Conner Bourgoin

Conner Bourgoin
Announced Observation 1 Reflection

OBJECTIVE(S): Did my objective encourage students to achieve higherlevel understanding of a topic?

Was the objective learner-centered, measurable, and clear to my
students?
My objective was able to not only encourage the students to read and start to
comprehend the beginning of The Scarlet Letter, but my objective was a skills
objective, which, as learned in EDUC-391, is important to balance with content
objectives, as students must be able to know how to cite certain instances within
their journals from the text. The objective was centered around the students
participation in the class, and it was measurable because I was able to see if
students could recall certain instances or if they made claims without any sort of
proof when collecting their journals. If they did it frequently, they received a check
plus. Often or moderate was a check, and infrequently was a check minus. My
students understood what I was looking for, for we read exemplary journal entries.
In the future, I should completely demonstrate one myself (which I did do in a later
class after the observation).

HOOK: Did I picque my students interest?

I had a DO NOW activity which encouraged students to immediately get into the
mindset of class and asked them what questions they had in chapter 1, which is
relevant, since chapter 1 is a very confusing chapter.
In the future, I would like to show a visual representation of the chapter to the
students.

ACTIVITY: Was the activity aligned with my objective? Were students

consistently on task?
Did students understand my expectations? Did I provide scaffolds or a
model?
Did I differentiate instruction and include accommodations (when
necessary)?
The activity was very much aligned with my objective, for we worked on their
journal entries throughout the whole class. Students were always either listening to
what each other had to say, or they were working with each other in think, pair,
shares to discuss their journal entries.
While students did understand my expectations, I should have demonstrated
underlining parts of a passage and extracting what I found so they were able to see
it as an I before we got to we and you. While we all accomplished the we
and you part, as we learned in EDUC-391, the I wasnt completely there, and

Conner Bourgoin
Sally gave me great advice to demonstrate underlining on the whiteboard with a
projected passage on screen. I did accomplish this the next class, when we went
over how to extract characteristics of people from text.
There was not much differentiation in this lesson, as students had the same journal
entries, but I mixed groups up so a certain learner was grouped with a different kind
of learner. Differentiation was included in following classes this week, however.
SUMMARY/ASSESSMENT: At the end, did students review main ideas or
reflect on how they learned?
Did students meet your objective(s)? Specifically, how do you know?
Students were able to review the main ideas of chapters 1 3 and were able to
review the difference between their journal entries before class and their journal
entries after class. Students met my objective, and I evaluated this by having them
hand in their journals for assessment. After looking at journals, most received check
pluses, which meant they showed great detail and analysis of the texts.

Conner Bourgoin

Reflection
If I were to do this lesson again, I would incorporate Sally and Sarah Byrnes
suggestions on including a more distinct I into the lesson. I never chose a passage
myself to demonstrate how Id make a journal entry of it so the class would
understand. While the class did very well either way, Im sure there was one or two
people who could have demonstrated their journal knowledge better had I
demonstrated myself. The I, we, you method of teaching is a very important one,
for the scaffolding process is much easier and clearer for me as a teacher and the
students. Students are able to see demonstration, demonstrate it with peers and
the instructor, and demonstrate it on their own to completely acclimate to the skill
being taught.
Another thing Id change, thanks to the suggestion of Sally and Sarah, is,
when students are working in groups, instead of walking around and trying to
overhear who has a good suggestion and who doesnt, I should go into the groups
and ask them what they have. This way I am connecting with students, which shows
positive reinforcement, and I am also seeing who is on track and who is not. This
way, I can possibly adjust my lesson to have one group be the exemplary group for
a certain topic while involving a group that may be struggling, so they can further
learn themselves.
The instructions in the lesson were clear, but there is always room for
improvement. While the students in this class were excellent at participating, and I

Conner Bourgoin
was good at including every student multiple times, I would also change the way I
picqued their interest. I could maybe do this by finding a movie adaption scene in
which Hester is stepping onto the scaffold in front of the town, so the students are
interested. Movie scenes are good, for they appeal to visual learners, which shows a
bit of differentiation amongst the students in the class. This can easily connect a lot
of ideas the students had when reading the novel, also.
Overall, my engagement with students was strong, but my connection with
them can be improved, and I learned this from Sarah and Sally. Their suggestions to
get myself more involved in group work and also demonstrate what Im looking for
all by myself for the first time are very essential and crucial points to making my
lesson exemplary. I have already started to use their implementations in my
following lessons this past week and I look forward to keep on using them.