A Responsive Classroom

Post Observation Self - Reflection

Last week I had the opportunity to lead a whole group lesson in the second grade classroom that I am currently doing my pre-student teaching.  I had not had many opportunities to get up in front of this class before so I have to admit that I was fairly nervous.  There was a moment when I was walking around and chatting with children during their independent work that I realized that these children were actually enjoying a lesson that I had put together myself.  To see my lesson come to fruition and to watch these wonderful kids and their enthusiasm was beautiful and surreal to me.

(As I reflect on the lesson, activity or interaction to what extent were the students actively engaged?  How do I know?)

As I reflect on the lesson with the students I was happy to see that the children were very much engaged.  Sitting on the rug their faces looking up at me so bright with wide open eyes, they were involved in the lesson. It seemed that just about all the kids were raising their hand, eager to share when I asked a question.  When I walked around during a turn and talk each child was enthusiastically sharing their ideas with their partner.  When it was time to share out, many of the children were willing and wanted to.  Many of them had an opportunity to share their thoughts and their connections to the text.  This showed me that they were very much engaged in the book and the lesson.

(Did the students learn what I had intended?  Were my instructional goals and objectives developmentally appropriate?  What is my evidence?)

My objective was for the children to make text to self connections from the book "I Wanna Iguana" by Karen Kaufman Orloff and David Catrow.  My goal was to teach children that when reading a text one way they could connect to a book would be if the text reminded them of something that happened or is happening in their life.

I think the book I chose was easy to relate to because in the book a boy named Alex writes persuasive letters to his mom so she can let him keep his friends iguana.  Every child has wanted something that their parents may have said no to at first and have had to try and convince them to have it.  I felt like this would be a perfect book for "text to self" connections for that matter.  I do believe that my goals and objectives were developmentally appropriate because looking at the handouts the children completed and I collected, it seems that they all understood what was being asked of them and were able to complete the assignment.  Looking at their work, I am confident in saying that they all were able to make a "text to self" connection.  A few of them decided to draw the picture first and didn't get a chance to do the writing, but even so, the pictures along with the words in the pictures showed me that they understood the intention of the lesson.  Some kids wrote about how they wanted a pet and their parents said no at first.  This reminded them of the part when Alex was asking his mom in the beginning of the book and that she was not keen on the idea of letting him have an iguana.  Some children wrote about wanting a Play Station 4 and Fortnite.  One girl wrote about asking to go to Mexico and having to convince her parents to take her there.

After assessing the children's work I believe that my objective was met and that the children were able to make a text to self connection.

(Were my strategies and activities effective?  What is my evidence?)

I believe that my strategies were effective.  I began the lesson by showing them what a "text to self" connection is and told them that the story I was about to read to them reminded me of the time when I was a little girl and wanted a puppy, but my parents wouldn't let me have one.  I continued to tell them my story.  I then asked the children to think about a time when they really wanted something and had to convince their parents to get it.

I used turn and talk to get all the children involved during the story to predict what they think might have happened when Alex took the class fish home and towards the end of the book when they had to guess whether Alex's mom said yes or no to the iguana.  When some children shared their answers, I then asked the children to show if they agreed or not by giving a thumbs up or thumbs down technique so that every child could feel like they shared their opinions as well even though they might not have had an opportunity to say it out loud.  Children were very eager to share and they seemed excited about the lesson, which in turn made me excited about the lesson.  It was actually pretty amazing to watch something that I put together come to life and actually keep the children interested.

After modeling on the screen how I wanted them to fill out the worksheets, children went back to their seats for their independent work.  There were two set of worksheets, one set was two pages and had a sentence starter for the children that needed a little more help and the other was just one sheet with a space to draw pictures and lines below to write the sentences.  I went around to each table and talked to the children about what they were writing about.  I spent extra time with the children that needed a little more help by reiterating the directions and modeling again what I wanted them to do.  At the end we had time for a few children to read their work out loud and share with the class the connections they made with the book.

(If I had the opportunity to teach this lesson again, what might I do differently?  Why?)

If I had the opportunity to teach this lesson again there are a few things I would do differently.  A couple of things I need to work on is my pacing and timing.  I think  my timing is something that will come with practice and being in front of the class more often.  I believe I let the children stay on the rug too long, especially since they had been on the rug all morning before my lesson started.  It's easy to get caught up in letting children tell their stories when asking to share.  I wanted to hear each and every one of their comments and I may have asked a few too many kids to share.  Next time I would have to only take a few comments from kids and then move on.  We did start the lesson a little late so the time they had for independent work was not as long as I had planned, so I should have accommodated for that respectively.  I had also wanted to ask them to come back to the meeting area to share their work but because of time restraints the children ended up sharing from their seats. 

Before I sent the kids back to their desk I should have asked one of the children to repeat what their task was to make sure that they understood what I was asking them to do.  I did find myself repeating the directions a few times to individual children.  I had also given differentiated handouts.  For the children that needed more help their handout was two pages with a sentence starter but I should have stapled that page to the front instead of the page which you draw the picture on so that they could have started with the sentence and not by drawing the picture.  I was very impressed with one of the girls in the differentiated  group.  They were asked to write 2 sentences and this one girl wrote a paragraph.  

I have to say that the kids in this class really are great. They are at very mixed levels.  Some are really low and others are right where they are supposed to be with a couple of exceptional students.  But they are very well behaved and they all seem willing to learn.  Even though this was the first time I was doing a whole group lesson in front of these kids, they made me feel respected and welcomed.  Most of all I was thrilled to see their enthusiasm and willingness to participate and share.  This solidified my desire to want to become an educator.