EDUC 5312/3315-Curriculum and Instructional Design

Classroom Observation Assignment

Observation Form 1
Observation Date: 3/4/2016

Observation Time: 8.50 am- 9.35am

Teacher Observed: Ms. Marven

Subject/Grade Level: Geometry/9th Grade

School Observed: HSA West Houston

Observer: Yasemin YILMAZ

1-What was/were the learning objectives/outcomes of the lesson? (Add state objectives if
known, for example, TEKS 111.4. Grade 2.b.)
(G.2) Geometric structure: analyzes geometric relationships in order to make and verify
conjectures.. The student is expected to: (B) make conjectures about angles, lines, polygons,
circles, and three-dimensional figures and determine the validity of the conjectures, choosing
from a variety of approaches such as coordinate, transformational, or axiomatic.
(G.4) Geometric structure: uses a variety of representations to describe geometric relationships
and solve problems. The student is expected to : (A) select an appropriate representation
(concrete, pictorial, graphical, verbal, or symbolic) in order to solve problems. .
(G.5) Geometric patterns: uses a variety of representations to describe geometric relationships
and solve problems. The student is expected to: (A) use numeric and geometric patterns to
develop algebraic expressions representing geometric properties.
2-How did the teacher begin and end the lesson?
The teacher distributed students worksheet that they worked on the previous class and ask them
to fix their mistakes at the beginning of the classroom. She asked them to work on it first five
minutes and she took the attendance. After almost five minutes she started new topic. She give
them some instruction and ask them to work on three questions with their partners. She repeated
three times and at the end of the classroom she just talked about their homework. So she ended
the classroom without checking if the students understand the topic or not.
3-What did the teacher use for teaching materials or instructional aids/equipment?
It was a geometry class and she had to draw some shapes, thats why she preferred to use
document camera. She was on her desk while giving the instruction, then she monitored the
classroom while the students were working on their assignments.

4-Which instructional methods and strategies did the teacher use? ( lecture, inquiry,
discovery learning, discussions, games or simulations, demonstrations, cooperative learning,
integration of technology, socrative questioning, etc)
She used the lecturing method most of the time by integrating technology to her instruction. She
also used demonstrations to show the steps of the solution for each part of her instruction. She
used whole class discussion while she was teaching and wanted her student to discuss during
class assignments.
5-How did the teacher assess learning? (informal, formal, formative, summative, oral, openended, quiz, feedback etc) See Chapter 8 for more information on assessment methods
She used informal assessment by monitoring them while they were working on their
assignments. She visited almost all the tables tree times to make sure everyone was on task. She
gave some feedbacks to the students.
6- What can you say about the teachers philosophy/beliefs and style?
(Traditional/progressive, behaviorist, student-centered vs. teacher centered, authoritative etc)
Since it was a geometry class the teacher wanted to give the information first and want them to
work on questions. Thus she used traditional lecturing method and it was teacher-centered.
7-How does the teacher manage classroom? Can you identify classroom management
techniques used?
She started second semester at our school and she took the classrooms from an experienced
teacher. She was a first year teacher and she uses the same classroom after me. I wanted to
observe her class and see the new techniques that she uses in her classes. At first she arranged the
classroom in the morning to manage the classroom. However she did not prepared a sitting chart
and wanted to do at the beginning of the class. Then she noticed it would take long she asked
them to sit wherever they want. When she noticed any problem she warned her class verbally. I
noticed that she was open for the new ideas and even when she had problem with one question
she asked her students what would be the next step. After she finished with the question she
encouraged her students verbally. She said Great team work.

8-Observe in the classroom setting and determine types of behavior students play when offtask. What do they do when they are not paying attention? How does the teacher re-direct
them or get them back on task?
Most of her students were on task almost all the time. However there were two groups who were
talking laud and discussing about their science olympiad t-shirts. She just asked them to stop and
continued her routine.

9-How does the teacher communicate with students (verbal, vocal, meta-verbal or non-verbal
communication such as facial, body language, use of space, motion and time?)
She had really positive communication with her class and she used verbal communication. She
used body language and facial expressions. She was talking the sum of inner angles of a triangle
and wanted to show a triangle by using her arms. She said she could not do it and one student
showed her how to do it.

10-Who were the students in the class? What did you notice about them? (Background,
diversity, attitude, motivation, interaction, participation, etc)
It was a diverse classroom from different backgrounds. Almost all students were participating at
all time and they were motivated when they enter the classroom.
11-What did you see that is effective in engaging students? What do you see that is
ineffective in keeping students engaged?
The teacher had very respectful environment in her class and it helped students to engage in her
class. There were a few quite students who were working alone, she did not checked if they were
really working or not.

12-What are the two instructional strategies you observed and would like to apply in your
classroom?
She used lecturing most of the time and wanted her students to solve the problems together
which we can call discussion. However her discussion groups were not planned before class. I
would like to apply planned discussion methods in my classes.

13-What are two important classroom management strategies that you observed and would
like to apply in your classroom?
I noticed that she was fair to everyone and open to new ideas. I would love to use and improve
these classroom management strategies in my classes.