Assignment (Week 2)

Week 2: Observation of Teaching and Other Classroom Activities

Objective: The purpose of these school-based activities is to get yourself familiar with the
school community by getting to know your classroom, your students, and different teaching
styles and activities performed by your cooperating teacher.

Note: Check Lists (for Cooperating Teacher) for below activities are attached with this
assignment.

1. Find following observation forms and fill them accordingly;

o Observation of Classroom Layout/Set-up

o Observation of Classroom Teaching
o Observation of Classroom Activity/Group work
o Cooperating Teacher checklist for Student-teacher

2. Fill and upload all observation forms on LMS in soft form.

3. A separate sheet for cooperating teacher is also available containing list of all activities
you will perform at school in second week, take print and get it signed by your
cooperating teacher at the end of week and upload scanned copy with this document.
 VIRTUAL UNIVERSITY OF PAKISTAN

M.A. Jinnah Campus, Defence Road Off Raiwind Road, Lahore

Website: www.vu.edu.pk

Week 2: Observation of Cooperating Teacher

Observation of Cooperating Teacher and Classroom activities provide you an opportunity to learn how
your Cooperating Teacher engages with the students and carries out the teaching process. These
observations also help you to familiarize with the classroom layout, delivery of a lesson, giving
instructions, planning homework, and how to evaluate students.

Activity 1: Observation of Classroom Layout/Set-up

The purpose of this activity is to gather information on how a teacher uses the space in the classroom and
ensures that all the students are engaged.

Task: Sketch the sitting arrangement of the classroom (blackboard, students’ desk and chairs, teacher’s
desk, door etc.)

Example:
Observe these examples of classroom sitting arrangement and sketch the layout of the classroom you are observing.

Teacher’s desk and board

Reflection: Based on your observation of classroom layout, answer the following questions.

1. How this seating plan was helpful in involving all students in lesson?
Seating arrangements are important for every classroom because they have the potential to help
prevent problems that decrease student attention and diminish available instructional time.Seating
arrangement help teachers to manage, control and supervise the class. It also helps student learning.
Seating arrangement should also be implemented by considering the students needs and compatibility.
There should be a orientation of the students seating to maintain a good classroom environment. This
seating plan was good for school and specially for the junior classes.

2. Did the seating plan facilitate group work during any activity? (where applicable)

Each arrangement changes the whole classrooms’ environment by changing the way in which
participants interact with the teacher and with other classmates. So by applying a different and a new
thoughtful approach to the seating arrangement can profoundly alter the outcome of the meeting.

3. What changes would you like to make in this classroom seating plan?

These models are best for the schools but it is not well-suited for the univeristies and the colleges where you
have to address a large number of students. I have witness U-shaped or a big hall they are the best. The class
work in a large group, though teachers have great opportunity to interact with the students one on one. The
students and teachers as well can comfortablly deliver and present the topics and ideas. Courses that include
discussion and presentations typically function well with this configuration.

Activity 2: Observation of Classroom Teaching

 The purpose of this activity is to observe how a teacher has planned lesson and his/her teaching styles
while conducting the lesson plan (discuss with your cooperating teacher about this activity and request
him/her to provide lesson plan before the start of the class). This activity has two parts. In 1 st part you will
observe the teacher in classroom and reflect on it. In 2nd part you will prepare your own lesson plan based
on your observation.

Part 1: Review of Lesson Plan (If available)

Review the Lesson plan according to the format given below.

Cooperating Teacher: _______Rubab__________________ class: __10th _________subject:

___Biology___________
Topic: _______Asexual Reproduction____________________________ subtopics (if
any):_________________________

Note: Give your comments on the lesson plan.

