Lesson Self- Assessment for ED 215R

Name: Andrea Bowhall

Literacy Objective: The students will be able to write connecting sentences in order
to complete an information piece of writing and to make the piece fully developed.
Balanced Literacy Component: Modeled Writing
School/grade level/ number of students: Highland View/ 2nd Grade/ 21
Name of Cooperating Teacher: Collete Biltz
Planning and preparation:(AEA:Conceptualization,DiagnosisWTS:1,2,3,4,5,7DISP: Respect)
Describe how your plan addressed the range of literacy development of the learners in
your classroom. How did your lesson design reflect an effective theoretical model
such as Holdaway or Vygotsky? Explain what worked well and what you would have
changed/did change and why.
In my cooperating classroom, there is a range of transitional, developing, and
beginning students according to the New Berlin writing continuum (I will remember to
bring you a copy this time). So as I was planning my lesson, I took into account these
ranges by planning to have the students do the practice part of the lesson on their
own informational texts. This way the students were able to write at their own
personal level and as long as they were expanding their informational texts by adding
in the connecting words modeled, the level of the rest of the writing was irrevelent.
As far as my plan being developmentally appropriate, I made sure the length of each
portion of my lesson was appropriate. For the focus lesson, I only planned for them
to sit for ten minutes to listen to me talk and watch me model. Then I only planned
for them to practice for 10 minutes. I based this time off of what my CT often gives
the students for practice time, but I also based it off of my last lesson. I gave them
10 minutes last time to practice their writing and I could tell by close to the end of
ten minutes the students were getting anxious and needed to get them moving again.
My lesson design reflects Holdaways model. Holdaways model has four steps;
Demonstration, Participation, Practice, and Performance. Our lesson plan also contains
those steps in the procedures section. Therefore, looking into Holdaways model, I was
able to connect what each section truly was suppose to be like. Demonstration is my
attention on the whole group as a focus lesson. Participation is still me within the whole
group lesson. Then it breaks out into practice where I focus on individuals to see
progress. Lastly, the performance is where I let the students take charge and share
how they performed what was demonstrated earlier. By having this layout to follow, I
was able to know when I should transition into the next portion of my lesson. When I
felt my demonstration was over, I could remember my transition I had planned in order
to get the students to the Participation portion. What worked well with my planning was
scripting out what I wanted to say at when I was modeling. This allowed me to hear
how I was modeling information texts to the students before actually doing in. Then I
could make changes where necessary in order to enhance student learning. What I
would have changed was possibly making sure I kept an eye on everyone during the
practice portion. I planned to work one on one with student conferences, so I was not
always aware of what the class as a whole was up to.

Classroom environment: (AEA: Coordination, Integrative Interaction WTS: 1,2,3,4,5,6 DISP:

Respect, Responsibility, Collaboration, Communication)

Explain how you encouraged student participation and elicited responses from your
students. How did you manage student attention throughout the lesson to engage
them productively in the learning experience? Evaluate your interactions with the
students and their interactions with each other.
For student participation, I did a turn and talk for their participation. I
could hear the students putting what I was modeling into their own words with their
partners. This allowed me to assess quickly, and know they were understanding my
lesson objective I was trying to teach them. To encourage student responses, I made
sure to ask them questions right away after their turn and talk so their ideas were
fresh in their head and were eager to share them. I was able to manage their
attention by again making sure the time they were not sitting in one spot or working
on one task for too long of a time. Therefore, even though I was still expressing the
same learning objective and being repetitive, I was doing it in different ways to keep
their attention. At first I modeled what I wanted them to do with my own writing,
and then they used their own writing. As we focused on the same objective, they
were doing different activities to reiterate the same goal. My interactions with the
students went well. I feel I put the common core standard into a language they could
understand, and I did say a word I was unsure if they knew or not I would say it a
different way, or even simply ask them if they knew what it was. The students
interaction with each other was nice. I was happy with the turn and talk
conversations. They stayed on task at during that time and when they both got a
chance to share, they waited quietly and patiently to continue. I think they were
eager to share just because it was a fresh face in fort of the class and they were
excited to be doing another lesson with me.
Instruction: (AEA: Communication, Coordination, Diagnosis, Integrative Interaction WTS:
1,2,4,5,6,7,10 DISP: Respect, Communication)

