Department of Teacher Education & Learning Sciences

Elementary Education Program

Pre-Observation Form

Directions: This form is to be completed prior to every lesson that will be observed by the mentor
teacher or university supervisor. It is to be submitted no later than 3 business days prior to the actual
observation along with your lesson plans.

Name: Autumn Fields Date: October 29, 2017

1. What is the topic of your lesson?

The topic of this lesson is the changes of seasons.

2. Why are you teaching this lesson? What is your rationale for teaching it?

The purpose of this lesson is to build students understanding that seasons,

just like many other aspects of our lives, change over time. This is part of a
social studies unit plan in the area of History that fulfills the standard
K.H.1: Understand change over time. It is important for all students to
understand and become familiar with change due to the fact that change
occurs in our day-to-day lives and is something that we experience on
numerous occurances.

3. What is your Teaching Behavior Focus? Why did you choose this?

The teacher behavior I plan to focus on is meeting needs of learners. I

chose to focus on this teacher behavior because I feel that this lesson
provides a great opportunity to foster student engagement through small
group discussions as well as integrating learners interests and
experiences into discussion. This small group lesson will provide many
great learning opportunities for students and meeting the needs of all
students.

4. Why did you design your instruction in this lesson the way that you did? Why did
you choose this way of teaching the lesson (e.g., Was the idea from a methods
course? From your mentor teacher? Another source?)

I designed this lesson by combining ideas from methods courses (Social Studies
and Art) to create an integration lesson that includes social studies and art
content. I choose this way of teaching the lesson of discovering and describing
the changes of seasons through a read aloud and small group discussion to
 allow students to build ideas off of one another.

5. As you are thinking through this lesson, what do you believe will be the most
challenging part of this lesson for you when you teach it? Why?

I consider the most challenging aspect of this lesson will be having the students
using appropriate listening skills and classroom behaviors. I consider this will be the
most challenging aspect due to the fact that students tend to get excited and tend to
speak out when they are working in small groups.

6. How will you know if your learning outcomes for the students are met
successfully?

I will consider my learning outcomes successful if students are able to identify the
characteristics of each season (weather, tree colors, clothes that we wear, etc.).
Additionally, I will consider my learning outcomes successful if students are able
to create a tree that represents a season of their choosing.

7. How will your classroom management support the learning outcomes?

My classroom management of having students raising their hand before

answering a question will support the learning outcomes because it will allow for
students to have response opportunities one at a time and will allow the other
students to hear what is being said. Additionally, directions and expectations will
be given prior to the art portion for safety for each student.

8. List 1-3 areas which you would like for your observer to pay particular attention.
Why do you want your observer to focus on these areas?

1. Time management
2. Conducting and promoting small group discussions

9. Is there anything else you would like your observer to know before the
observation?