Nicholas Flores

Dr. Slaughter
HIS 463
Teacher Observation Report #1

This observation session took place on January 22, at A.B. Miller High School in the city
of Fontana. I observed a 10th grade world history class taught by Raul Gonzalez III during his
first period of the day at 7:30 in the morning. The walls of his classroom were covered in posters
that were educationally valuable and also encouraged the student to continue learning history.
The objective of that day was that students would be able to analyze and explain the
ramifications of World War I and the Treaty of Versailles. For a group of adolescents in their
mid-teenage years, I thought that the students of this class were quiet, engaged in the lesson,
made valuable comments and asked several questions. There was some mild cussing and obvious
cell phone usage, but overall, they seemed to be a great group of students. Throughout the lesson,
Mr. Gonzalez left plenty of time between slides to allow students to take notes, but he made no
clear attempts to make the subject matter understandable to students with diverse learning style.
There was, however, a sign language translator who communicated with the teacher to assist a
student with a hearing disability. Mr. Gonzalez frequently asked questions to assess the student’s
learning and encourage their engagement. His main method of student engagement and learning
assessment was a game of jeopardy in which every student participated. This not only made the
lecture fun and engagement, but it also promoted teamwork in the classroom since the game was
played in teams.
Mr. Gonzalez’s lesson fulfilled California’s content standards that focused on the first
World War and its conclusion in the scope of world history. At the very end of the class, students
were assigned a short writing assignment on World War I, helped build student’s inquiry-
learning and writing-literacy skills. The game of jeopardy also helped students grasp the concept
of rule-understanding and therefore built upon their citizenry skills. The lesson appeared well
balanced overall. There was a good opener, interesting direct instruction on World War I, an
engaging game of jeopardy that served as the guided practice, an effective wrap-up and
independent practice assignment. The pacing was good and the lesson moved along nicely, but it
was also slow enough for the students to take notes and absorb the material. I saw evidence of
the students meeting content standards mainly through the questions that Mr. Gonzalez
frequently asked, but the most intriguing evidence was seen during the jeopardy game. The game
allowed the teacher to see that students were meeting the content standards in a fun and
interactive way. Overall, I felt that the lesson was effective because it seemed to successfully
teach the student about World War I and its aftermath by making the subject matter easy to
understand and fun to learn for a 10th grade class.