Emma Avis

Formal Observation

Mrs. Parchesky starts off each of her lessons the same way, with a PowerPoint with the

lesson’s objectives. In this lesson the students will be listening to an interview with an

immigrant. Before starting the video, she passes out paper to each student to write down the

question of the day, “How was Ida Pearls experience learning English similar or different from

Masako’s experience learning Japanese?”. With this question, the students will be comparing the

immigrant Ida Pearl’s interview with the book, Tea with Milk, that they are currently reading in

class. The students are instructed to write down points that Ida Pearl is saying on their sheet of

paper to use for their writing later. Once the students wrote down the question of the day, Mrs.

Parchesky asks if there are any questions before starting. She answers the student’s questions in a

timely manner, and then begins the video.

When the video starts playing, it is evident that there were students who began to zone

out. Instead of stopping the video and interrupting the class, she taps on their shoulders which

seems to get them back on track. Throughout the video, she pauses the speech and reiterates what

the speaker is saying. She does this to help the students who cannot focus on the video to not fall

behind the rest of their classmates. This paused period also gives time to the students who need

to finish up writing previous points. She resumes the interview and replays it two times in order

for the students to fully understand. After the video is completed, she gives the students 10

minutes to silently answer the question they had wrote on their papers. While they are answering,

she walks around and glances at their answers, stopping and clarifying when there are wrong

answers. As she is walking around, she reiterates the point of the work and the question that must
be answered. She praises the students with good answers and does this in order to motivate the

other students to work to their full potential and be recognized for their answers. Another

strategy that she uses is that she picks a student with a good answer to read as an example to the

class. She emphasizes their point to help the other classmates get on track with the right answer.

Once time is up, she has the students put down their pencils and pass up their papers. The papers

will be graded and handed back tomorrow to the class.

In the second lesson that I observed, the class will be working in groups on a worksheet

that goes along with their book. The objective of this lesson is for students to be able to find

information on the main character who is also the author in the story. The book, Grandfathers

Journey, is about a Japanese immigrant man who comes to the United States. The students are

towards the end of their chapter, and now are preparing to write an essay comparing two books

they read in class, including this one. Within their groups, they will be rereading the book

together and then completing a worksheet that goes along with it. This will help them keep their

focus while rereading the story.

Instead of having the students pick their own groups, she assigns 6 groups of 4 and

chooses them randomly, counting off 123456 and repeating until each child has a number. Once

this is done, she assigns each number to a different area of the classroom. The reasoning behind

grouping them herself is to avoid anyone feeling left out and unwanted, which sometimes occurs.

Before instructing the students on what to do, she makes sure all eyes are on her before

continuing to talk. However, when she starts talking, there is still chatter among the students. She

raises her hand in a peace sign, which in her classroom is a sign to be quiet. The students paying

attention copy her actions, which show they are listening. She waits until everyone’s hands are

up before continuing to speak.

 She directs the students to reread the book to eachother in their groups, taking turns on

who is speaking. When they finish that, they are to grab their worksheets and review them. They

are then to reread the book for a second time, completing the worksheet alongside of it. This is to

make sure that they understand the content that they are reading. The worksheet is also to help

the students complete an essay that will be given at the end of the unit. She allows the students to

have a half hour to complete their work, and each group uses this time to their full potential.

After the time is up, she calls each group up in number order. She collects their worksheets to

grade them for correctness to hand back the next day to make sure they are writing correct

information.