Running head: LESSON ANALYSIS AND REFLECTION Derrick 1

Lesson Analysis and Reflection

Carla Derrick
March 5, 2018
EDEX 476
Dr. Puryear
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This is a transcript of the dialogue between me and my students during a lesson

introducing picture graphs. I taught this lesson to the third-grade resource group.
Me: Today we are going to learn about picture graphs. What can you all tell me about picture
graphs?
Student 1: I remember one that had different kinds of sports teams.
Me: Yes, we had an example on the pre-assessment that had pictures of basketballs to show
how many slam dunks each team got. Good job remembering that! So today we are going to
make our own picture graphs.
Student 2: Can we get some candy?
Me: No, we are not doing prizes today, but I want everyone to listen up so I can explain how we
are going to make our own picture graphs. They are called picture graphs because they use
pictures to represent data. Today, we are going to use Lucky Charms as our pictures to show
how many of each marshmallow you have.
Student 3: Lucky Charms?!
Student 4: Yay!
Me: Before I give out the Lucky Charms, I’m going to pass out one paper that has the boxes for
the graph on it and another paper that has some questions that we will answer after we make
our graphs.
Student 1: Are we going to glue these to the paper?
Me: No, we aren’t going to glue them to the paper because I’m going to let you eat them after
we finish answering the questions about the graph. It’s very important that you don’t eat any of
them until after we are done because you need them on your graph in order to answer the
questions. (Goes around to pass out papers)
Me: As I give everyone their scoop of marshmallows, the first thing I want you to do is to
separate them into categories. If you look down at the bottom of your graph, you’ll notice they
have a picture of each kind of Lucky Charm. So you’ll put all the shamrocks into a group, all your
rainbows into a group, and so on.
Student 4: Do we sort them by color?
Me: You’re going to sort them by shape. Student 5 and 6, go ahead and start separating them
into little piles by shape. I love how Student 2 already has all of her hearts in a pile together.
Student 1: What shape is this?
Me: That is an hourglass.
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Student 4: Can we have a food fight? (Tosses one into the air.)
Me: No, if you make a mess with your marshmallows, you won’t get to use them. You’d just
have to look at someone else’s graph they make. Keep sorting while I go tell the other groups
what they need to do. (Goes over to tell the fourth and fifth grade group that just entered the
classroom to log onto FrontRow.)
(I rotate around the room to help students sort their Lucky Charms and answer any questions.)
Me: After you have yours all sorted into groups, you can begin lining them up on your graph.
Match them up with the pictures at the bottom of your graph and stack them from bottom to
top in those columns. (Goes around the room to help students put their Lucky Charms into
columns.)
Me: Let’s wrap up with lining up our Lucky Charms within the next minute so we can move on
to the next part. (Walks around the room to help students finish putting their Lucky Charms on
their graphs.)
Me: Now that you have your Lucky Charms on your graph, I want you to count how many
shamrocks you have in the first column and write that number below it. (Goes around the room
to make sure every student understands what to do).
Me: Now you are going to do the same thing for the rest of the columns. Having the number
written for each category will help you answer the questions. (After about a minute) Give me a
thumbs up if you have all of your numbers written down. We’re ready to move on to the
questions, so I want you to put the sheet with the questions right next to your graph so you can
look over to your graph to answer them. I’m going to read them out loud, so follow along.
Number one is, “Which marshmallow(s) do you have the most of?” Look for which one has the
biggest number. (Goes around the room to help students figure out which one they have the
most of.)
Me: Number two is, “Which marshmallow(s) do you have the least of?” So that means the one
that has the smallest number. (Checks over everyone’s answers and answers questions.)
Me: Listen up for question 3. Question 3 says, “Add together your rainbows and shooting stars.”
So look at your number you have for rainbows and add that to the number you have for
shooting stars. After you finish that question, go ahead and put your marshmallows in the cup I
gave you. We will finish this up on Monday. Since we wrote down the number for each
marshmallow, we will be able to answer the rest of the questions without your Lucky Charms.
Students: Can we eat them now?
Me: You can eat your Lucky Charms after you clean up your area and move to your next station.
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Teaching Strategies

My goal for this lesson was for students to learn how to create a picture graph and use

the graph to analyze data. The three teaching strategies I chose to use in my lesson are

feedback, task analysis, and visual representations. I think these strategies helped make my

lesson successful.

According to The Australian Society for Evidence Based Teaching, feedback is an

important part of teaching because it allows students to know what they are doing well when

doing a task and how they can improve (Killian, 2017). Feedback is especially important in a

resource classroom because students need additional assistance in the subject area, so that

feedback helps them figure out where they are making mistakes. I rotated around the

classroom throughout my lesson, so I could check for understanding and give assistance as

needed. When I talked to the students individually, I gave them verbal praise for what they

were doing well and helped them make corrections in their work.

