Elementary Education

Task 2: Instruction Commentary

TASK 2: INSTRUCTION COMMENTARY

Respond to the prompts below (no more than 6 single-spaced pages, including prompts) by typing your responses within the
brackets following each prompt. Do not delete or alter the prompts. Commentary pages exceeding the maximum will not be
scored. You may insert no more than 2 additional pages of supporting documentation at the end of this file. These pages
may include graphics, texts, or images that are not clearly visible in the video or a transcript for occasionally inaudible portions.
These pages do not count toward your page total.

1. Which lesson or lessons are shown in the video clip(s)? Identify the lesson(s) by lesson plan
number.
[ Lessons 2 and 3 ]
2. Promoting a Positive Learning Environment
Refer to scenes in the video clip(s) where you provided a positive learning environment.
a. How did you demonstrate mutual respect for, rapport with, and responsiveness to
students with varied needs and backgrounds, and challenge students to engage in
learning?
[ In the clip from Lesson 3, right at the beginning I ask a question and give students ample time
to talk with peers about what is included in a biography. Also, during this time I make an effort to
engage students in conversation who seem to be quiet or who may need more direction in their
conversation. At the conclusion of partner sharing, I make an effort to call on as many students
as possible to share their ideas about what is included in a biography. All of these were geared
help all students in the classroom because it gave them the opportunity to share their ideas and
get feedback from peers before sharing it with the whole class(social learning theory). I also
used questions to help direct the conversation to some important details that students were
leaving out(i.e. dates), requiring students to provide the information as opposed to me just
telling them. ]
3. Engaging Students in Learning
Refer to examples from the video clip(s) in your responses to the prompts.
a. Explain how your instruction engaged students in developing an essential literacy
strategy and requisite skills.
[ The essential literacy strategy that we focused on in these lessons was differentiating between
main points and interesting facts in non-fiction texts. To do this we had students use a coding
strategy to help them identify both of those as well as identifying any questions they had while
reading. Based on my modeling in the first lesson students had a good base for what was
expected in the coding and knew what to look for when differentiating between main points and
interesting facts. In the clip from lesson 3, we worked as a class to identify important aspects of
a biography. This helped engage students in identifying information about a specific genre,
which then transitioned into using that information by looking for those important details in a
biographical text. They also had practice coding biographical texts during lesson 2, as each
group worked with biographies and so had practice finding main ideas.]
b. Describe how your instruction linked students prior academic learning and personal,
cultural, and community assets with new learning.
[ In both clips I have students recall the codes that were introduced in the first lesson. This is
important so that when I am assessing student work I have a consistent set of codes that I can
understand and compare to other elements(summaries, graphic organizers, etc.) of each
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Elementary Education
Task 2: Instruction Commentary

lesson. In both lessons 2 and 3 students have the opportunity to use information that they have
already studied recently during reading and writing instruction. During Lesson 2 the students
were asked to use a text that they had used the previous week. Using a familiar text made the
task a bit less challenging while also making it engaging. This is because students already had
background knowledge about the text and were able to recall information and find it easily
without having to read the entire book.
During lesson 3 students were asked to recall important details about what is contained in a
biography. Because all groups were working with biographies in Lesson 2, students were able to
recall this information easily and were engaged in conversation with peers when asked to do so.
]
4. Deepening Student Learning during Instruction
Refer to examples from the video clip(s) in your explanations.
a. Explain how you elicited and built on student responses to promote thinking and
apply the essential literacy strategy using requisite skills to comprehend OR compose
text.
[ There were many opportunities to build off student ideas and help students to think deeper
about the information they were looking at and differentiate between main ideas and interesting
facts. During lesson 2 there was a student who said that all of the information he found in the
text were interesting facts. By having a conversation with him that helped him realize that
sometimes things that we find interesting in a text are important details helped him to narrow his
focus and think more critically about the information he coded.
I also had the opportunity to help students identify differences in genre. During lesson 3 when
students were identifying information they would find in a biography, one student suggested that
you would find headings in a biography because it was non-fiction. When he mentioned this, my
immediate response was to ask if you would always find headings in a biography. Unfortunately
I didnt give appropriate wait time when I asked this question, but it did make students take a
second look at what they might find in a non-fiction text. ]
b. Explain how you modeled the essential literacy strategy and supported students as they
practiced and applied the strategy in a meaning-based context.
[ It was important in this segment to include constant examples of my thinking through thinkalouds while reading the various texts used in this segment. There is evidence of this in the clip
from lesson 3. Right before students are asked to work by themselves I model how I would code
a text, and by doing so, find main points in the text. When I underline certain aspects of the first
sentence of the article I share my thinking of why I think those ideas are important. I also had an
opportunity to explain why I underlined Woodrow Wilsons name when students suggested that
you could just look up who the information was about. I made it clear that it was important to
include this information so the reader wasnt left asking questions while reading.
I supported students practice of the strategy by visiting students when they were working in
groups and individually and asking them to explain why they coded things a certain way. There
is evidence of this in the clip from lesson 2. By having a few students share their ideas I was
able to gauge their understanding of the information, and was also able to challenge students to
record the information they found in their own words instead of writing the text verbatim on their
graphic organizer. ]
5. Analyzing Teaching
Refer to examples from the video clip(s) in your responses to the prompts.

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Elementary Education
Task 2: Instruction Commentary

a. What changes would you make to your instructionfor the whole class and/or for
students who need greater support or challengeto better support student learning of
the central focus (e.g., missed opportunities)?
Consider the variety of learners in your class who may require different
strategies/support, such as students with IEPs or 504 plans, English language learners,
struggling readers, underperforming students or those with gaps in academic
knowledge, and/or gifted students.
[ The first way I would have changed my instructional practices during this lesson would be to
use more student ideas as learning opportunities in the classroom. For instance, a student
during my second lesson mentions that he drew a wheelchair down on his graphic organizer
when we were reading about Franklin D. Roosevelt. Instead of using this as an opportunity to
have him elaborate on why he drew the wheelchair, I asked him if he needed to draw the
wheelchair and moved on to another student who had written something else. If I had taken the
time to ask why he had drawn the chair and how that supports his understanding of a supporting
detail, him and his peers would have benefited from a conversation that highlighted the
Presidents life with Polio and all the work he did for people who suffered from it that we came
into contact with the text.
Also, I realize now that I look back on my plans and my lessons that I never had students
discuss the difference between main points and interesting facts and what makes them
different. Students were obviously having trouble differentiating between the two and could have
used a concrete experience to help them understand it on a deeper level. I hope to incorporate
this into a future lesson so that students have the opportunity to have a better understanding of
this particular idea. ]
b. Why do you think these changes would improve student learning? Support your
explanation with evidence of student learning AND principles from theory and/or
research.
[ The first change (building more off of student ideas) would have made all of my lessons much
more engaging for every student in the classroom. My classroom management with this group
still needs some fine-tuning so my focus tends to be control. However, I think that by allowing
student conversation and taking creative answers as a learning opportunity would aid in student
understanding of the information. This relates to social learning theory in that students would be
able to build knowledge off of other students ideas. It also connects to cognitive learning theory
as students would be building off their own background knowledge and creating new knowledge
based on those ideas.
The second change(having students converse about the difference between interesting facts
and important or main details) would have aided students in that students would have had a
much deeper understanding of the information through conversation and would have been able
to look more critically at the texts that were used. This connects with social learning theory in
that students would have been able to have conversation with peers that aided in helping them
understand the information on a deeper level. This also requires students to think critically about
the information given which supports cognitive learning theory.]

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