MODULE 8 POST-OBSERVATION REFLECTION

C&T 825: Advanced Practicum in TESOL: Post-Observation Reflection

Desirae Jellison

University of Kansas
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My lesson was intended to build foundational skills that students could develop

when faced with determining the theme of a story. At the beginning of the lesson, I

shared the goals and desired outcomes for the lesson and tried to build background

knowledge. The responses that I received from the class were surprising because my first

reading class seemed to have more background knowledge than my homeroom. After

hearing their responses, I showed them the BrainPOP Jr. video about sequence of a story.

I hoped the video would get their brains thinking.

After the video, we made a list of story elements or parts of a story. In my last

reflection, I wanted to allow more opportunities for partner talk. Unfortunately, when

students were discussing, they gave examples of text features. For example, one student

suggested glossary when talking with his partner. I should have been more explicit about

the genre before I asked them to turn-and-talk. Once again, when I asked for students to

give examples of story elements the responses were not what I expected. The students’

answers mostly focused on nonfiction and text features. Last week our focus was

nonfiction and text features. Their brains seemed to be stuck on nonfiction. When I didn’t

get the desired responses, I asked guiding questions to help them produce correct

answers. Luckily, it started to work, and students caught on quickly. At this point of the

lesson, I felt confident that the students were beginning to understand. We were able to

identify and define parts of a story.

Next, the students went back to their seats, and I presented them with a story. I

wanted them to apply what they have learned to a story. They were able to correctly

identify the characters, setting, problem, and solution. From my perspective, after this

part of the lesson, it started to go downhill. I wanted to give my students an opportunity

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to practice their oral language with sentence frames so they would feel comfortable. I

realize now that I rushed that part of the lesson and I should have modeled using the

sentence frames, primarily because the class is not familiar with using sentence frames. I

directed the students to use sequence words while they were retelling the story, but when

students practiced retelling, they forgot to use the sequence words. I hoped they would

remember to use them because I had the words written on the sentence frame chart. I

wonder if it would be beneficial to create the sentence frames together.

When students were retelling the story to their partners, I felt overwhelmed. It

was difficult to observe and listen to all the students. I noticed one group was struggling

with retelling the story, so I turned my focus to them. The student in the group who was

retelling was starting his retell from the middle of the story, skipping the beginning. I

prompted the student and suggested he refer back to the sentence frames. During this

time, I focused my attention on him, and it was difficult to manage the other students.

When I am working with one group, it seems impossible to manage behavior and ensure

students are on task. I wonder if there is a strategy that helps teachers hold students

accountable for partner talk. I could practically feel students off task and not focused.

I knew it was time to move on to the writing part of the lesson. I directed students

to fill out the graphic organizer retelling the beginning, middle, and end with sequence

words. Once again, students forgot to use sequence words in their sentences. The student

errors are something that I could have prevented. I believe students would have been

more successful if I modeled an example of using sequence words to retell a story. The

lesson would have been more effective if I projected the graphic organizer on the board

and discussed what sequence words to use when writing the beginning, middle, and end.
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Overall, I think classroom behavior disrupted the lesson, and it was not a

productive learning environment. I believe if this lesson were with a small group it would

have been more successful for my ELL students.