The second strategy I demonstrated in my lesson is task analysis. I think task analysis is

an effective strategy to use when teaching math because students benefit from having a task

broken down into steps, so they can learn it one step at a time (Gargiulo & Bouck, 2018). By

teaching the students to organize their data by sorting the marshmallows, line them up in

columns on their graphs, count each category, and then writing the numbers above the column,

I was able to see if students understood each step and was able to give more assistance along

the way. It also helps the students because they are able to go through the steps they learned

when doing the task independently.

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The third strategy I incorporated into my lesson was visual representations. We almost

always use visual representations when teaching math in the resource class because students

tend to understand math concepts better when there are visuals to make the concept more

concrete (The IRIS Center, 2017). I printed out a blank graph for the students to use so they

could organize their data and explicitly showed them how to use the graph to help them

analyze the data.

Reflection

 How do you talk to students? What is your tone? Do you use directives? Questions?

Praises? Criticisms? What is your body language communicating?

I always try to keep a positive and respectful tone with my students, which was evident in the

video of my lesson. I give verbal praise to students, especially to the students who need

immediate feedback. While watching myself teach, I also noticed that I am not a lecturing type

of teacher. When I spoke, it was to give the next step for the activity and to give feedback to

students individually, which wasn’t picked up on the video. During my lesson, I walked around

the classroom a lot. I didn’t stay in one spot very long, and I checked in with each student

several times to see how they were doing. I think my body language communicated that I care

about each individual student because I took the time to talk to each of them.

 Are they engaged in the lesson?

The students were very engaged in the lesson. They were actively participating by creating their

picture graphs, and they answered questions I asked them. There were very few off-task
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behaviors compared to most days with this group of students. Having a hands-on activity that

incorporated an object of interest, food in this case, made the students very engaged.

 How do these practices match up with the kind of teacher you want to become? How

do they contradict?

How I taught this lesson matches the kind of teacher I want to become in a few ways. I hope to

always make learning fun and interesting for my students so they can enjoy learning. I also

want to have as many opportunities for hands-on learning and real-life examples that students

can relate to the skills they are learning.

Some parts of the lesson contradict the way I want to teach in the future. I hope to do more

modeling of skills for the students so they can have an example of how to perform a task. Also,

by watching the video, I got the opportunity to see what students did when my back was

turned. I noticed that when I went to the back of the classroom to help some of the other

students at a different table, a couple of the other students were being disruptive. I didn’t

notice because I was assisting other students, so I hope I can get better at being more aware

and monitoring all the students at the same time.

 How might these interactions be shaped by how you were taught?

I think my teaching practices are shaped by how I was taught because to this day, I still

remember certain lessons from elementary school. Some of my teachers growing up did a great

job of making learning fun and interactive, and those skills I learned in those lessons are now in

my long-term memory. How I was taught also influences how I interact with my students

because I got to see what doesn’t work through my own experiences as a student. I was often
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disengaged when teachers would lecture at the front of the class, so I try to have a different

teaching style.

 Did your evaluation of the lesson match the evaluation of the University Supervisor?

Why or why not?

My evaluation of my lesson matched the evaluation from my University Supervisor. She

noticed the same strengths and weaknesses that I discussed in my reflection. My University

Supervisor thought my activity was a strength because the students were very engaged.

She also commented on my rapport with the students. She thinks I have formed a great

relationship with the students and that I communicate well with them.

When I went into the conference about this lesson with my University Supervisor, she

began by asking me what I think could have went better. I said I think my timing could have

been better because I didn’t get much time with the other group of students who I have in

my math resource group. I didn’t intend on it taking so long for the students to sort their

Lucky Charms and line them up on their graph. She gave me the suggestions to either give

them a very small portion of Lucky Charms to work with or to have them work in pairs to

get them through that part of the lesson quicker. Another weakness she noticed in my

lesson was that I should scan the room more often when working with other students to

monitor student behavior. After watching the video, I saw what she meant, and I agreed

with her comment.

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Goals

Watching a video of myself teaching was a great learning experience. I found it helpful

to watch myself teach because I got to see what went well and where I could improve for next

time. This experience also helped me create some goals for myself to improve my teaching. My

goals are to set a timer before every lesson to manage multiple groups in one class more

effectively and to make an effort to scan the classroom more often as I’m working with a small

group or individual student.

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References

Gargiulo, R. M., & Bouck, E. C. (2018). Instructional strategies for students with mild, moderate,

and severe intellectual disability. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.

Killian, S. (2017, July 11). Top 10 Evidence Based Teaching Strategies. Retrieved March 07, 2018,

from http://www.evidencebasedteaching.org/au/evidence-based-teaching-strategies/

The IRIS Center. (2017). High-quality mathematics instruction: What teachers should know.

Retrieved from https://iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/module/math/