Katherine Melilli

SIOP Reflection

1. The pre-teaching session is a little less formal than an actual lesson and usually
does not involve the "whole" class. However, do you feel that spending a little
bit of time on your upcoming content is beneficial to the students? To you as
the teacher? Please explain in a paragraph.

I do feel that being able to pre-teach was beneficial to my lesson. Nadine

and I decided to teach a lesson on chemical bonding, a topic that requires
background knowledge about subjects such as atoms and valence
electrons. By being able to teach these topics beforehand, we were able
to scaffold upon this to teach the new information when we got to our
actual lesson. I think this would be very beneficial for my students when I
am actually teaching, especially for my English Language Learners. When I
did the observation report of the ELL student in my field placement, his
teacher told me that she often pre-teaches the vocabulary to him that
they use during their science lessons. This stuck with me, so I knew that I
should incorporate pre-teaching vocabulary in my science lesson!

2. Now that you had an opportunity to deliver your pre-teaching session, would
you do anything differently if you had the chance to do it again? If you wouldn't
change anything, why do you think you used your time effectively? Please
answer in a couple of sentences.

If we had the opportunity to re-do the pre-teach session, I might want to

add in a video about the valence electrons. This would have been
beneficial for the visual learners in the class. Even though we provided a
visual demonstration, it just might have been more beneficial for our
students to have the concept explained by someone else and with
graphics.

3. Do you feel that interaction is important during the pre-teaching session, or

rather is it a time to simply present information that may help the students in
the upcoming lesson? Please answer in a couple of sentences.

I think it depends on what the content that is being taught. If the topic is
complex and the teacher feels the pre-teach session needs to be spent
using direct instruction, then I would support the idea of not including an
interactive component to the pre-teach session. However, if the
information being taught is better learned through a hands-on
experience, the teacher should incorporate an interactive element. For
 example, interactive components are most often used in science lessons,
as students are often required to participate in labs. During a pre-teach
lesson that is meant expose students to gravity, the teacher could
conduct an experiment where he or she drops two objects of different
masses at the same time and then has the students do the same so they
begin to formulate their schema about the concept.

4. Did you achieve both you language and content objectives? How can you be
sure?
Our content objective stated that students will be able to create their
own chemical bond through the use of manipulatives. I think we achieved
this objective, as we had the students construct their own polar and non-
polar covalent bonds. As they were doing it Nadine and I walked around
and asked the students questions, prompting them to explain what they
were doing. This brings in our language objective, which states that
students will be able to compare either through speech or writing the
distinction and characteristics of covalent bonds. This is exactly what the
students were doing while we were asking them questions during the
activity. As we walked around we were formatively assessing them,
requiring them to explain what they were doing and why.

5. Do you feel you "immersed" the students in the vocabulary? Based on your
assessment, did the students have their own understanding of each of the vocab
words?
I do feel like we immersed the students in the vocabulary. We were
constantly using the words throughout the lesson and requiring them to
answer our questions by using these words. I know that the students
developed an understanding of the vocabulary words because they were
able to not only explain to us what they were doing during both the
kinesthetic and visual activity, but they were also able to explain to us
what each vocabulary word meant when we asked them.
6. Do you feel you had enough interaction, a chance to apply the language/content
with other students? Why or why not?
I do feel that we incorporated enough interaction into our lesson. The
students were up and moving around, mimicking the movement of the
valence electrons during our kinesthetic activity, and then they were also
actively engaged while they constructed their own polar and non-polar
covalent bonds. During these activities, we were able to apply the
language/content objectives, as Nadine and I were constantly asking the
students questions and assessing their understanding.
7. What are three aspects of the SIOP process that you find effective and truly need
to be in your lesson plans (especially if ELLs are present)?
One aspect of the SIOP process that I find effective is building background
knowledge. This is especially important for ELL students because the
 lesson might incorporate words that the student has never heard before
simply because they have not been speaking English as long as their non-
ELL classmates. Another aspect of the SIOP model that I think is vital for
ELL students is the allowing the students to interact and work with other
students. As we know, ELL students typically develop their BICS
significantly faster than their CALP. By allowing students to speak with
their peers during their lesson, they are allowing them to strengthen
their BICS and their CALP at the same time. Additionally, their peer might
be better able to explain a concept to them that the ELL student
misinterpreted due to their language barrier. Lastly, I think the element
of providing manipulative is extremely beneficial for ELL students. They
might have a difficult time understanding a concept when they read
about it, but when they physically work with materials they might be
better able to understand the concept as this does not necessarily
require language. For example, a student might struggle to understand
the idea of gravity while reading about it, but when they conduct an
experiment and are allowed to use manipulatives, they could easily
understand the concept because they are acting it out and visually seeing
the results.
8. Looking back on your pre-teaching sessions now that you completed the lesson,
what is one thing you would have done differently? Why?
One thing that I would have done differently during the pre-teach lesson
is provide an interactive component. The concept of polar and non-polar
bonds is difficult, so maybe by allowing the students to participate in a
kinesthetic activity like they did during the lesson, they would have been
better able to understand the topic.