Observation Form

Student Teacher: Kali Pawlak Penn Mentor: Pam Gallagher Please provide a stapled copy of the lesson plan, along with necessary handouts or assessments, notes and revisions to Pam. state Inquiry Question here: How can moving beyond the written word by incorporating

multi-media materials enhance students' skills with communication (expressing oneself) and analytical interpretations (expressing one's ideas about the content at hand)?
notes about ongoing inquiry that you want Pam to: (1) consider when observing specific aspects today; (2) observe for the purposes of data taking for the inquiry; (3) your choice 1) Student engagement with gallery walk 2) Amount of students on task during silent note-taking time and during small group discussion. 3) Is the music being played distracting students from the task at hand? Section I - Pre-lesson conversation 2/21/2013 Date:

Focus and goals of observation General focus: Examine the effectiveness of a visual accompaniment with challenging scientific/academic text. belongs with specific goal below... this is an instructional climate issue... general focus: Environment. Specific goal: Gather data for journal entry on the use of visual accompaniment with difficult reading material. Section II Observation notes

Record of events - continue on separate sheet if necessary. Please attach all additional sheets.
Date: Feb 21 , 2013 Class: English 10 Pd #2

The note taking experience for this magnet folks is clearly not a massaged skill.. they look to copy directly from the slide thus losing your explanation of the slides content. One even complains that its a lot... Where are they to learn real note taking since this is no longer actually taught in junior high school (now the rather ineffective middle schools that too often exist)? Level of engagement.. they are writing... I am wondering if the use of purple shouldnt be a norm Hobbs... no comments by students that humans are self obsessed like other animals to survive??? savages... will there be a discussion of the noble savage? the implications of calling others savages ... do they examine perspective in this area? remainder of the pd gallery walk... 2 min on own writing then 2 min discussing.. so how can it be so silent? never allow folks to rise until AFTER you provide all directions. try to not give contradictory directions. IF you want silence then so be it but dont give them a task that requires them to talk.... you are running a count down timer for the silence.. I see this now...

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thus, the directions leading to this gallery walk were muddled ... needs crisp clear, sequential steps and explanations... the music is a brilliant idea but think how it could be even more effective... IF, as you said, it is to provide a gallery climate then use it DURING THE SILENT PART so that the count down timer for discussion is happening during discussion time...??? then Ss would have a pattern of audio and visual clues for the pattern of the work during the gallery walk. I notice what looks like really good interaction among most groups with most people discussing, pointing making eye contact with each other... It is a shame that the count down timer was not used consistently... I noticed that the time for discussion was increased to 4? nice job being so active in the classroom, conferring with groups, watching and listening The use of music seems not to be distracting until a vocal comes on... the group near me began a discussion about the language being sung... Recall... the use of music is considered a potentially good classroom climate device but only those without lyrics. I thought we had this discussion? I noticed that 4 min allowed or much more offtask, disconnected behavior. Teacher needs Ss attention... Teacher allows for a vote about time but do they really know how much timer that theyd been using? Allowing votes is a good idea .. it can really bring about a sense of team work with the teacher, their opinions valued and This new piece that that has a more definite rhythm does pull some folks offtask... some with hip movement, a few verbally plinking along with the tune... thus, this kind of music could possibly be considered a distraction. I am wondering if you noticed how the energy for the project has dropped now that Ss are on their fourth location. They are now on their fifth... I am seeing a few fooling around or gazing off but overall, it seems that most are busy with the work. They are on their sixth... do walk about til end... I hear that when it is obvious, we dont talk much ... I am confused... she copies from a peer but not much talk ... it seems like folks talked less as the walk continued.. likely greater comfort zone. you are going over expectations for homework and essay... did they get a rubic/checklist to guide their writing, peer review, final copy and teacher assessment? If not, we should discuss Ss relied more of the written it seems... I wish they had written out a response.. missed opportunity?

effectiveness of visual support of challenging sci / academic text... inquiry... 1) Student engagement with gallery walk 2) Amount of students on task during silent note-taking time and during small group discussion. 3) Is the music being played distracting students from the task at hand? Section III Post-lesson conversation Date___________________ Notes Goal In what ways was the goal achieved? In what ways does the goal need to remain in place, or be reformulated, and further pursued?

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Notes Other issues What else came up during the lesson that was noteworthy? Surprising? Valuable? Troubling? aspects of todays experiences that may be important to the ongoing inquiry project Recommendations for future practice: 1. Intra-personal (self) versus Inter-personal: Sometimes its okay to just let the information settle rather than having them immediately engage in group conversation. 2. Do experiment first. 3. For journal: poetry/rap; visual; text render; write captions for graphic novels. PROVIDE EXAMPLES FOR CAPTIONS. Areas of demonstrated improvement and success: 1. Brings the students into the mindset of the writer. 2. Blended multiple subjects for students: history, psychological, sociology, literature, experiments. (crosscurricular). 3. Collaboration with other classes was extremely effective and positive on morale.
Students have grown up in such a linguistic environment, that interpreting symbols and pictures have not been honored.

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