Brittney Lara
ECI 508
March 5, 2017
Background:
Mr. Fred A. Olds just started working at Olds Elementary school this year. He previously taught
for 2 years in the Caribbean and before that he worked in New York City schools, as a teacher's
assistant. Mr. Olds is new to the Common Core Standards and also new to working with second
grade students. When approached about observation he was excited to gain insight on current
teaching practices and was looking for direct feedback on how to improve.
Pre-Observation Meeting: Thursday February 23, 2017
Teacher Action Plan
Goal: Teacher would like to focus on providing feedback to students when using text evidence
to support their written response questions.
Steps Resources Timeline
Teacher will model to whole Read Aloud Text: Bookmarks Friday February 24th-
group how to look back in text are People Too Monday February 27th
and find various places in the
book that help to answer mCLASS question stems
questions. Teacher will show
students how use this http://www.greatbooks.org/six
evidence to write a written -strategies-to-help-students-
response. Teacher will cite-and-explain-evidence/
critique his work and add
onto his piece, to show
students an example of
feedback he would give
himself.
Teacher will model again Guided Reading Books - Tuesday February 28th
during small guided reading Mufaros Beautiful Daughter,
groups how to use text from Molly Lou Melon Stands Tall,
reading to answer various Amber Brown Is not a
short response questions, he Crayon.
will ask students to complete
practice and provide mCLASS question stem
feedback on how to improve. prompts
Focused Observation:
Teacher: Coach: Date:
Mr. Fred A. Olds Brittney Lara March 1 - March 2
Time spent during pre-observation: Time spent in observation: Time spent in debrief:
15 minutes - February 23 50 minutes - March 1 -2 30 minutes - March 3
What I observed: What I want to share: Follow-up needed:
Provide teacher with
Students were having difficulty Positives: steps on how to provide
pulling text evidence to answer Teacher was very effective feedback to
questions encouraging for students to students.
Teacher encouraged student to look not feel discouraged and to Coach can send articles
back in the text again and named a keep trying for teacher to read prior
specific spot in the story that could It was evident that students to debrief:
help student have been attempting to https://www.edutopia.or
Teacher reminded group to look for practice the skill of finding g/blog/tips-providing-
important information and key details textual evidence students-meaningful-
Teacher would ask students Teacher was able to redirect feedback-marianne-
questions in regards to responses students with verbal stenger
they had but students struggled with feedback when responding
explaining why they wrote the to questions. http://www.teachthought
response they had Teacher probed students .com/pedagogy/assess
Teacher encouraged student to look with more questions to think ment/20-ways-to-
back and think about whether the about and gave verbal provide-effective-
response really answered the praise as a form of feedback-for-learning/
questions feedback
Students were all working on same When student wanted to The Secret of Effective
stem question during each segment give up teacher used Feedback - Dylan
of writing time during small group feedback to encourage Wiliam
Teacher encouraged students to try student to keep going as he
rereading story if they needed help was headed in the right http://proxying.lib.ncsu.
Some students were hesitant to direction. Positive edu/index.php?
have teacher look over response and motivation for student url=http://search.ebscoh
did not want to share what they were ost.com.prox.lib.ncsu.e
writing du/login.aspx?
