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Early Childhood

Task 2: Instruction Commentary

TASK 2: INSTRUCTION COMMENTARY


Respond to the prompts below (no more than 6 single-spaced pages, including prompts) by typing your responses within the
brackets following each prompt. Do not delete or alter the prompts. Commentary pages exceeding the maximum will not be
scored. You may insert no more than 2 additional pages of supporting documentation at the end of this file. These pages
may include graphics, texts, or images that are not clearly visible in the video or a transcript for occasionally inaudible portions.
These pages do not count toward your page total.

1. List the learning experience(s) you have selected for the 2 video clips you are
submitting. Identify the learning experience(s) by plan day/number.
[The three video clips attached include evidence of student learning and teacher feedback. The
video clip is taken from the file named Video Clip 1. It was taken from the first learning
experience labeled as Lesson One. This video segment is 8 minutes and 14 seconds in length.
The video clip is labeled Video Clip 2 and was taken from the second learning experience,
labeled Lesson Two. This video clip is 4 minutes and 38 seconds in length. The third and final
video clip is taken from the second learning experience, Lesson Two. The video clip is labeled
Video Clip 3.]
2. Promoting a Positive Learning Environment
Refer to scenes in the video clips where you provided a positive learning environment.
a. How did you demonstrate mutual respect for, rapport with, and responsiveness to
children with varied needs and backgrounds, and challenge children to engage in
learning?
[Education theorists and teachers alike know the importance of students being comfortable in
their own environment. If a student does not feel comfortable in their environment, they will not
feel comfortable taking educational risks. The teacher’s presence in the classroom and the
relationship between the student and their peers. Teachers in the classroom need to
demonstrate respect for their students and coworkers. If they demonstrate respect, the students
are more likely to give it back to them. The students in the video clips have all been treated with
respect by my cooperating teacher and myself. Throughout the video clips I respond to the
students with respect.

At the start of Video Clip 1 (0:00) the student answers the question incorrectly multiple times.
After he’s given a few answers, I correct him and explain the question further so he can
understand. Throughout the many video clips, I encourage the students to “phone a friend”. The
concept is first used in Video Clip 1 (3:20). The student I chose to answer the question did not
know the answer, so I allowed him to pick a friend to help him with the answer. I feel that this
concept helps the students feel more confident among their peers. The student who is
struggling with the answer gets the power to choose a friend to answer for them, and the
student who is chosen gets to redeem their friend by answering the question correctly for them.
This support allows lower level students to take an opportunity to answer a question and not feel
dumb for not knowing the answer. Students who often needed to phone a friend also would
build upon their friends answer with other information they remembered from the story.

In Video Clip 1 (1:45) a student makes a comment about how I did not choose them to answer
the question. I tell the student that I am not calling on everyone and that I found his speaking out
rude. The student who spoke out is a student who normally does not speak out and answers
questions throughout the day.

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Early Childhood
Task 2: Instruction Commentary

In Video Clip 2, I chose the students who are more likely to not pay attention during the activity
to be the actors of the story. These students often have a hard time focusing, so I figured that
focusing their attention on something else, like being a character from the story, would be
beneficial for them. Throughout this activity in Video Clip 2, the students are engaged and
excited. The students who answer the questions and prompt the actors are students who don’t
often get the chance to answer questions in the classroom. Before Video Clip 2 was taken,
these students were the first actors to act out the events of the story. This allowed those
students to feel more comfortable leading the actors the second time around after they correctly
demonstrated it the first time.

Students who are learning at a lower level in the classroom are placed towards the front of the
carpet to ensure teacher help whenever they need it. The students who are more advanced
learners are scattered throughout the carpet. This allows the middle level students to be
assisted by the higher level students if they need it. The carpet seating promotes collaboration
between the students.]
3. Engaging Children in Learning
Refer to examples from the video clips in your responses to the prompts.

a. Explain how your instruction engaged children in


¡ language and literacy development, AND
¡ active, multimodal learning
[The instruction seen in the three video clips engaged the children in both language and literacy.
While reading The Rainbow Fish, I ask the students open-ended and thought provoking
questions.

During Video Clip 1 (2:20) I begin my questioning by asking the students to think about the
feelings of the other fish in the story and the main characters feelings. By doing this, I am
promoting empathy throughout the classroom and opening the door to conversing about our
feelings later in the classroom. Throughout the three video clips, the sequence vocabulary
words are repeatedly stressed. The students were able to successfully use the vocabulary
words to place the story into correct order without teacher help. The instruction throughout the
learning segments has been selected to encourage and engage the students in active and
multimodal learning by integrating various learning styles into each lesson. Throughout these
lessons the students were able to retell a familiar story using a variety of different learning
styles. In Video Clip 1, the students retold the story on their own after the story was read. In
Video Clip 2 the students act out the story with popsicle stick characters while their classmates
prompt them.

During the third learning experience, the students collaboratively create actions to act out the
story in their own way. These learning experiences allowed the students to work on their
collaboration skills as well.

During Video Clip 3 (2:20), the two target students often collaborate with one another to identify
the sequence vocabulary words and remind each other of events in the story they may have
missed. The group acting and popsicle stick characters are two ways an element of drama was
intertwined into the learning experiences. Each experience, shown and not shown, stimulated a
focused environment for the students and provides hands on and collaborative opportunities to
enhance the students’ language and literacy development.]

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Early Childhood
Task 2: Instruction Commentary

b. Describe how your instruction linked children’s development, prior learning, and
personal, cultural, and community assets with new learning.
[The story of The Rainbow Fish was chosen because the students are familiar with the story.
This is one way I have relied on my students prior knowledge when creating these lessons. The
students also had prior knowledge of the vocabulary words used, but had not been exposed to
them in this manner. Throughout the learning experience, the students not only develop their
language and literacy skills, but also their cognitive and collaborative skills as well.

