Lesson Self- Assessment for ED 315

Name: Stephanie Falksen

Lesson topic: Introduction & Conclusion writing
Date: March 11
th
, 2014
School/grade level/ number of students: BEAM, 4
th
, 18 students
Name of Cooperating Teacher: Jan Nickel

Planning and preparation: Describe how your plan provided opportunities for active
engagement. How did you provide for the needs of diverse learners? Did you adjust
your plan in any way? Describe how and why if you did.

In order to have the students actively engaged I planned to share more examples
of other 4
th
graders writing. This had proved to be a very effective way to get
students engaged in a lesson towards the beginning of this unit and I hoped that it
would continue to be in this lesson, and it was. I also created a handout for the
students to give them samples of how introductions and conclusions are written
and what are the qualities that make up a strong introduction and conclusion. This
piece helped the students visually see what I was explaining to them and also
served as a support for all of the learners as I progressed into the lesson and found
that the students were unsure about the information that should be included in
their introduction. I had not planned on handing out this sheet until later in the
lesson but as I saw students struggling to come up with answer, and I wanted to
make sure the lesson was able to continue moving forward, I passed them out
earlier and we were then able to move ahead. Additionally to help meet the needs
of my learners I had planned on meeting for small group or one-on-one
conferences with as many students as I could during work time to help support
them in whatever area they were in need of additional assistance.


Classroom environment: Evaluate the ways in which your encouraged student
participation. How did you elicit student responses? How did you engage them in
responding to you and each other? Evaluate your plan for individual, small group
and/or whole class work. How effective were these different organizational
techniques for keeping students involved in your lesson?

I encouraged student participation by asking several questions throughout the
lesson. I activated their prior knowledge by referring back to our previous lesson
together. I called on students who raised their hands and I also called on students
who I could tell may not have been focus on the lesson as a way for drawing them
back in. During the whole group time the students had some time to work on their
individual writings. In planning I had hoped to include time to allow students to
work in pairs in sharing their writing however due to the time limits on the lesson
time I had to cut this part out before even walking into the classroom. I had
planned on meeting with several students during work time and I was able to meet
with almost every student however it was in a much more hectic manor that I had
hoped. The students were so eager to move ahead in their writing they all came
rushing up in hopes of getting approval of their introduction and conclusion so they
could begin re-writing or typing their final copies.


Instruction: Evaluate your choices of instructional strategies. Did they have the effect
you intended? Were the needs of all learners met? What changes would you make if
you repeated this lesson?

My instructional strategies for this lesson included modeling and questioning.
These strategies helped to move the students in the right direction of
understanding however further support will be needed to help solidify the
concepts. I did not realize how complex this lesson was going to be for the
students going into it because I was told they had already been exposed to
introduction and conclusion so this should have been more of a review. Many of
the students seemed to struggle fully grasping how these parts of an essay should
be formed and without a doubt would have benefited from additional time. If I
were to repeat this lesson I would address the introduction and conclusion in
separate lessons, on separate days, making sure the majority of the students were
secure in their understanding on a strong introduction before moving onto the
conclusion.

Assessment: What assessment processes did you plan and how did they work? What
did you learn from listening to student responses, examining their work or listening to
their interactions? How well did your assessment procedures inform you about student
attainment of your lessons objectives?

My assessment tools were my seating chart grid to be used during the lesson and in
conferencing and also reading the students essays. These were very valuable tools
in helping me to see which students I had met with and who I will still need to
follow up with. I was also able to quickly document if there was a strong area of
concern that I discovered when working with a particular so I will know how to
tailor my support in future lessons. As previously stated I found that many of the
students are only starting to grasp how to write a strong introduction and
conclusion and would without a doubt benefit from additional practice
opportunities and instruction. As of this writing I have only received about half of
the students writing so I am not able to fully assess all of the students work but of
the work that I do have about half of those students wrote a fairly strong to strong
introduction and about a quarter of them wrote a fairly strong conclusion.


Professional responsibilities: What did you learn from your cooperating teachers
feedback on this lesson? How will you apply it to future lessons?

As with my previous lesson, the feedback I have received from my CT was overall
very positive. She appreciated that I pointed out the figurative language aspect in
one of the sample introductions I read to reinforce the learning that the students
had just done in the previous lesson as well as talked about what made the
introductions and conclusions I shared strong examples. She did comment that it
would have been nice to have the students pair up and share their intro and
conclusions with a partner or work with partners to strengthen their writing, which
is something I had originally hoped to do but pulled out because of time
constraints. She did point out that there were two students who did not have
essays from the last lesson that they had turned in. When I checked in with these
students they told me they were pulling them out of their folders but apparently
they did not and with the swarm of students with me at the table I did not see
that these two students spent a significant amount of time not working. She
mentioned that in the future I could give them the option to pull out another
piece of writing they had worked on before to use for the time being or give them
the framework to begin writing a new essay all together. This is absolutely
something I will need to pay closer attention to in the future and be sure to
address as Im handing back work instead of waiting until work time is almost
over.

Reflection: What did you learn about student learning and assessing from this lesson?
How will it affect your planning for future teaching?

This lesson reinforced the importance of not assuming that just because the
students may have been exposed to the lesson topic before does not mean that
they have a firm understanding of the basics of that topic. Conferencing with
almost every students really allowed me to see how each individual was grasping
the concepts in the moment and gave me the opportunity to give them each
feedback on ways they could continue to strengthen their introductions,
conclusions, and their essays as a whole. Just walking around the room as students
worked would not have given me this insight and understanding of my learners
needs so finding ways to conference with all students on a regular basis either
one-on-one or in small groups will without a doubt be a beneficial assessment tool.
This was a much more complex lesson that I had predicted it would be and as we
move into the next phase of my unit project I will be sure to follow up with all
students but specifically the students who have not yet demonstrated a strong
understanding of the necessary components of writing an essay.