Reflection and Analysis: Supervisor Observation

The Reflection For my supervisor reflection I decided to teach a social studies lesson on how to construct a timeline. I wanted the students to learn through group work in an attempt to research information. I felt this lesson would be a fun and interactive activity to help engage them in the understanding of researching historical events and people. Overall I felt this lesson had a lot of positive outcomes, but could use more improving. For the beginning of my lesson I wanted to introduce the students to an article I found and highlight important dates. I laid it on the overhead and had it projected on the screen so that each of the students could watch what I was doing. I knew that they had previously learned about timelines and figured the assignment I would give them wouldn't be too hard. As the students were given their own articles to read I realized the reading material may have been a little too intermediate. Also, there were either four or five kids in a group, this resulted in each of the students not getting a chance to read or follow along. It would have been better if I gave them each their own article. Another thing I would have changed is the group size. Some students felt left out which caused a little arguing. A group of two would have been the right amount and allowed for more detailed timeline creations. Although there were some cons to this assignment, I found a few of the lesson implementations beneficial. For example, it really caused the students to think about organizational skills. They had to find the information of a particular event or person and then organize it according to the dates. Another thing I liked about the lesson was that
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it allowed the students to engage with each other. This learning style helps kids teach each other things they may not have thought about. Lastly, instead of having me teach everything to the students they got to experience research on their own. Many times students just wait for teachers to give them the information for everything and get lazy in finding their own answers. Having the students collaborate with others gave them a chance to learn on their own. If I were to teach this lesson to the same group of students I would have extended the lesson to about a week in length. This would allow me to model how to find information through books or the Internet and organize it onto one document. After they had enough practice with finding information on important dates I would begin teaching them how to organize those dates. This may involve talking about their own personal dates and how they are organized according to number. In the end, the students would understand how to find information independently as well as organizing important dates which would transfer to the final project: the timeline. During the lesson it surprised me how in the end the students really wanted to present their timelines. It really struck a chord with me on how important it is to allow students to be creative and allow them to show it to the class. This will encourage children to put more thought into their future projects. Another instance that caught me by surprise was how much time it took the students to read through the passage. I thought for the size of the reading it wouldnt take them too long to complete. Throughout the different courses I have taken at my university I felt that I had a better understanding of how to construct a lesson with richer objectives that pertain to the common core. Its easy to put a lesson plan together but devising something that brings about profitable learning experiences in the classroom can benefit students in powerful ways. On the other hand, differentiated instruction was at first hard for me to accommodate towards because I felt there

wouldnt be enough time. I worried about not being able to administer to each of my students needs. With the help of my CT and ESOL class I have learned how to accommodate towards each of my students needs. Overall, this lesson has been a beneficial learning moment for me. Ive realized its okay to have trial and error and to learn form the negatives. Theres nothing with wrong with continuously practicing and devising better methods to help improve my teaching. This is my hope for the lesson plans to come so that I can benefit my students in my internship class and the ones that will be in my own class in the future.

The Analysis When I reflected back on my social studies lesson, I thought about the effectiveness of it and if the assessment was a valid representation of what the students understood. I felt moderately confident on the thought of how their timeline represented how they understood the lesson. I knew I needed to have beneficial objectives that allowed students to get the most out of what I was teaching and based on their work; I was able to see how they were grasping the information. At the very beginning of the lesson I wanted to model to my students how they could find important dates in a text and organize them through a creative timeline. Since my CT told me the students already had previous knowledge on how to construct a timeline, I didnt plan to model it as much as I would have if they were just beginning to learn how to. Instead, I showed an article on Abraham Lincoln and pointed out the first two dates that I saw important. I asked the students if they had learned how to highlight important dates and they as well as the teacher confirmed that they had. This part of my lesson felt well taught to me at that point and I felt ready to give

my class the directions. So then, they were divided into groups and started working on their timeline project. It was important to monitor them during this time and include a great amount of scaffolding. With my guidance they stayed on task and could complete the assignment with clarity and organization. There was one group who had a hard time splitting up the tasks. I could tell as I sat with them that one student was being left out. To help get rid of the problem, I gave the student a job and told them it was an important part of the project and requires lots of thinking. Another comment I made was that they should split the reading. That way everyone gets a chance to read the text. If I were to do the groups of three or more again, each of the students would be given a specific task. This would allow for less tension and argument amongst them. Even though there was little tension amongst the group they completed the assignment with clarity. On the other hand, there was another group who did exceptionally well. There were a few times I had to mention how to organize the dates or to read the passage completely; but other than that they did a wonderful job working together and completing the timeline. The difference between this group and the other group that was off task is that they assigned each other tasks. They didnt argue or complain about anything. Instead they helped each other to complete the task. Based on what happened in this lesson there are a few things Id like to focus on in the future. The first thing is teamwork. There are a lot of strong leaders in the class who tend to over rule those who are not as strong academically or verbally. In teaching those select few how to guide and correct the other students in a compassionate way could greatly increase the cooperation. Another focus Id like to have is for me to teach the students more research skills. They are so accustomed to using digital devices everyday at home that not letting them use electronic devices in the class hinders their growth for research and curiosity to learn new things.

In the end, this lesson may still need some modifications in the instruction or choice of text but it proved to be effective in different ways. Students constructed the timeline in a neat order, as well as highlighting the important dates within the text. For the majority of the time students seemed to be engaged and active during the lesson and I would definitely consider teaching it again.