Prompt for ED 201 Lesson Self-Assessment

Name: Haley Williams

Lesson Topic: Compare and Contrast
Date Observed: 11/12/14
School/Grade Level/Number of Students Taught: Whittier School/4th grade/4 students
Cooperating Teacher Name: Lora Mitchell
Planning and Preparation:
How did your lesson design reflect what actually happened in the lesson? What did/would you
have changed? Were you able to teach the lesson in the allotted time? Why or why not? Were
your lesson objectives clearly stated and describe what your students actually learned?

My lesson design accurately reflected what actually happened in my lesson. Every

activity and instructional aspect of my lesson followed what I had written in my lesson
plan for what I wanted to happen during the lesson time. I did not have to make any
changes. The only thing I did have to decide at the end was to make an accommodation
based on how well the students were grasping the concept of using the newly presented
signal words to create compare and contrast sentences. It happened to be that the students
got the concept very well and we were able to do the slightly more challenging activity at
the end instead of having to do more teacher lead activities regarding writing compare
and contrast sentences. I was able to teach the lesson in my allotted time which was about
thirty to thirty-five minutes. I worked hard to pace myself and the students with each
small activity, whether it was group, individual, or teacher lead. I wanted to make sure
that I got to everything I wanted to before my time was up not only to meet my objectives
for this lesson, but also so the students could learn about compare and contrast, writing
the sentences, and feel confident that they could take this knowledge with them and apply
it somewhere else. My lesson objectives clearly stated that I wanted my students to recall
and review what they knew about compare and contrast, apply it to a text, and be able to
use signal words to create compare and contrast sentences. These were all things that
were completed and addressed during the lesson.

Learning Environment:
How did you encourage student participation and elicit responses from all students? What
strategies did you use to manage and monitor student behavior? How did you engage them in
responding to you and each other?

I encouraged participation in my lesson by continually asking the students questions as

well as working towards finding ways to relate the content of my lesson to their lives. I
also tried to make sure that for each question or at least every other question, all of the
students were getting a chance to answer and participate. Not only this, but I think that
the use of the smart board was another object that elicited a response from my students
because they were able to go up and maneuver some text into a Venn diagram
themselves. Because I had such a small and well behaved group of students I did not have

to do a lot of behavior management. However, I think that because my lesson had varying
degrees of engagement as well as something for them to be constantly doing or talking
about, the students were always focused on the lesson at hand. Once again I engaged the
students to respond to me by asking questions, connecting to their personal lives, as well
as including some vivid material. For example, an introduction about eating ice cream,
pictures of real life places that were mentioned in our story, etc. I helped them respond to
one another in some small group work. I also encouraged engagement with one another
when I asked one student a question and if he did not know the answer I would ask
another student, and after they gave an answer sometimes another student would also put
share their response. This was one way of developing multiple perspectives.

Classroom Instruction:
What strategies and/or procedures did you use to assist students in learning the lesson content?
How effective were those strategies/procedures in helping students learn? What changes or
adjustments did you need to make during the lesson?

As I stated above, I used a lot of real life connections and recall of work the students had
done before in order to once again refresh the idea of compare and contrast in their
minds. I think that making them aware that comparing and contrasting was something
used in their everyday life they felt more comfortable with it, knowing that it could be
expanded to being able to write compare and contrast sentences. In order to get some of
the newer content across, like writing compare and contrast sentences, I used charts to
showcase compare and contrast words as well as gave sample sentences. Not only this,
but I also allowed for times of individual and teacher lead writing of compare and
contrast sentences so the students felt confident that they could do this on their own. I
presented the students with all of the information that they needed on the smart board, but
also on worksheets that I prepared myself for them. I thought that allowing them to have
the ability to see the information right in front of them and to take some notes would be
more effective in their overall understanding of the lesson. I think that my strategies did
help the students learn because it became clear to me that the students met all of the
lesson objectives and could successfully create compare and contrast sentences. As I said
above, the only adjustment I needed to choose to make was if I was going to allow the
students to do the more difficult activity that I had planned. I decided to add this piece to
my lesson after seeing that my students were successful in their understanding of how to
write compare and contrast sentences.

Assessment:
How did you know if the students learned what you taught them? What did you learn from
listening to student responses, examining their work or observing their interactions? How well
did your assessments connect to the lesson objectives?

I felt that I knew the students learned what I taught them when I was able to listen to their
responses in individual work and in the final activity. When I heard the students give
complete compare and contrast sentences while effectively using the signal words that I

had provided them, I felt they clearly grasped how to write a proper compare and contrast
sentence. I did not have to do much correcting of what they wrote or spoke about either.
Although my assessments were not formal I feel that they tied in well with my objectives
for the lesson. I saw that the students could recall what it means to compare and contrast
when I asked them for the definition of it and they answered correctly. I observed that
they could identify similarities and differences in a text as I read them a short story and
they did just that. I also found them to be proficient at using that gathered information as
well as the proper signal words when they wrote and presented correctly formed compare
and contrast sentences.

Professional Responsibilities:
How did you seek feedback from your cooperating teacher? What did you learn from his/her
feedback and how did you apply it to your lesson?

Before I began writing my lesson plan I talked with my cooperating teacher about what
an appropriate topic would be. She gave me the topic of comparing and contrasting, but
allowed me to expand it by incorporating writing compare and contrast sentences. During
the planning of my lesson I showed her what I wanted to do and asked her how she felt
the students would respond to the different activities I planned. She gave me positive
feedback and also made me aware that her students seem to enjoy as well as pay more
attention to a lesson when they have the ability to take notes on what they are learning or
have the information readily available in front of them. After hearing this I took her
feedback into consideration and created worksheets, reference sheets, and information
collection sheets that the students could have right in front of them as well as on the
smart board, so they had the chance to do this note taking and summarizing in my lesson.

Reflection:
What did you learn about teaching, student learning and assessing from this lesson? How would
you use what you learned for future instructional experiences? Based on this lesson, what
Wisconsin Teaching Standard represents your area of greatest growth this semester? What
standard represents an area of further development for you? Why?

There were some grows in my lesson that I felt like helped me learn more about teaching,
student learning, and assessing from this lesson. For example, I learned that teachers are
natural helpers and therefore always want to be able to guide a student along and answer
any questions that they may have. I tended to ask the students questions and then after a
moment answer them myself or extend their answer without giving that student or their
peers a chance to respond first. In future instructional experiences I want to try to work
on incorporating that necessary wait time between when I ask a question and when I see
that students are struggling in order to get a more meaningful response from the students.
I also think that even with the more informal assessments that I did, I need to be aware of
exactly how I would use the information that I collected in order to see the next step in
both my instruction and the students learning. For a future instructional experience I may
consider creating a rubric that shows the students exactly what I am looking for in the
work that they are doing as well as something to help guide myself to see if the students

are meeting the objectives that I have set for the lesson. Based on this lesson I feel that I
have shown a lot of growth in WI Teaching Standard #7, The teacher organizes and
plans systematic instruction based up on the knowledge of subject matter, pupils, the
community, and curriculum goals. I felt that with this lesson I really prepared myself on
the subject matter of comparing and contrasting, while making sure the lesson met the
curriculum goals I was working to achieve as well as addressed the students particular
learning styles. I think that I want to continue developing in standard #8; The teacher
understands and uses formal and informal assessment strategies to evaluate and ensure
continuous intellectual, social, and physical development of the pupil. I think that my
lessons are strong and that I do incorporate ways to informally assess the students,
however, I want to work towards better understanding how I will be able to use these
assessments to see where my students stand with certain skills and what I need to do to
possibly reevaluate my own instruction.