Sarah Fadness

ED 321 Self-Assessment (First Observed Lesson)

Planning and Preparation (AEA: Conceptualization, DiagnosisWTS: 1,7DISP:
Respect Responsibility)

Explain and defend the decisions you made in choosing your objectives
and the assessment tools/strategies for this lesson. Even if the lesson
was given to you to teach, you must consider the effectiveness of the
objectives and assessments.
I thoroughly planned ahead in my lesson by emailing my cooperating
teacher four days before I planned on teaching with what I had. She
looked over it and gave me feedback.

I embraced the feedback

because she knows her kids well and what works best for them, which I
highly respect. Right up until my lesson we were emailing back and
forth and based off the feedback I had tweaked my PowerPoint by
adding the correct answers to it and pictures to engage the students.
Also, I was asking my CT for advice if she thought a certain activity
would work for her students. My objective was to teach students about
Canada and how their people make a living. I believe I was successful
in doing so by class participation and their use of the vocab words
along with my assessment. My assessment was to have the students
write a paragraph about one of Canadas regions and make up a story
about a person who lives there and what they do for a living.

I chose

this assessment in that everyone was able to write to the best of their
ability and make it as detailed as they wanted it to be by hitting the
criteria.

I do believe that I was successful in it based off student

reception.
Classroom Environment (AEA: Coordination, Integrative InteractionWTS: 2,3,5
DISP: Respect, Responsibility)

Sarah Fadness
What were the discipline issues that presented themselves during the
teaching of this lesson? How did you anticipate these and handle
them?
Classroom environment is very important to me in that a classroom
environment can make or break lessons.

Respect for peers and

responsibility is huge. They need to be fostered in that environment

where everyone in the classroom is on the same page.
classroom

environment

and

everyone

being

Because

comfortable

is

so

important to me, I believe I had a positive classroom environment. The

students were all eager to share which showed me that they are
comfortable enough with me to share and participate.

During the

lesson, I did have to discipline a couple times which encompassed

telling the class Im ready whenever you all are. By saying that, I
regained their attention and focus. At times when a certain group was
talking and not the whole class, I would walk over and the proximity
was enough to get them to quiet down. Also, at times a boy student
was dancing and he became a distraction to those directly around him.
To control this situation I said, Anthony just feels like dancing today
and Anthony smiled said yes! and stopped. Those words were way
better than telling him directly to stop dancing. It was a positive way
of disciplining.

When it comes to anticipation and planning for

discipline, I knew that this class may get rowdy and I have seen it do so
when my CT teaches.

I have taken her advice instead of trying to

shush them or talk over them, it is better to simply say, Ill wait.
Although I did use that technique, I feel weird having to discipline
someone elses students with them in the classroom. I never want to
overstep boundaries which is why I am reluctant to discipline at times.
I do believe that I was able to maintain control of the class and have a
positive classroom environment at the same time.

Sarah Fadness
Instruction (AEA: Communication, Coordination, Diagnosis, Integrative InteractionWTS:
2,3,4,5,6,7DISP: Respect Responsibility) , Assessment (AEA: Diagnosis, Integrative
InteractionWTS: 8,9DISP: Respect, Reflection), Professional Responsibilities
(AEA: Communication, Integrative InteractionWTS: 10DISP: Collaboration,
Communication)

After teaching the lesson and analyzing student work, describe how
your decisions impacted student learning. How do you know? How well
did your assessment connect to the lesson objectives? Are there
changes you would make or things you could have done differently?
After teaching my lesson and analyzing students reception, I do
believe that they were able to grasp the lesson objective. One of the
main reason I know that is based off of student involvement and
participation in the class.

Numerous times more than a handful of

students wanted to share or answer the questions, telling me they

were understanding Canada and how people who live there make a
living. Students were able to explain the major differences between
Canadas five regions and based off that, they could describe the type
of job people who live there may have. My assessment correlated to
the lesson objective in that students were to describe what people may
do for a living in a certain region. There is always something better to
do next time and in the future I want to come up with a way to know
for sure if the students who are seated are too answering the question.
I knew the row who was moving was answering the questions, but I
need to create a way that I know that everyone is whether it is their
groups turn or not. If I were to do it again, I would come up with a
worksheet or simply have them write the question on a piece of paper
and then write the correct answer.

I would change this because all

students would be actively engaged not just the students who are
moving around the classroom.
Consider student learning as you reflect on your teaching of this lesson.
Explain how the evidence you obtained in your lesson (assessment)
demonstrated the degree to which all students achieved your objectives.

Sarah Fadness
Looking back on the teaching of this lesson, I do believe it is the
best one for this field placement to date because I know my CT more
and the students. I am beginning to have a better understanding of
what works for the students and what does not which helps me plan
my lessons. At times, I wish I would have repeated what students said
for the whole class to hear, I did so at times, but the class would have
benefited if I did it more.

Also, I believe that adding in the extra

information that I did research got students interest. They all seemed
to like the short video I shared and the fact that polar bear license
plates get stolen from tourists.

I love sharing real world examples,

which is why I shared about my family who lives in Canada. It is one

thing to hear and read about cold climates and snow in Northern
Canada, but I took it a step further to tell them that my aunt lives up
there and the road signs are 25 feet up because of all the snow they
get. I do believe those examples got students to see it differently and
think more critically.

Students achieved my objective by not only

explaining verbally what people in different regions do for a living, but

they wrote it out in the homework assignment. That differentiated the
assessment because I could verbally hear what students had to say
about it or I could see it written down.
Professional Responsibilities (AEA: Communication, Integrative InteractionWTS:
10DISP: Collaboration, Communication)

Explain how you incorporated feedback from your cooperating teacher

and supervisor, if applicable, to the planning/teaching of this lesson.
What decisions did you make based on feedback received?

I am huge on embracing feedback. I am here to learn for my

cooperating teacher and through each lesson I do. She helps me think
of ideas that I would never think of on my own. For example, I wanted
student participation by having them walk around the room to the

Sarah Fadness
correct region, but I was only going to ask them two questions. After
feedback from my CT, she suggested that instead of having the whole
group move at once, have a row go at a time, that way it will be less
chaotic and students are still able to physically move. Also, because of
less students moving around at once, I was able to ask more questions
which served as a better review. I really value my CTs opinion and
ideas which is why I switched up my PowerPoint a little bit.

She

suggested that I put the correct answers on there instead of verbally

saying them. With that it gave students something to look at and I
would not rush through it as fast. Every piece of feedback for every
lesson I have taught, I embrace. I seek the advice and the feedback
out in order to grow and develop into the best teacher I can be. The
feedback given to me definitely helped me to better put together my
lesson plan.