/3315-Curriculum and Instructional Design

Classroom Observation Assignment

Observation Form 1
Observation Date: March 10, 2016

Observation Time: One Hour Class Period

Teacher Observed: MS Brown (US HISTORY)

Subject/Grade Level: Grade 8

School Observed: Fondren Middle School ( Braeswood Blvd, Houston) Observer: Farhan

1-What was/were the learning objectives/outcomes of the lesson? (Add state objectives if
known)

2-How did the teacher begin and end the lesson?

At beginning its about 15 minutes warm-up individually. After that she gave a little lecture on
next session then provided the worksheet.

3-What did the teacher use for teaching materials or instructional aids/equipment?
At the start she uses the flash-cards in the warm-up session I can say that its a kind of visual
material. After that she uses the text book for the next session as explaining onto the white board.

4-Which instructional methods and strategies did the teacher use? (lecture, inquiry,
discovery learning, discussions, games or simulations, demonstrations, cooperative learning,
integration of technology, socrative questioning, etc.)
As the subject was US HISTORY, its all about lecture.

5-How did the teacher assess learning? (informal, formal, formative, summative, oral, openended, quiz, feedback etc) See Chapter 8 for more information on assessment methods
I think its a kind of formal assessment, as she gave flash-card to do the individual task.

6- What can you say about the teachers philosophy/beliefs and style? (Traditional,
progressive, behaviorist, student-centered vs. teacher centered, authoritative etc)
As I concentrated most of his body language I felt might be Im wrong she looks more a kind of
authoritative, or somewhat a kind of traditional because after the warm-up she is just explaining
the next session and student are highly observing her lecture.

7-How does the teacher manage classroom? Can you identify classroom management
techniques used?
As the whole 55 minutes I found that all the student firmly doing their task and as above I
mentioned about her body language, there is no such technique I found she applies.

8-Observe in the classroom setting and determine types of behavior students play when offtask. What do they do when they are not paying attention? How does the teacher re-direct
them or get them back on task?
I think as student are more aware about their teacher to conduct them, I didnt found not a single
student doing non-classroom task.

9-How does the teacher communicate with students (verbal, vocal, meta-verbal or non-verbal
communication such as facial, body language, use of space, motion and time?)
As its a US history class, she used mostly flash-cards in the warm-up session to connect
multiple scenarios, after that its all are verbal interaction with students. I did not saw that she
using any kind of other style that she is using to interact with students.

10-Who were the students in the class? What did you notice about them? (Background,
diversity, attitude, motivation, interaction, participation, etc.)
What I observe that 95% of class belong to a kind of particular community so I dont think its a
kind of diverse class. The attitude was very positive because they were listening to the teacher
very firmly and take participate in any activity specially groups interaction. The interest-students
take participate in all activities I found that they are considerably motivated.

11-What did you see that is effective in engaging students? What do you see that is
ineffective in keeping students engaged?
I think the more effective strategy to engage student is to assign student some task so he only
concentrate on that and avoid using language that is ambiguous or not yet relevant to course
content.
12-What are the two instructional strategies you observed and would like to apply in your
classroom?
I like the way when student was using flash-cards to connecting the dots. It looks very interesting
at individually assign task.

13-What are two important classroom management strategies that you observed and would
like to apply in your classroom?
I didnt found that MS Brown uses any special kind of strategy. What I found that she had a kind
dominating personality which made her class more manageable.