Observation 1

Observation

Megan German

PEDU 671

Longwood University
Observation 2

During the pre-observation conference, Mrs. Drake and I discuss in detail her desire to

incorporate project-based learning into her classroom. She felt this was an important and

beneficial method because it provides more meaningful, engaging, real-life learning experiences

for her students, who are predominately low-income, minority students. As a result, during her

observation, I was looking for a few of the standards from our observation tool: 1) incorporates

strategies that reflect best practices, 2) differentiates instruction or services to meet the needs of

all learners, and 3) engages and maintains students in active and meaningful learning

experiences.

The lesson that I observed with Mrs. Drake was a station review activity that was

intended to reinforce and review figurative speech as well as cause and effect. At one station,

students were playing a cause and effect board game, another they were working on an

onomatopoeia worksheet to be completed individually, the third station required students to

complete 20 cause and effect flashcards, and the fourth was another board game using figurative

language. In this lesson, which incorporated a variety of individual and small group activities,

did reflect best practices. This variance in grouping, as well as the incorporation of games and

worksheets for different intelligences also showed differentiation.

The one area that concerned me most was the engagement piece. Despite assuring me

that her classroom management was not an issue, there was one group who was consistently off-

task at each station. Upon witnessing this, I inquired about how the students were grouped, and

she informed me that she lets them choose their own seats and groups. This is one area that, in

the post-observation, I would address, since this isnt really a reflection of best practices, sense

there is no rhyme or reason to grouping. Depending on the purpose of the learning activity,

grouping should be done to create homogenous groups, such as by reading level, or heterogenous
Observation 3

groups, like when you want to encourage cooperative learning and have students play off each

others strengths and weaknesses.

The other area I would address would be using more examples and practice activities that

relate to her group of students. Since cultural and socioeconomic diversity was such a concern to

her in the pre-observation conference, I would have expected to see homemade examples and

worksheets that her students can personally identify with, which would be even more important

when incorporating project-based learning in her classroom.

Overall, there was some evidence for each of the criteria that I was looking for, but there

definitely could have been more. I would definitely like to see her attend some professional

development on project-based learning, work on having more authentic resources and examples,

and improve grouping strategies, since group structure during project-based learning is extremely

important to maintain a steady flow of work.