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: Kelsi Harris Date: 11/18/17
1. To what extent were learning outcomes appropriate and achievable to your
students?
The learning outcomes were appropriate and achievable to students to a great extent,
not only were we able to connect diversity to concepts that they understood by having them
explore examples of diversity in their everyday life, but we were also able to extend their ideas
of diversity by offering up examples that they did not think of and extended the ideas of diversity
by showing them how different ideas and personalities were valuable to their learning
experiences.
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 that my instructional strategies were moderate, I think that I was able to provide
the students with a meaningful learning experience, however I believe that I could use
improvement in the area of classroom management and in redirecting off topic thoughts back to
our lesson or extending them back to learning goals. If I taught this lesson again, I would give a
more intentional introduction to the book, connecting it a little better to the conversation after the
book as well as a more meaningful purpose to coloring the Chameleons and a more intentional
closing conversation. I think that those areas were not as impactful to students as they could
have been and lost the focus of the lesson.
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.)
I think that my oral and written communication with students was effective, as I think that
I conveyed information that was accessible to students, and when I did not feel as such I
provided information/ questioning in multiple phrasings and examples to increase
understanding. I think that my directions could have been more clear as I found myself having to
add caveats to directions as students were working or talking. However, I think that I clearly
communicated learning objectives from the beginning of the conversation, made use of
standard English, and used elevated vocabulary defined in ways that students could access
their meaning appropriately. However, I think that my communication of expectations could have
been better from the beginning in terms of classroom management.
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.)
I think that students remained highly engaged throughout the lesson, through the read
aloud, specific questioning, turn and talk activities, and especially the coloring activity. However,
it was difficult to keep the students on task when others were sharing the results of their turn
and talks with the whole class. I think that better communication/ structure of these sharing
times could have been handled differently from the beginning. However, in general, I believe
that the activities, groups of students, and structure of the lesson were successful!

5. How effectively did you use instructional materials, resources, and/or technology?
I would say that I was able to use instructional materials generally effectively, we really
only made use of the white board and our book. I think that my organization of the board went
well as we mimicked our mentor teachers general anchor chart practices, simply using the
whiteboard in place of an anchor chart. We did hang the resulting poster on the board so all the
students could see and provide their chameleon to the collective work which went well!
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?
I think that our assessment strategies, conversing with students, were effective, as we
were able to get in depth answers by talking to the students and tailoring our questions to their
individual understandings. I think that we could have changed the assessment approach by
having them produce something that showed that they understood how their specific sets of
diverse beliefs, thoughts, etc. contributed value to our classroom.
7. To what extent was your feedback to students accurate, substantive, constructive,
specific, and/or timely?
I think that my feedback to students was accurate substantive, constructive, specific, and
timely because it was given to them verbally and concisely, immediately after their responses,
they were able to ask follow up questions and participate with dialogue with myself and my
mentor teacher/ partner teacher throughout the lesson, helping them deepen their individual
understandings of diversity.
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.)
I think that although we did have some students that chose to have questionable actions
throughout the lesson, the classroom management throughout the lesson contributed to student
learning as they were able to focus and contribute to the learnings of the lesson as a
collaborative group, there were not many transitions to deal with, and students were able to
offer participation in a variety of ways.
9. Did you make modifications to your lesson plan during the lesson? If so, what
were they and what motivated these changes?
We chose to just have students color their chameleons in a unique way- not as a
representation of themselves as we were running out of time and the concepts of symbolism
and meanings associated with that activity would have required more time than we ended up
having with the length of our preliminary discussion. Additionally, we added a sort of ceremony
to adding our chameleons to our poster, showing students the differences and similarities in the
chameleons that they chose to color. We also chose to have a more paired down closing
discussion, wrapping up the diversity and classroom community points, but also allowing
students to contribute individual ideas about what they had learned from the lesson. Finally we
chose not to implement the extension activity as we taught on a Friday and would not be seeing
students for over a week.
10. Was your Teaching Behavior Focus goal met?
I believe that my teaching behavior focus goal was met, as I was able to practice paraphrasing
students verbal content at various times during the lesson, not only individually but also as a
collective or for multiple students. It was an extremely helpful practice because not only was I
able to better understand the points that students were trying to get across, but also allow for
other students to better understand their peers points by putting them into different phrasing.
Although it seems like a simple behavior focus, it can be difficult trying to stay true to what the
student is trying to put across without changing their intention to meet the meaning of your
lesson, however, it could be an opportunity to assess whether students are getting the meaning
out of the lesson that you intend for them to as a teacher.