Classroom Reflection Paper

What were the objectives of this lesson? How well do you think your students understood the overall purpose and relevance of the lesson? (APS 4.A–C)

The class began with a silent reading assignment from the next section in the text. While students read, the teacher individually checked in with each student to provide feedback on the previous nights homework. The homework assignment was to summarized the reading from the previous day in their own words. The teacher provided both positive and constructive feedback to all students, pointing out at least one successful aspect of their summary. This activity is very much in line with was the strategy of upgrading your interactive language discussed by Eric Jensen, “during every sing interaction with your students, make eye contact and affirm the good in them” (Jenson, 2013, p.25). If a student was missing an integral part of the story she would prompt them by recalling what was discussed before and provide textual evidence if necessary, and allow them to add to their response. She was very upbeat and supportive of the students, and her tone and language were both accessible and age appropriate. When giving instructions she used

Students will read and identify the beginning, middle, and end of a mini story provided for them.

The lessons of this learning segment build on one another as the week goes on. All of the lessons are a part of a Because of Winn-Dixie unit for Fourth grade. The first lesson begins with the first chapter of the lesson and the introduction of visualization as a strategy to aid in comprehension. This flows nicely into the next day because the students will follow the same read then work pattern in the lesson. The second lesson focuses on character actions and reactions through the reading of the first two chapters. Students can use what they visualized in lesson one to help them with character actions. The third lesson builds on the character knowledge by delving deeper into the specific character traits that each character possesses. The

Students’ attention will be directed back to the anchor chart and we will orally piece together the events of the story in sequential order as a team. We will review what it means to retell the events in a story and how we can remember to do so using the “High

The student enjoys drawing and creating pictures, so I used this strategy to best help the student understand the events in one of her favorite books, Wonder by R.J. Palicio. The student enjoyed this activiy, which motivated her to push to find the challenge and interpret how the character responded to the challenge. After extra assisstance by asking the student to dig deeper about what was happening in the event, the student was able to create a picture of a conflict and how the character responded to the conflict so yes, the student did meet the objective. I did provide modifications for the student, she needed help with unknown words that we defined beforehand. She also needed extra assistance with looking deeper in to what is happening and finding the theme of the story. I re-defined the difference between the theme and the main idea which helped the student correctly find the theme of the story.

• The teacher will thumb through the book quickly. She will ask students to predict what they think the story is about. She will allow time for each student to share their prediction

I like the fact that when she asked the question about what happened to her sweater, her students immediately raised their hands. They were all into the story. They wanted to know more about the story. She taught her lesson very well. After telling her story and giving clues that defines main idea, she asked her class what they think main idea means. I think that it is a brilliant way to make your students think and connect. Her students were able to use context clues, and they were able to come up with their own definition of main idea. I noticed that Ms. Bannon used a projector to project the pages of the book so that her students can read along. It is a good way of getting student involved. It also allows for students to practice reading, while Ms. Bannon’s reading out loud. After that, she made her students communicate with one another. It is important to let students communicate with one another. Students interacting with one another is a positive learning technique because they can learn from one another. Also, that way Ms. Bannon is not the only one doing the talking, and that way there wouldn’t be so many teacher to student

Once the students arrived and pushed their parents out they were given center options. Each day the centers were different because Ms. Danielle wanted to introduce new center toys and options and give the students a variety of options. After centers Ms. Danielle assigned students a spot on the reading rug she called these picture spots because on the carpet were different pictures. To assign each students picture spot she turned it in a game it was an I spy game. Ms. Danielle would call out the student’s name and then show them a card. On the card was their picture spot and the students had to walk around the rug and find their spot. Once they found their spot miss Danielle gave them the card. Once every student found their spot Ms. Danielle collected the cards and I hung them up during nap time on the wall to remind students if they ever forgot where they were supposed to sit. While Ms. Danielle read to the students Ms. Stephanie and I prepared lunch. When story time was over students were dismissed to wash hand, and find a seat for lunch. After lunch some students were picked up while others were to

In the second-grade classroom one of the largest issues that I face is the differences of viewpoint between myself and my co-op. Going into the classroom, there were several practices that confused me. I continue to see things that leave me questioning their effectiveness, and how they impact the students. This has left me feeling very frustrated. I often feel like my hands are tied because it is not my classroom, and the students are used to this system and I don’t want them to be negatively impacted.

Mrs. White waited until the students had all of their materials (spirals and pencils) laid out on the desk before speaking about their assignment. When Mrs. White transitioned from writing to discussion, she let the timer on her desk go off, and once the students put their pencils down and were watching her, she proceeded to pull student numbers out of a cup and would have them read their paragraph to the class. For the last major transition was from this lesson to the beginning of this lesson, Mrs. White told the students that they would be doing this type of quick-write multiple times throughout the year, and then asked the students to put their things away, and be prepared to be separated into groups to do various subjects at the same time.

The teacher wrote down all of the students predictions on the board before they began reading so that while they were reading, if they were asked to evaluate their initial predictions they were able to look back at the board and see what they were and compare. When the students did come across a part of the story that was related to their predictions, the teacher would call on a student to read aloud that part of the story and then discuss with their peers and see if that made any of their predictions correct or did not match their predications at all. When the students were finished reading the story the teacher asked the students what was the story about and then called on some students to share their answers with the class. Then she explained to the students that the whole purpose of the story was to never give up after your first try. The teacher also asked the students if each page of the story was fiction or nonfiction and then she had them explain their answers as a class. Some of the student got fiction and nonfiction confused so the teacher took a minute and explained what each of them meant. The teacher then asked the students why they think that she made them read this story. One student responded and said because we may face similar problems in our life like the children in the story. When it was the students turn to read a page from the story the teacher would first let the student read the sentence aloud and take their

On my last visit to Makefield I taught a lesson on reading comprehension by introducing main idea and supporting details to the first grade students. One positive aspect of the lesson came at the very beginning. After asking students if they were familiar with the term ‘main idea’, I displayed an image of a busy park onto the board. The picture of the park was covered in dark circles that hid some of the details of the picture. One at a time I removed the circles to reveal a piece of the picture and had students explain what they saw. After all of the circles were removed students were able to see the big picture. Using the picture of the park helped students visualize how small details make up the main idea, which is like the bigger picture.

Her lesson was on antonyms and how authors use them to convey a message in a story. In first grade they refer to these words as “opposites”, so the teacher wanted to review opposites and build on that knowledge in order for them to grasp the concept on antonyms. An instructional strategy that allowed for diverse learners to connect to the material was the teacher made sure the students identified the relationship from prior learning and how the ideas related. She used an anchor chart that they previous completed together and read a book that referenced synonyms and antonyms. During this time, students were summarizing their ideas with their partner as part of a warm up. I could see students who were initially confused begin to recall their prior learning once they turned and talked with a partner. The teacher also modeled and allowed the students to practice the new content by creating an interactive match up game. This game clearly increased the students confidence with the new concept. The teacher made her expectations clear by modeling how to identify an antonym and by praising rigorous responses made throughout the lesson. This lesson involved interacting with classmates and moving around the classroom, which made all students actively engaged in the

The beginning of class would start with a relatively fun activity, like Kahoot, to help refresh and engage the students’ minds about what they had read. After the short activity, the discussions would open up. Discussion topics would include who the main characters are and how they act in the story. For example, do the characters stay in their protagonist and antagonist roles or do they shift? Another topic would include foreshadowing. The discussion would be about the description Steven has about nature and the raccoon’s significance. The readers should be able to interpret what the significance is behind the soothing nature description and raccoon and be able to apply the same interpretation skills in other stories and courses.