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: Danielle Blinderman Date:11/29/17

1. To what extent were learning outcomes appropriate and achievable to your students?
I think that our learning outcomes were achievable to our students. They were asked
how they can fill up each others buckets through kind actions and words and they
were able to produce 3 of their own examples.
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 our instructional strategies were successful. The class responded well to
the lesson and were engaged throughout each activity. I would have improved my
classroom management skills, but overall the lesson ran very smoothly.

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 our oral and written communication with the students was very effective. Our
students understood exactly what they were supposed to do and did it promptly.
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.)
Our students were VERY engaged throughout our lesson. They were listening to key
details from the text we read and were able to answer questions. They were excited to
participate in the activities that we had planned for them.
5. How effectively did you use instructional materials, resources, and/or technology?
We had little resources for our lesson, but the few that were used were used quite
effectively. Everything had a purpose and we used our resources/time wisely.

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?
Our assessment was more unusual than most. We used a simple worksheet to assess
our students learning. This worked for this lesson because it gave students the
opportunity to give their OWN examples relating back to the text. I would use this
assessment again because we got to see how our students were thinking about what
we had just read.

7. To what extent was your feedback to students accurate, substantive, constructive,

specific, and/or timely?
 We were constantly giving feedback to our students. We would compliment and build
off of their ideas they had about the text and their own examples of how they filled
someones bucket. We tried to make sure that were always acknowledging our
students ideas and thoughts.

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.)
At times, our students would get really excited about the activity, so we had to use
classroom management strategies to get them back on task. Overall, this was the
most well behaved that we had seen the class during the lesson, so student learning
was rarely interrupted.

9. Did you make modifications to your lesson plan during the lesson? If so, what were
they and what motivated these changes?
We decided to let our students write kind notes to anyone in the class rather than just
the students at their table. We made this change because there were some students
who sat alone, without classmates around them.

10. Was your Teaching Behavior Focus goal met?

Yes