The students developed their cognitive skills in Video Clip 2 and the 3rd learning experience.
During Video Clip 2, the students are using their hands to hold and manipulate the popsicle stick
characters they are given.

During the third learning experience, the students are required to manipulate and use their
bodies to communicate the events of the story they are acting out.

During all of the learning experiences the students are continually working to collaborate with
one another and develop their communication skills. The students are able to ask and answer
questions about the story and call upon their friends for help. This gives the students an
opportunity to answer questions and encourage their peers to build upon their answers. The
students work together to establish a sense of community in the classroom. In Video Clip 1
(1:11), the students are asked about the feelings of the characters at certain points in the story.
By communicating the characters feelings and realizing the reasoning behind them, the
students are developing their social emotional skills.]
4. Deepening Children’s Learning during Instruction
Refer to examples from the video clips in your explanations.

a. Explain how you elicited and built on children’s responses to promote children’s
language and literacy development through active learning.
[In Video Clip 1 (2:15, 4:30, 5:28, 5:45) I build upon the students answers by validating them
and building upon them. Many times, the students gave short and simple answers. By building
upon the answers and encouraging the students to repeat the longer answers, the students are
being exposed to more in depth and thought provoking answers. At a point in the video (6:35),
the student who was having trouble providing answers before answers a question and provides
not one, but two answers to the question.

During Video Clip 2 the students dive deeper into the story. They actively communicate the
characters wants, needs, and feelings throughout the story. This is important because it
encourages the development of language and social emotional skills. In Video Clip 1 (7:50), a
student talks about the fact that end of the story the main character is both happy and sad. I
build upon the students answer by explaining why the character may feel this way. By
identifying the characters emotions, the student is showing understanding to deeper meanings
in the story and also becoming more comfortable talking about emotions and what can lead to
them.]
b. Explain how you made interdisciplinary connections in ways that deepen children’s
development of language and literacy.
[Interdisciplinary connections were made throughout the three learning experiences. These
connections helped students develop their language and literacy skills. The students language
and literacy development is visually represented throughout the three video clips as well. In

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Early Childhood
Task 2: Instruction Commentary

Video Clip 1, the students are asked open-ended questions and often ask other students to
build upon their answers. The students continually use the sequence vocabulary words to
describe the sequence of events from the story. I also encourage the students to think about the
feelings of the many different characters in the story and how their feelings might effect others.
The students collaborate with one another to answer questions and retell the main events of the
story.]
5. Analyzing Teaching
Refer to examples from the video clips in your responses to the prompts.

a. What changes would you make to your instruction to better support children’s learning
related to the central focus? Be sure to address the needs of all children, including those
who need greater support or challenge.

Consider the variety of learners in your class/group who may require different
strategies/supports (such as children with IEPs or 504 plans, English language learners,
children at different points in the developmental continuum, and/or gifted children).
[Teaching can be an ongoing learning process. It is important that teachers continually analyze
and reflect on their teaching. A majority of the students were engaged during the different
learning experiences and actively participated. One change I could have made during my
learning experiences would be to provide more targeted support for the students who are
currently struggling. The students who are currently struggling in the class did not raise their
hands as much to participate. Pulling them aside in a small group would have been beneficial
for their learning. This would have ensured that the students participated and received a more
hands on approach to their learning. I should have provided more targeted support for these
students. Some of the questioning I used was a little advanced for the students who are behind.
I could have saved the “easier” questioning for the students who are struggling.

Students who are considered gifted could have been pulled aside as well to talk about the story
on their own. These students required much less prompting during the lessons and would have
benefitted from a more challenging approach. Higher order questioning and more challenging
activities would have benefitted these students. Leveled activities would have ensured that all
students in the classroom had their needs met.]
b. Explain why you think these changes would improve children’s learning. Support your
explanation with evidence of children’s learning AND principles from developmental
theory and/or research.
[During any lesson plan, it is important to draw upon students’ prior knowledge. This will allow
the students to start the lesson off more comfortably and confidently. Teaching requires a lot of
reflection as well. The students were challenged and engaged in the lessons, however there
was no reflection present after the end of the lessons. By incorporating an exit slip, this would
ensure that the students learned what they were supposed to and retained the proper skills that
were gained in this lesson. By providing different leveled activities, the different types of
students in the classroom would have had their individual needs reinforced. Reinforcement is a
key theory in the education of children.

One behaviorist, BF Skinner, states that reinforcement allows students to distinguish between
what they should and shouldn’t know. The individual lesson activities would have provided
stronger reinforcement for the students in the classroom. Students in the classroom also would
have benefitted from some type of distraction instead of being allowed to walk around the

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Early Childhood
Task 2: Instruction Commentary

classroom freely. An object or a special seat could have diminished the need for these students
to walk around. This is a type of reinforcement that could have been included into the lessons.

Another theorist, Bruner, talks about constructivism and the benefit it poses for students.
According to him, learners construct new ideas and/or concepts based upon their current or
past knowledge. By introducing the sequence vocabulary the week before the lesson, the
students would have been reviewing the vocabulary words rather than just being exposed to
them. In the lessons, I encouraged the students to repeat the vocabulary words after I sounded
them out. The students were also expected to be able to identify the words without any help
towards the end of the lessons. This repetition allowed the students to develop their use of the
vocabulary words. Repetition is an activity that is derived from a popular cognitive theory.
Cognitivists believe that learners develop through receiving, storing, and then later retrieving
that information. By providing targeted supports for the lower level students, this process would
have been amplified for them. These students would receive the concept and vocabulary words
from the teacher and use the words in different ways to enhance the learning experience. It is
vital that these students are not forgotten and have their needs met in order to be successful in
the classroom.]

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