Lesson Plan & Implementation:

Reflection and Analysis

College of Education
Childhood Education & Literacy Studies

Reflection is a critical process for supporting your growth and development

as a professional. At the end of each lesson, you should reflect on the
experience and analyze its effectiveness. This part of the process consists of
two parts: the reflection and the analysis.

In order to receive full credit your reflection and analysis must include
specific references to the video with time correlations. For this reason, it is
strongly suggested that you complete a chart as you watch your video with
the following headings and focus your viewing on the student learning goal
and/or teacher instructional goal.
Time Celebration/Struggle/Questio Claim about teaching
n: practice

7 min, Students were asked to read Students were excited and

a section in the book about
arthropods. After this
reading, we participated in a
class discussion about what
an arthropod is. During this
discussion, students were not
able to effectively participate
because they did not read
the text provided.
anxious about the
experiment on this day and
not able to focus. Knowing
this, different reading
strategies may need to be
used with this block so that
students learn necessary
material and can
participate in discussion.

Whole lesson Students were excited about Because students were

this activity and have been
since the beginning of the
unit.
excited about exploring
arthropods, they were on
task and learning. When
students are actually
interested in the material,
they are so much more
engaged.

You do not have to answer all of these questions, choose 3-4 and
answer thoroughly. They are meant to prompt your thinking. Your
reflection should make sure to address both reflection and analysis.
The Reflection: The reflection component should make you think about your
overall impressions and feelings that you had. You also might address
something that surprised you or something that made you pause.

Questions to consider in your reflection:

1. What aspects of your lesson were implemented differently than you planned?
Why did that happen?
2. If you were going to teach this lesson to the same group of students, what would
you do differently? Why? What would you do the same? Why?
If I were to teach this lesson differently to the same group of
students, I would choose a different way to go over the reading
material in the book. Maybe a read aloud, guiding questions, video,
or some sort of note taking guide to ensure that students are
paying attention to what they are reading. After reviewing with
students and telling them where to find the material in the book
they were able to participate in the discussion, but it just took a
little more scaffolding and guided release than planned. I would
keep majority of this lesson the same because students were
extremely engaged and excited to participate in the activity.
Students flourish when they are able to explore things themselves,
so setting these stations up was a great way to allow students to
make their own discoveries. Coming back together as a class at the
end of the activity allowed us to draw conclusions about what the
class had learned. By coming back to the essential question and
combining the activity with our readings, students successfully
learned the material at hand.
3. What surprised you in your lesson?
4. Describe an instance or particular encounter that comes to mind. Why did you
pick that instance? What is so perplexing about that particular moment?
5. What connections can you make to your lesson today from your coursework, the
literature, and any previous lessons or experiences?
In our science methods course, we often discussed the
importance of experiments in science class. When students are
able to explore on their own, they are able to make their own
discoveries. When students make their own discoveries, they retain
what they have learned so much more than reading material from a
book or a lecture. I saw this first hand during this science lesson.
Students were engaged and fully interested in the experiment, so
much that they wanted to continue to explore after the lesson was
over. This lesson is just proof that engaging and fun lessons really
do make a difference in learning not only in science, but all
subjects.

The Analysis: The analysis part addresses the lessons effectiveness to

what extent did the students meet the objectives stated in your lesson plan
and how do you know? Make a claim about student learning and support it
with evidence that you gathered from the lesson.

General questions to consider in your analysis:

1. To what extend did the students learn what was intended? How do you know? As
part of your answer, please indicate:
a. In what ways were your teaching methods effective? How do you know?
b. In what ways were your activities effective? How do you know?
c. In what ways were the instructional materials effective?
d. How did any special considerations of accommodations affect the lesson?
2. Identify an individual or group of students who had difficulty in todays lesson.
How do you account for this performance? How will you help this (these)
student(s) achieve the learning objectives?
3. Identify an individual or group of students who did especially well in this lesson
today. How do you account for this performance?
4. Based on what happened in this lesson, what are the next steps? What do you
plan to teach next to this class? Be sure to explain how you will use information
from this evaluation in future lesson planning.
Our next step in this class is to continue to learn about different
animal domains. After learning arthropods, students will learn
mammals, reptiles, amphibians, fish, and birds. While learning
this new material, we will make it a point to review material
already covered so that students are able to classify animals into
the different animal groups based on their characteristics. Using
what I have learned in this lesson, I will find more effective ways
for these students to learn the book material since reading is not
always effective.