Elements Yes, No Comment (if any)

The lesson plan has all the elements according to the model Yes
lesson plan/format (provided to you)

General Objectives/ specific objectives are clearly stated Yes

Objectives are in behavioral form (using Blooms’ or SOLO) Yes

taxonomy

Methodology is clear and relevant to the topic Yes Methods used:Lecture Method

AV aids/ Materials/ Resources to teach this particular Yes

lesson/topic are mentioned
Activity/ Group work is planned (where applicable) Yes
Worksheet is available/ready (if required any) Yes
Learning sequence/ Procedure is present e.g. checking prior Yes
knowledge, introduction, explanation, activity, homework
Feedback of students (questioning/answering) Yes
Homework is mentioned/given Yes

If lesson plan is not available discuss with cooperating teacher how he/she has planned the lesson
before its starts and briefly explain the content in your own words.
 A teacher must prepare the lesson plan before entering into the classroom. She should well-prepared the topics to
teacha and to have a healthy, meaningful discussion with the students. If in the case the tecaher is not well-prepared
then the students are quickly going to lose interest, their focus will be distracted and at the end they have zero
understanding of the topic. If the teacher has not prepared the lesson plan then may be she has taught that topics
several times ago so she does not need to do so but if she has not taught that before and not have yet prepared the
topic then the students will be left confused and may be left scrambling, thinking of what to do next. If the lesson
plan is not prepared then class can be engage in some revision activity, in the meantime you can plan the lesson and
give an overview of the topic.

Reflection: Reflect how successfully teacher has delivered the lesson.

1. Did the teacher check the prior knowledge of the students about topic? (give example)

Copious Methods can be used to check prior knowledge of students:Yes the teasher also did so.
Some of the methods are mentioned here.Some are direct like tests, quizes, presentation by students,
Questions/Answers session and others are indirect such as self-reports, experiences etc.

2. Did the teacher respond to students’ questions during the lesson? Were the questions relevant to
the topic?

Absolutely, At the end after summarizing the whole lectur Q/A session done was done in which students
participated actively,tecaher responded to them and yes the questiona were relevant to the topic.

3. What strategies teacher mentioned in lesson plan to motivate students?

Following are the strategies that were mentioned in lesson plan;

 Build a relationship with students
 Use example as much as you can
 Do a brainstorm activity to distract stuents’ mind from study for a while.

4. Which aspects of this lesson plan needs to be reviewed again and why?

Sometimes lesson plans drop out following points so it requires to be reviewed.

 Identify the learning objectives
 Plan the specific learning activities
  Plan to sequence the lesson in an engaging and meaningful manner
 Create a realistic timeline
 Plan for a lesson closure
 Plans should be made to understand the area of need
 A method to assess students’ understanding level
 Creative method to elaborate topic easily

5. How the teacher prepared black board e.g. writing date, topic name, and classwork? Is the
blackboard work clear/neat/understandable?

Our teacher do the following steps to write the content on board and yes it was clean.
She used board markers of different colors to differentiate b/w definitions
She used the right side as on the left side, Classroom protocols was mentioned.
She properly write down the topic name on the top.
She left the right bottom corner to write down the daily diary.
She drew proper diagrams for a clear explanation along with the labellings

6. How did the teacher prepare students’ Homework task? Was the homework relevant with the
objectives of the topic?

Yes, homework relevant with the objectives of the topic.

Teachers must ensure that students complete their homework.If they feel any halt in completing it then
they can consult it with their teachers.A tecaher can use different tools to keep students stick to the
studies.A teacher can also create a homework calender.
 7. Observe the notebook of any two students to see if those are properly checked or not?

Class has diligently completed their homework and all the notebooks were properly checked.

8. How was the teacher monitoring students’ participation in class? (e.g. verbal/nonverbal
responses)

Yes, the tecaher was also very attentive towards the class participation, behavior, response.

9. Reflect on what you have learned after observing this activity?

This lesson plan will lay a base for your teaching practice.You become able to learn how to teach
effectively and with proper techniques, tips and tricks.How to retaliate to different situations and handle
them. However learning through observation is harder than you think. This is because learning through
takes much more than just watching someone do something.

