Southern Methodist University

Center for Teacher Education

Intern:

Cayce Tabor

Mentor Teacher:

Suzanne Graham

School:

Marion Elementary

University Supervisor:

Barbara Salamone

Reflection Form
(Complete this form as soon as possible after delivery of the lesson and give to the observer.)
Name:

Cayce Tabor

Date of Lesson:

10/16/2015

Grade:

2nd

Subject:

Approximate Length of Lesson:

Writing/ELA/SS
45 minutes

GENERAL REFLECTION
Overall, how successful was this lesson?
Very successful! The students stayed engaged with use of technology. This lesson was student-centered and
students discovered setting in a way that was meaningful to them.

GOALS/OBJECTIVES
In what ways were your goals/objectives appropriate for your students?
My objective was that students would be able to understand the importance of setting, define setting,
identify clues that help us inference setting when the author does not come out and tell us, and writing
clues so that peers could guess their secret setting. These were appropriate goals or objectives for my
students because it enabled them to discover what setting is, why it is important, and how they can infer
setting when it is not told to them. This is an important skill because as the books they read are more
complex and more advanced, the less and less authors will directly come out and say what the setting is.
Inferencing is also a very important skill, which needed across the subject areas.

In what ways were they not appropriate?

The objectives were appropriate for both my high advanced students and for my lower students who
sometimes struggle. The advanced students were challenged to go a step further in each chunk of the
lesson, and could give clues about setting in a more complex and sophisticated way. My students who are
not on-level yet were still able to participate in this activity and remain engaged. By reading the clues on
the cards at the end of the lesson, these students benefitted from hearing the more advanced clues from the
more advanced learners.

ASSESSMENT
How effective were your assessment strategies in measuring student achievement of the learning goals/
objectives for this lesson?
Very effective. The assessment piece for this lesson was informal listening to students ability to guess the
setting based on the 3 clues, and then to use higher level thinking to create their own clues for a setting.
Since I ensured that I called on a wide variety of students during this activity, I was able to see how much
understanding a student had based on their responses.
The second assessment was reading through the clues the students gave about their mystery setting. This
was a very effective assessment because by looking at the students clues, I could then ask questions about
why they chose those clues and which clue was the most useful to gauge understanding.
Would you make any changes to the assessments strategies you used? What changes would you make and
why?
No it was fun and engaging for students while providing me with a very clear understanding of which
students understood setting and could inference setting from text clues.

Southern Methodist University

Center for Teacher Education
Intern:

Cayce Tabor

Mentor Teacher:

Suzanne Graham

School:

Marion Elementary

University Supervisor:

Barbara Salamone

ALTERATIONS
Did you depart in any way from your plan? If so, how? Why?
No, except the timing. I decided to spend more time in guided practice, and gradually increasing the
complexity of questioning. First, we looked at pictures and discussed the setting we could inference. Then,
we read clues and students guessed the setting based on the clues. Then, in a higher-level activity, students
saw pictures of various settings and participated in coming up with useful clues. I decided adding this last,
higher-level portion was the most important part of the lesson. I do have a wide variety of abilities in my
class, and I felt that all of my would benefit from not only coming up with their own clues, but also
listening to clues their peers came up with and using critical thinking to determine whether those clues
were effective, and why.
INSTRUCTIONAL DELIVERY Respond to these questions for each aspect.
Were the following aspects of your
instructional delivery effective for all
students? Why or why not?

What would you do differently to

improve the lesson?

Instructional
Strategies

Yes students had guided

practice at lower and higher
level of thinking, then had the
opportunity for independent
practice.

If I had more time I would add

a portion where I let students
look through books and
discover settings in their own
stories.

Student
Grouping

Yes students worked as a

group to come up with clues for
their setting.

I would divide the group into

two teams, and make it a
competition to see who could
come up with the best clues so
to promote student engagement
and enthusiasm.

Student
Activities

Yes Students participated and Again, for a future lesson or if

were very engaged in all
this lesson could go longer, I
activities.
would have an enrichment
activity for advanced students,
where they applied their
knowledge and used it in a
higher-level way, and an
intervention activity for my
students who were still
struggling where it was
presented to them in a different
way.
I would use the same materials, In a subsequent lesson to this,
resources, and technology
to take student learning a step
because students came away
further, I would have students
with a clear understanding of
use technology to create
setting, the technology and
something or to apply the
pictures kept them very
information by teaching it to
engaged, and students overall
someone else.
enjoyed the lesson.

Materials, Resources,
and Technology