Explain how you taught this lesson to meet your literacy objective. Evaluate your
implementation of your plan. Did it have the effect you intended? Were the needs of
your literacy learners met? Explain what you found most difficult in teaching this
lesson. What changes would you make if you repeated this lesson? Why?
My literacy objective was to have the students be able to write connecting sentences
in order to complete an information piece of writing and to make the piece fully
developed. To meet this objective, I first modeled the thinking process of how to add
in those connecting sentences in a focus lesson. Then by having them turn and talk, I
was able to know if they understood my objective. After knowing they understood for
the most part of how to add in connecting sentences, I allowed them to go and
practice on their own informational texts by adding in connecting words and
sentences and I conference one on one with a few students to make sure they were
practicing correctly. My implantation went well, I made sure to keep assessing if the
students were understanding my learning objective. My lesson had the effect I
intended. I knew it was a complicating skill to build for second graders, but I feel by
the end of my lesson many kids understood what I wanted them to do and were able
to do it on their own. I believe the needs of my literacy learners were met because
again, I planned accordingly to my range of learners by allowing them to work on
their own writing. But also, there was a time I needed to re-teach as a whole and I

believe that moment turned a light bulb on for many students and that met their
needs. What I found most difficult in this lesson was trying to re explain the
objective in many different ways. I was working one on one with a student and I tried
explaining my lesson objective two different ways and the student still said she did
not understand. So I struggled a bit with trying to think quickly of another way to
explain it to her or what questions to ask her in order for her to develop the thinking
skill I wanted the students to do. A change I would have made was do a bit more
participation because when I did the turn and talks, and assessed if the students were
understanding, I felt they were, but then when they went to practice, many did not
understand. So I feel if I would have done a bit more participation I could have
recognized where the students were not understanding fully.
Assessment: (AEA: Diagnosis, Integrative Interaction WTS: 1,2,3,7,8,9 DISP: Reflection)
Explain how you knew if the students learned what you taught them. What did you
learn from listening to student responses, examining their work or listening to their
interactions? How well did your assessment procedures inform you about student
attainment of your lessons objectives? To follow-up this lesson, what would you teach
next?
While the students were practicing, I did conferences with 2 students. I asked
what they were writing about, where they added connecting words and sentences,
and how they knew to add them. This conference was able to tell me that some
students understood what I wanted them to do and others did not. By conferencing
with a few students and listening to the class murmur, I could sense many students
were confused on what I wanted them to do. At that time, I stopped the class and
had them all listen real quick and I did another teaching moment. I reiterated my
thinking process I wanted them to perform on their work. This moment I believe
really helped many students because then I was able to have a few students share
what work they did and it was correct work. My assessment procedure I feel did a
good job of telling me that collectively, most of the students grasped the learning
goal, but then I feel I should have assessed if they understood what the task was that I
wanted them to do. I knew some students understood what I was doing, but I dont
think they knew what I wanted them to do next. So if I would have asked a student to
retell me what I wanted them all to do, I could have then assessed if they understood.
Following this lesson, is it okay to say I would want them to continue working on this
skill? I feel they could have used more support on it to complete their whole
information text and more time.
Professional responsibilities: (AEA: Communication, Integrative Interaction WTS:
1,2,6,7,9,10 DISP: Respect, Responsibility, Reflection, Collaboration, Communication

Explain how you will apply what you learned from the feedback you received on this
lesson to teaching future lessons.
Based on my verbal feedback from Robin, I learned that my awareness of the
class when working with one student is as good as I thought. I thought me being a
mother, I had a leg up on this skill, but Robin was able to catch two girls not working
hard that I was not aware of. So I know now to position myself in a way to see the
whole class no matter where I am.
Reflection: (AEA: Diagnosis WTS: 9 DISP: Reflection)

What did you learn about teaching an effective literacy lesson from this teaching
experience? How will it affect your planning for future teaching of literacy? Explain
how this lesson demonstrates your growth in ONE Wisconsin Teaching Standard and
ONE Alverno Education Ability.
From this teaching experience I learned that if a teacher properly assesses the students
throughout the lesson, they can only benefit the students knowledge because a teacher
will quickly know that the class needs a re-teaching moment. For the future, I will want
to plan for more assessing throughout my lesson so I can always make sure the
students are learning to their full ability.
I believe one Wisconsin Teaching Standard this lesson demonstrated my growth on was
from Standard 3: Performances The teacher identifies and designs instruction
appropriate to students stages of development, learning styles, strengths, and needs I
made sure the time frames of each lesson portion was appropriate to their age. I made
the learning style similar to their CTs in order for it to be familiar to the students. I
planned for them to work on their strengths by allowing them to work on their own
writing. Then, I worked with their needs by re-teaching when needed. One Alverno
Education Ability this lesson demonstrated was diagnosis. Diagnosis relates to the
teachers ability to analyze and problem solve. At a moment, I analyzed the class
talking and learned it was because many were confused on what I wanted them to do.
So then I problem solved and came to the decision to re-teach some of the thinking I
had modeled earlier and tell them how to translate that into their own work.