Part 2: Recreate Lesson plan

Recreate this lesson plan as you want to teach this topic. You may use the University format to
create your own version of Lesson plan for the same topic.

The lesson plan represemted by the coperating teacher was incredible.I learned from it now I will take the mentioned
below steps to prepare my lesson plan;
 Identify the objectives
 Question my students or ask them to share their pre-existing knowledge to determine the needs of
students
 Plans resources and materials
 Engage the students and will deliver the lecture
 Allow the students to assimilate the topic
  End up the lesson with a summary
 Give proper time to the students to raise questions to mitigate their confusion

Activity 3: Observation of Classroom Activity/Group work

The purpose of this activity is to check both the clarity of instructions given by teacher and students’
understanding to follow instructions to perform an activity or group work.

Teacher’s Instructional skills

Observe the instructions the teacher is giving before starting and during the activity and complete the
table. For each skill, decide how successfully it was achieved, (Clear and Unclear) and write your
reflection against each observation.

Clear,
Instruction-giving skills Unclear Discussion points (if any)

Start of activity (explaining the purpose Clear

of activity)
Use of simple language/short sentences Clear

Voice quality (loud) Clear

Follow up instructions during the Clear

activity

Use of visual aids (where applicable) Clear

Demonstration rather than Clear

explanation

End of activity (summarization) Clear

Reflection:
 1. In case of group work; how the teacher decided students for grouping and also mentioned the
number of students in one group? What responsibilities were assigned to each member of the
group?

As the total class was of 20 students so 4 groups each consisting of 5 students was made.
Discussing the task,represting everyone their ideas regarding the task.Listening to each other issues and try to
unpack them.Listening to others with care.Encouraging everyone in the group to participate. Helping others to try
again and again to achieve the end goals and push them for it. Admire them for even a little achievement to riase
their morals high. Praisng helpful actions or good ideas.

2. How all the students were participating in the group work? How teacher ensured the participation
of each student?

Everyone was participating so actively,passionately in the group task. Everyone was lending a helping hand to
each other.The whole class was interacting so patiently.Don’t interrupt who is speaking. Build on your classmate’s
comments with your comments. Use participation to not only answer questions but to seek help and create a working
chain.

3. Were all the students following the instructions and completing the activity?

Every student is not same the same in terms of performance, understanding, active, responsible. All these traits vary
from person to person.Majorily students performance was great but some of them were lazy too.

4. Reflect on what you have learned after observing this activity/group work?

The potential learning benefits of group work are significant, simply assigning group work is no
guarantee that these goals will be achieved the way you thought but the students had tried their best to
accomplish them with flaws but as a teacher its your responsibility to point out them so that they do not
repeat them in future tasks.
Group activity also act as a extra curricular activity, totally different from the routine classes that
sometimes sounds monotonous and it engage student more effectively in comparison to the daily
classroom activity. It also let the teachers to understand their students as a person. Through observation it
make quite visible to know if the student is having some problem through their behaviour, attitude,
response to their classmates. These problems can be from the home, from some classmate, it can be
personal and it can also be academic.
Group tasks also boosts up the student confidence because of encouraging environment and also help
students to grow personally like how to interact, how to communictae to others, team work importance,
handle the delicate situations, how to work within a group when you do not like somebody. All these are
the benefits of group work.

VIRTUAL UNIVERSITY OF PAKISTAN

M.A. Jinnah Campus, Defence Road Off Raiwind Road, Lahore

Website: www.vu.edu.pk

Checklist for Cooperating Teacher

Checklist to evaluate Student-Teacher Activities

Dear Cooperating Teacher, you are requested to please sign the following checklist, based on the

review of these activities performed by the student-teacher.

Sr. Activity Performed Not performed

1 Observation of Classroom Layout/Set-up 

2 Observation of Classroom Teaching 

3 Observation of Classroom Activity/Group work 

School Stamp: ______ _

Signatures: ____ _________________________

Date: ________18-08-2022_________________________