I observed two 25 minute small direct=true&db=eric&A
groups, during the first group teacher Constructive Feedback: N=EJ1096130&site=eh
gave 2 verbal feedback comments to Allowing students to share ost-live&scope=site
2 of the 6 students in the group and with a partner as a goal
1 written feedback comment. For the when finished or talk it out
second group teacher gave 3 of the with a partner before writing
8 students verbal feedback and could be helpful or give
gave 1 student of the 8 verbal praise feedback to each other
during the writing segments of the following writing
small group. Would be helpful if students
had some sentence
starters, teacher could use
those when giving feedback
of how to improve answer
Teacher needs to work on
written feedback strategies
Students need updates
about their performance
either verbally or written so
they are able to improve
before the next time they
meet
Teacher could share an
exemplar response from a
group member and have
students find ways to give
positive feedback or provide
students with an example of
how he would have written
a response and have
students give him feedback
Debrief:
I started off the conversation with positive praise to the teacher for working hard on encouraging
his students throughout the small group session. I explained how his verbal encouragement
was enough to motivate students. I also praised teacher for being positive to students who were
struggling, while being constructive, he made sure he was not too critical when he asked
student to improve responses to questions. I allowed teacher to talk about how he felt after the
two groups, things he felt went well in terms of feedback and things he felt he had as an area of
concern. Mr. Olds informed me that he was unsure of how much feedback to provide and how
often. We had a conversation about how to judge how much feedback is too little and how much
feedback is too much. I also referred to articles to help direct an answer to this question. I asked
teacher if he was able to read at least 1 article sent after observation occurred and teacher
stated he was unable to do so. I went over some of the highlights of ways to give students
feedback and used these as a way to provide constructive feedback to teacher of ways he could
improve. I mentioned more positive highlights noted throughout the lesson and followed up with
some practice examples of how he could enhance his feedback techniques. We looked at
student notebook and discussed some ways to provide written feedback for students. I told him
that they could look at his feedback comments in-between small group sessions and work on
making corrections to improve their responses. I told Mr. Olds, it seemed that both he and
students were hesitant to give and receive feedback. To encourage him to improve both himself
and his students, we talked about how he could work on building that into his classroom
community conversation. I gave him some examples of ways he could do so and we decided
that it would be great to have students practice giving feedback to peers during class activities
or group discussions. We talked about how he would need to teach them how to give
appropriate feedback that wasnt harmful and was directive. We decided that he needed to work
on implementing feedback into their classroom conversations and watch some videos on how
other teachers use feedback. We also decided he would need further coaching and that he
would come to observe me during writing class when giving feedback to students. I explained
that we would use my observation and critique it so I could improve alongside of him. We also
decided it might be good to come up with a rubric of some sort that helps him to see clearly
areas in which he still needs to improve and areas of strength when providing student feedback.
Action Plan
Steps Resources Timeline
Teacher was going to read https://www.edutopia.org/blog Teacher would have 1 week
through the 3 articles to gain /tips-providing-students- from debrief
more insight on how to meaningful-feedback-
improve feedback for marianne-stenger
students during writing
instruction http://www.teachthought.com/
pedagogy/assessment/20-
ways-to-provide-effective-
feedback-for-learning/
The Secret of Effective
Feedback - Dylan Wiliam
http://proxying.lib.ncsu.edu/in
dex.php?
url=http://search.ebscohost.c
om.prox.lib.ncsu.edu/login.as
px?
direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ1
096130&site=ehost-
live&scope=site
Watch videos on exemplar https://www.teachingchannel. Teacher would have 2 week
teachers who show teacher - org/videos/student-to- following debriefing
student feedback and student-feedback-nea
student- student feedback https://www.teachingchannel.
strategies org/videos/personalize-
feedback-for-students
Teacher would come observe Writing class during teacher- Teacher would come observe
my classroom and look for student and student-student my classroom 3 weeks
ways I give feedback to feedback session following debriefing
students in my writing class.
Teacher would take notes to Feedback rubric I give my 4th
share of things he noticed grade students when working
and things he had questions on helping peers improve
about. writing
Teacher and coach would Student work, Teacher notes Week 3 following debriefing
debrief after my lesson. We from observation, computer session
would practice using my with articles to create look for
students pieces and looking sheet when observing for
at his student work for written student feedback with
feedback and role play some teacher and peers
verbal feedback strategies he
has been using in classroom
since debriefing occurred.
Teacher and Coach would
create a look for sheet of
things I would be looking for
or paying attention to during
2nd observation.
Coach would go back to Look For Sheet Coach would allow 1 month
teachers classroom and Student Notebooks - To see if time of implementation and
observe again to look for written feedback increased working sessions with
improvements in the over time. teacher before re-observation
classroom
