Department of Teacher Education & Learning Sciences

Elementary Education Program

Pre-Observation Form
Directions: This form is to be completed prior to every lesson that will be observed by the mentor
teacher or university supervisor. It is to be submitted no later than 3 business days prior to the actual
observation along with your lesson plans.

Name: Maura Murphy Date: November 9, 2017

1. What is the topic of your lesson?

The topic of our lesson is the importance of names and how they relate to a
persons culture and identity.

2. Why are you teaching this lesson? What is your rationale for teaching it?

We are teaching this lesson to help students gain a better respect for different
cultures.

3. What is your Teaching Behavior Focus? Why did you choose this?
Our teaching behavior focus is that classroom management is positive and
appropriate. We chose this because we thought it would be important to make
sure that the students are listening to the story and that they are able to use the
lessons from the book in a class discussion.

4. Why did you design your instruction in this lesson the way that you did? Why did
you choose this way of teaching the lesson?

We used the read-aloud format that we learned in ELM 330 (Foundations of

Reading). We chose this because it was a structured way to keep students
engaged and promote discussion.

5. As you are thinking through this lesson, what do you believe will be the most
challenging part of this lesson for you when you teach it? Why?

The most challenging part will be making sure that students are on task and not
distracted. This is important because one of the main ideas of this lesson is
respect. This will be challenging because we know that it can be hard for
students to stay focused for long periods of time.

6. How will you know if your learning outcomes for the students are met
successfully?
 We will know if students have understood the importance of names by the fill in
the blank assessment and by also observing how they listen to their classmates
share the meaning behind their names.

7. How will your classroom management support the learning outcomes?

We will make sure that we model respect and that we ask questions that will help
students think deeply about how culture and identity are related to names.

8. List 1-3 areas which you would like for your observer to pay particular attention.
Why do you want your observer to focus on these areas?

For the read aloud, I would like my observer to pay attention to the types of
questions that I ask to make sure that they are questions that will help students
think critically about what they are hearing.

9. Is there anything else you would like your observer to know before the
observation?

N/A