Lauren Salmon

Merricats Video Observation

SELF-EVALUATION OF SUPERVISED OBSERVATIONS:

Please look over the Key Areas & Skills Summary Sheet to review the areas that will be evaluated by supervisors during your observations and consider these areas when reflecting upon your performance. The purpose of this evaluation is to help you become more reflective in your practices, and to help you learn how to critically evaluate your performance in order to identify areas of strength and areas that need to be further developed. In addition, this information will be extremely useful for supervision, as your supervisor will be able to provide you with more specific support and guidance in the areas that you feel are in need of further development. Each candidate is expected to complete this self-evaluation after every supervised observation (including the video). Please keep 1 copy to submit for your portfolio at the end of the semester, and provide a copy to your supervisor. What do you think went particularly well with the lesson/activity? o I felt like the children showed me a great level of respect during the lesson (and vice versa!). They demonstrated that they were engaged and interested by sitting with calm bodies, eagerly raising their hands and participating as a group. As I hoped, the students seemed to connect with my lesson, and were genuinely motivated to help my visiting friend! I felt like the lesson went smoothly and I was able to move through it at a steady pace without losing focus. Describe 1 or 2 skills that were demonstrated during the lesson that you feel were particular areas of strength for you. o I felt like I provided several different opportunities for children to get involved in the lesson between identifying letters and sounds, putting the puzzles pieces together and walking around the class showing peers the picture, I provided students with many different chances to participate. o I also believe I provided students with opportunities to learn the information on many different levels depending on the individualized way that they most effectively learn. I provided visuals, I also aurally described and explained what I was doing. Words were written with the first letter in red so as to help children easily identify the targeted letter. During the activity I was able to provide students with the actual name cards so they could have it in front of them, as well as images from which they could generate ideas from. What areas or specific skills do you feel you still need to develop or improve upon for future lessons? What skills that were demonstrated during the lesson do you feel are an area of difficulty for you, and an area that you would like to continue to work on during the semester? o I recognize that I need more experience and to better familiarize myself with teaching phonics and literacy. Outside of learning how to do so in Hunter courses I havent had much of an opportunity yet so this was definitely a bit outside my comfort zone (which is why I chose to do it). I better understand the importance in isolating and exaggerating sounds so that that they are very clear to the students. Additionally, I now realize what could have been done in the instance where a student guessed it was the letter C that was making a see sound rather than the correct letter which was an S. I think I tried to gloss over these moments because I wasnt entirely sure what was considered too much information to be teaching Pre-K students and what would be an appropriate amount. o I really like the idea of helping children practice speaking in full sentences and giving them the confidence and time it takes to achieve that. Rather than have a student say Ferry, instead I could encourage them to answer in a full sentence, She can take a ferry to the Statue of Liberty!

Please describe any other thoughts or concerns about your observation: o I was really proud of my ability to go with the flow and adapt my lesson plan and myself to the changing agenda in the room. Our activity time was cut down due to a spontaneous school wide activity and although I wasnt able to have as many students participate in their journal writing on that day I was able to make up that lost time, later on in the week. I was also up against a different challenge when I learned that one student with an existing IEP was being evaluated during my lesson to see if he could receive more services. I was told not to provide as much support as he needs so that the evaluator could get a fair assessment. In spite of all of this, I still feel like I was in control of my lesson and had a smoother time managing both the allotted time and the class. I feel like I was able to apply much of what Ive learned through student teaching such as using more clear, concise and fewer words to teach, making sure that students have time to reflect and share ideas at the end of the lesson and also making sure that I have everyones attention (to the best of their ability) before I continue speaking as my words are valuable!