Practice Observation

 For my practice observation I watched a lesson from a skilled ELA teacher on the Teaching Channel. The lesson was using their social studies textbook to learn about the Lewis & Clark expedition.  The teacher was looking for students to look for evidence within the text to support a main idea.  She did this through a number of activities to gets actively engaged with the material.  

To collect evidence of this observation, I used a notebook to collect running notes of what I saw and heard.  This was a little tricky for me as writing the notes required me to not give full focus to what was happening.  Some of the notes are half finished with my hope that I would understand them afterwards.  The benefit of recording the observation is being able to pause and rewind (or watch multiple times) to really observe all the interactions.  I was trying to focus on the teacher and what she was doing so I missed a lot of what the students were doing with each other (if not directly working with the teacher).  I admit that I also got side tracked by the topic of the lesson.  There were a couple of times that I was enjoying the conversation happening among students and teachers that I forgot to take down observation notes.  Hopefully with more practice, this won't be an issue. 

Based on my observation, I would place this teacher between Proficient and Distinguished on many of the Danielson components.  Of course I couldn't observe evidence for all of the components and since this teacher is not a librarian, some of the components didn't apply to her.  Here is the rubric and my thinking.

Domain 2

2a. Creating an environment of respect and rapport.
I felt that the teacher was Proficient on the cusp of Distinguished. The interactions between teachers and students was highly respectful. The teacher was always at eye level with her students. She always made eye contact. When students had a question about another students' ideas, she ask the original student to expand his thoughts rather than revoice them herself. The teacher had developed a hand signal system that let everyone in the discussion circle know that they wanted to share a new idea or add on to what was already being said. This allowed for a natural flow of conversation without the direction of teacher calling on folx. When the teacher talked about ideas shared, she cited the student who originally share the idea. The only reason I couldn't definitively put the teacher in Distinguished was that I notice her interactions with about half of the students in the class. There were kids who were quietly listening, but I could not get a sense of her rapport with these students.


2b. Establishing a culture of investigation and love of literature.
Again, I felt the teacher was Proficient on the cusp of Distinguished. The whole lesson was about investigating big ideas in the text. The majority of the time the teacher spoke, she was asking questions, getting kids to think about the information. When a statement was made by a student, she would ask "Where can we find that in the text?" or "How do you know that?" She also modeled looking in the text to find examples of her big idea. "I think I just found some good evidence, look." The students were constantly interacting with the text to look for evidence that "Lewis and Clark were determined." They were helping their table mates and partners look for evidence when she was not directly working with the students. She made the lesson engaging so students want to find the information. Again I only saw some of the students engaged in this work so I don't know how she was engaging the quieter students.


2c. Establishing and maintaining library procedures
So I kinda improvised on this as she isn't a librarian, but she did have procedures in place in her classroom that her students obviously understood and followed so I placed her at Proficient. The use of hand signals to have a discussion, who their partners were to have a turn and talk, what resources they would need to help digest the text were all used smoothly without much teacher direction or reminders. The hand signals in particular worked very well in having a class discussion that was not controlled by the teacher but instead flowed between students.


2d. Managing student behavior
I put that this teacher was Distinguished with behavior management. Students knew the expectations. Students had control over the conversation and could voice when they needed something. When one student didn't follow the discussion protocols, the teacher quietly reminded the student in a friendly way without disrupting the whole classes learning. The class worked together to move from one activity to another respectfully.


2e. Organizing physical space to enable smooth flow
I put this teacher at Proficient for this domain. There were clearly different spaces within the classroom for different types of learning opportunities. Students sat at table clusters to do small group work, they had a whole group carpet area to sit in a circle, and there was a small group area to work with the teacher. This didn't seem too crowded or confusing. Students knew where and what to do.

Domain 3

 

3a. Maintaining and extending the library collection in accordance with the school's needs and within limitations

Again, she was not a librarian so I was stretching this one a bit.  I put her as Proficient as the text they were using was the district's social studies textbook.  I did note that it was on the cusp of Basic because the text was definitely Eurocentric/Colonial in how it told the story of Lewis and Clark.  I would hope that in the future other texts would be used in addition to tell a more complete story about all who were affected by the Louisiana Purchase including the Indigenous people Lewis & Clark met on the journey. 

3b. Collaborating with teachers in the design of instructional units and lessons

Since this was not a librarian, I could not place her on the rubric.  But with the gaps identified in 3a, this seems like a perfect opportunity to collaborate with the school librarian on finding a more balanced grouping of resources on the topic.

3c.  Engaging students in enjoying literature and in learning information skills.  

I placed this teach at Proficient because the teacher used many different activities and grouping strategies to teach the skill of finding evidence in the text.  The lesson started out with small groups reading the text and sharing their wonders with each other.  The lesson then moved to a whole group discussion where student posed their questions to the whole group to get a better understanding of the text.  The last grouping was small group with the teacher as they talked about what they would write as their paragraph with a main idea supported by evidence from the text.  Students built their ideas through these activities so they were ready for the final assessment by the end. 

3d Assisting students and teachers in the use of technology in the library/media center

This didn't apply to this lesson.  No technology was used at all.

3e. Demonstrating flexibility and responsiveness

I had no data to use to place her on this component.  

Based on this experience, I think using one of the Reflection Journals in Lipton would be extremely helpful before the observation.  This way, I can focus on observing the behavior and ideas that my mentee would like help on.  If my mentee would like help at behavior management, Reflection Journal III would be helpful for me to see where they think they are struggling, what strategies they are trying out, and what resources they've already consulted.  The Reflection Journal II could help with starting a new unit or trying a new strategy.  Reflection Journal V could be used to work on how to reflect and adjust based on past lessons to find gaps in understanding with students.  All of them can help with creating a goal for our time together.  After trying to gather observations on everything happening in the classroom (which is a ton!), having a more specific focus to the observation will be more beneficial to both me and my mentor.