Secondary School Experience Observations

Observation Sheet Questioning Secondary

(Please complete this form for both primary and secondary professional experiences and
place in your ePortfolio)
Graduate Standards - AITSL
Professional Knowledge:
Professional Practice:
learning

1. Know students and how they learn

2. Plan and implement effective teaching and

Question Type

Do you feel your questions

were clearly structured and
readily understood by the
students?

Did you use a variety of

question types?

What balances was there

between the various
questions types?

Consider both why and

when you made use of the
different question types?

During my lessons, my questions were clear and easily understood

by the students. However, during the small group game activity,
the students did have some trouble understanding the game.

I used divergent and convergent question types during my lessons.

I used convergent questions such as What transformation has
occurred here? I used divergent questions such as Why did this
go wrong?

I used a mixture of convergent and divergent question types in

order to get the students thinking.

I used convergent question types to ensure that the students were

learning what I wanted to teach them. I used divergent questions
to have the students think for themselves.

Distributing and Directing Questions

Did you recognise any
I noticed that I tended to ask more divergent questions because I
pattern in the distribution of knew that the students were very capable of thinking for
your questions amongst the themselves and I wanted them to think for themselves.
students? Consider
reasons for this pattern?

How have you directed

questions to the group?

Have you used wait time?

Did you make eye contact

with the group as you
directed your questions?

When asking to complete a rotation, for example, I would ask for

volunteers to complete the question on the white board.

I did use wait time when asking for volunteers and asking
divergent questions.

I did not use as much eye contact as I should have because I was
mostly reading off the PowerPoint.

Reactions to Students Responses

How do you deal with
correct responses? Do you
qualify any praise given?

How do you deal with

incorrect responses? How
do you deal with students
who stumble and grope for
an answer?

When a student gave a correct response, I praised them by

saying well done or good job. I then qualified the praise by
showing the correct answer on the board (which matched
theirs).
When a student had an incorrect response, I showed the
correct answer on the board and asked the class how the
student went wrong.

What use do you make of

the students responses to
develop the teaching point?
Have you redirected any
questions in order to add to
an initial response?

Are you the only evaluator

of the students answers?

Overall Comments

When a student responds to a question correctly, I will qualify the

response and explain further information.

I was not the only evaluator of the students answers, as I had other
students qualify or check their work.

Observation Sheet Management

(Please complete this form for both primary and secondary professional experiences and
place in your e portfolio)
Graduate Standards AITSL
Professional Practice:
1. Create and maintain supportive and safe learning environments
2. Planning for Effective Management

Was your lesson plan

effective for managing the
class?

The lesson plan was effective in managing the class because the
students were busy and engaged.

e.g. How did the students

react to your lesson overall
and to your planned
activities?
Did anything unexpected
happen?

I did not expect anyone to correctly answer the last question on the
PowerPoint as it was very tricky and even the mentor teacher said
that they may not answer it correctly. However, a student did
answer the question correctly.

Did you provide a variety of

activities?
First, I had the students complete some transformation questions
as a class on the whiteboard, then had them complete a worksheet
Were you satisfied with
of transformations independently.
your timing, particularly for
I was satisfied with my timing because I got everything done that I
the end of the lesson?
wanted to get done but I did not run over time, therefor, there was
Did you feel you were able also enough time for the mentor teacher to conduct her part of the
to change things if needed? lesson.
I did not feel I was able to change the activity if needed because I
did not come prepared with another activity, however, I did feel I
would be able to move the students if they were not behaving.
Were you aware of
classroom procedures and
school disciplinary policy?
How much did you know
about your students?
How did your mentor
teacher maintain a safe
learning environment?
What strategies did your
observe your mentor
teacher using to maintain
this?

I was not aware of classroom procedures and school disciplinary

policies as the students were extremely well behaved and I did not
get to experience the disciplinary policies in practice. I did not
know the students very well because it was very hard to get to
know them in only a very short amount of time as they only had
this teacher for four hours a week.
The mentor teacher maintained a safe learning environment by
keeping the classroom clean and free of tripping hazards. The
mentor teacher kept the classroom free of tripping hazards by
having students place their bags completely under their desks and
not in the walkway.

Maintaining a Positive Attitude in the Classroom

How did you demonstrate to I demonstrated to the students that I valued them and enjoyed
the students that you valued learning by giving them positive feedback where appropriate. I
them, and enjoyed
also maintained a happy and energetic appearance.
learning?
e.g. Tone of voice, facial
expression, sense of
humour, introduction to
students and topic.
Which aspects of your
teaching style do you feel
helped you maintain class
attention?

I fell that the difficulty of some of the questions helped me to

maintain the class attention as they all enjoyed being challenged. I
also maintained the class attention by being enthusiastic and
giving positive feedback where appropriate.

e.g. Variety of activities,

class or group discussion,
pace of lesson, interest at
class level.
Did the students know what
was expected of them?

The students knew what was expected of them because my

instructions were very clear.

Were you able to redirect

energies of attention
seeking students? Did the
students have enough
to do?

I was able to redirect the energies of attention seeking students by

having them encourage other students to come up and complete a
question on the whiteboard and helping the other students.

Dealing with Minor Misbehaviour

Were you aware of what
was happening in all parts
of the classroom? Did you
know what each student
was doing?

I was aware of what was happening in all parts of the classroom

because I was standing in a position where I could see everyone
and also walked around to check on the students work.

Did you take any action

when you observed poor
behaviour? Why? Why
not?

I did not observe any poor behaviour.

Did you use non-verbal

cues? e.g. Contact, pause,
gesture, movement toward
student/s concerned.

I used non-verbal ques to indicate who I had chosen to complete a

question on the whiteboard by pointing at them. I also used a nonverbal que to reassure a student that her answer to a question was
correct and encourage her to answer the question on the
whiteboard by nodding and smiling at her.

Overall Comments

Schools as text looking at the whole school

Describe the school in terms of
its demographics, appearance
and resources (be general here
and do not name the school).

The technology resources at the school were limited

however the non-technology resources were very vast. The
schools layout was very confusing and I found it difficult to
find my way around at times.

What were the roles and

responsibilities of the teaching
staff you observed?

The roles and responsibilities of the teaching staff were to

educate the students in order for them to further their study.

After discussion with your

mentor teacher describe how
policies and processes of
government, administration and
schools have an affect on the
work of the teacher?

Funding has made it hard for this school to keep up with

the technology demands and the changing curriculum has
only added more work for the teacher.

What did you observe non-teaching

staff doing to support teaching and
learning in the school?

I observed non-teaching staff keeping the school clean

and organising and running the staff room. They did a lot
of behind the scenes work.

Students
You will have observed the
diverse nature of your classes.
How was this diversity
supported?

The classes were set up so that students were sitting next

to students of different ability to them so that students
were able to help each other. The less advanced students
were placed towards the front of the classroom, closest to
the teacher and whiteboard.

Function of Schools
Did you observe the connection
of your schools with the broader
community? How did this
happen?

I did not observe the connection of the school with the

broader community.

What do you think the function

of school is?

I think the function of school is to educate, shape and

mould students to be able to further their education and
become good, law abiding and successful citizens.