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) Students' engagement with the text LOTF while working on their assignment. 2) This lesson is meant to show different ways with which students can engage with a text, especially a
text that is known to be unpopular with students. I am looking for this overall project (the collaborative graphic novel) to incite interest and engagement. Section I - Pre-lesson conversation 2/26/13 Focus and goals of observation General focus: Explore different ways with which students can connect with a text. Specific goal: Construct an accurate and creative visual rendering of LOTF to boost student engagement/understanding of their text. Section II Observation notes Date:

Record of events - continue on separate sheet if necessary. Please attach all additional sheets.
Date: Feb 26, 2013 Class: Pd # dont forget!!!! I NEED HARD COPIES OF PPTS, HANDOUTS, ETC... If you have any questions here, please lets make sure that we are onboard... thanks. This is a really nice do now in that you provide a review task but scaffold it very effectively. All too often, do now reviews in many classes assume too much about adolescents and remembering what was done the day before (that is assuming that all Ss were present!) There is a sens of purpose with most folks; while there is chatter, it seems that they are working at the same time. It is really noteworthy though that you give an overview of what they are doing and about to do. Their brains have a choice: attend to the screen, translating what is in writing there and what to put on their papers OR attend to your very important overview / rationale for the lesson and subsequent ones. The same part of the brain cannot do two things at once; it will blank out one or pieces of both. In either case learning opporunities are lost. Perhaps you needed a transition requiring them to stop writing and pay attention to you as you explain the work... same problem as above. Remember the rule .. if they are copying, they cannot effectively listen!!!!

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Now there is silence except for a few talkers who look like there is some peer to peer tutoring going on. Use of color to model corrections is super... Just be careful that it is neat and readable in the back of the room. in the editing world, the multiple use of the same conjuction (as well as others) within a sentence is rather awkward for the reader.. is this no longer taught? Are you sure that they caught the idea of starting with a negative conjunction and ending with a positive one??? Are they to know this? If so, some kind of review (choral fill in can be useful here but it does require training) is in order Transition after do now, is bumpy... there are too many who do not settle to focus and this can be very distracting for other learners. Lets look at the slide with the assignment together... a change of spacing, color, and/or font might make the dense slides more visually clear for learners. So do they have a copy of these directions? Do you have a checklist for them to insure that they are self assessing the completion of the tasks? Now notes on creating a title. I strongly suggest that you use the sequential uncovering option with the smart board. A dense slide like this encourages students to utterly miss every spoken word by the teacher. Ahhh, here we go... sequential uncoverage using highlighting and underlining in a contrasting color. So I am wondering .. 10th graders.. you tell them not to copy but shouldnt they sum up? Do they know how to do this? I am hearing you dictate notes and the slide surely helps some folks. They ARE paying attention but how much is sinking in... On what should they take notes.. here we go.. the who, what, etc should have been darker / in color and indicate BEFORE what they should be writing. so there is a question about a cut line... I feel like folks are struggling where to and not to take notes. well done.. you thank the persons for asking... this is a densely packed lecture.... I am wondering how much the typical person is taking away. Some are taking NO notes where others are taking quite a bit of notes... so is this just that some folks remember everything or are overwhelmed??? Nice job with the underlining as you recite impt parts of the slides... great.. you pause to allow folks to take notes and one person stops the change of slides in that he isnt done yet and he indicates when to go on. FYI: if I had had the slides last night, perhaps I could have made some useful comments as I tried to do with the LP. I notice that the folks are paying close attention to the sample (two men in a pub) and your explanation there of. I am wondering if the date for the immolation pic should have included the year??? Nice job.. you provide something about which they know at least something (Hurricane Sandy) for them to caption a pic of a car underwater.

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I am wondering if there should have been some scaffolding hints for doing this work (as were provided earlier in the notes about what should be in a caption and how to make them interesting?????)

So far in the lesson, I am not finding the specifics that you request for the observations. I have much I could say about the use of visuals to teach creative writing... but as I look below... General focus: Explore different ways with which students can connect with a text. Specific goal: Construct an accurate and creative visual rendering of LOTF to boost student engagement/understanding of their text. and

1) Students' engagement with the text LOTF while working on their assignment. 2) This lesson is meant to show different ways with which students can engage with a text, especially a
text that is known to be unpopular with students. I am looking for this overall project (the collaborative graphic novel) to incite interest and engagement. I am only connecting implicitly not directly to these so far... Ahh, now for the assignment with LOTF applying the new skill set ... but no slide with directions??? I am wondering if there is an intended or unintended reliance on peer to peer clarification of the assignment. Again, a checklist for self assessment would better insure that everyone in the room has an equitable opportunity to complete the task appropriately. While we teachers do want meaningful group work as a part of the teaching and learning opportunity, it is a good idea to provide a user friendly checking system that is congruent with the teachers expectations for marking the assignment (if it were to be graded). Ah HA... the directions slide is up .. OK... but it uses the phrase an understanding of the skill taught? I lay real money that if we asked the class to stop and, without help, write out the skill taught, youd get a variety of answers. Indeed, the above just happened to me as I did walk about. Three girls asked if they had to write a caption. Perhaps it is that the slide has too many words or that the slide needs a cleaner, more precise list of outcomes??? NOW the expectations for the observation are making much more sense!! The LOFT text is clearly more accessible when folks are encouraged to read with mental pictures as a part of connecting with text. .. that they should consider the text and mental render it in different ways in order to embrace it. While this may to some to be a duh statement, many less verbal, less linguistic learners turn off to reading because all they see and all that is discussed in many classes are the words. For the verbal (abstract) learner, the words are all that is needed to enjoy, connect with the text. However, for the more visual learner, words may not be enough. Being encouraged to embrace the story in more than one way makes for a much richer experience and very likely greater retention!!! Well done!!! with five min remaining, you do a really good job reminding students of what needs finishing and how this might be accomplished. Again, all verbal ... a checklist would have really helped as it would reduce the number of words and focus folks on the tasks to be accomplished by when and how!! Ahh, getting their silence is somewhat more difficult than it likely should be. Here is an area for real consideration before you teach new classes next year. What are your expectations and how will students know when and how you want certain environmental and teaching climate conditions to take place and MAINTAIN themselves without sliding off point. Changing gears in a classroom of teens is a very important teacher skill and it is all too often not mastered by many teachers. It bears discussion about the roles of clarity, practice, and consistency.

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I notice that in your binder you have EVERY lesson plan but the handouts (likely in the pouches) and ppt slides (6-9/page) are not present. This was a must and please do this from now to the end of the year.

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