Note: The following observations were made of teachers in Virginia by Jeanette Gordon. The teachers were given a pre-observation form to complete if they chose to. If they did not answer some of the questions, those were deleted. They also had the option of using a different format of their choice to communicate prior to the lesson.

PRE-OBSERVATION FORM

Teacher: Jennifer Garrett (Mainstream 3rd grade with ELLs

Observation Date/Time: Mar 3, 2008 8:15am No. of students: 21Grade and ELP level/s: 3rd with 2 ELLS Subject: Science

What “big idea” do you want students to understand in this lesson?

Cycles in nature, such as seasons are necessary to our world.

What critical content do you want students to know?

Why there are seasons and what causes them

What is the content objective? (How will they demonstrate what they know and understand?)

Evaluate their previous knowledge of earth’s seasons and how they occur. Compare the results of straight versus tilted light rays in an experiment in order to explain the way the sun’s rays strikes earth, by answering conclusion questions in a numbered heads group.

What is the language objective?

Identify and model the words strike tilt and axis and explain how it relates to the sun’s rays and the tilt of the earth on its axis to a partner.

What modifications will you use for the ELLs?
I will provide a demonstration before the students try the experiment and will use vocabulary explanations while having them hold objects to see how to apply the terms before the experiment.

What strategies will you use to accomplish your objectives?

I will have the ELL students help me model examples that I show the class.

I will give them sentence beginnings to help guide them in answering the conclusion questions within their group.

What are the roles and responsibilities of the collaborating teachers?

The collaborating teacher (if available) will assist with student groups during the experiment.

What led up to this lesson and what will follow the lesson?

This is an introductory lesson on what causes earth’s seasons. Following this lesson, students will be exploring the causes of day and night, the revolution of the earth around the sun and the moon around the earth, as well as the phases of the moon.

Do you have any concerns?

I am concerned that the ELL students will still be confused with the words tilt and strike. I am also concerned that students will not make the connections between the experiment and the following day when we focus on the earth on it’s axis and the sun’s rays. I am concerned about the variables and the flow of the groups during the experiment.

RUNNING RECORD OF THE CLASS OBSERVED

Observations / Comments
The teacher had a web on the board with the center missing. The stems from the center circle were water, animal, plant, and earth with a ? after it.
The children were to guess what the web topic would be.
One student discussed that plant, animal and water were all cycles, so he thought perhaps there was an earth cycle. / SIOP
Review
Building Background
The students are orderly and attentive.
The teacher wrote cycle into the web and said the student was right. The children were then to talk with a partner about the cycles.
All children were on task talking with a partner. / SIOP
Interaction
Review
The teacher then asked students to share what they could about any of the cycles.
One student summarized the plant cycle.
Another summarized the animal cycle with the example of a moth.
The student had trouble remembering moth.
Other students helped with teacher prompting since the first child answered butterfly. / SIOP
Review and practice
It is evident that the teacher is teaching important understandings, not just the content for the topic.
Evidence of implementation of Understanding by Design.
The teacher introduced the science and language objective and stated how it was related to other cycles.
We’re going to talk about earth cycles, but there are many parts. Today we are only going to do one part.
How the suns rays strike in different ways on the earth’s surfaces. / SIOP
Content and language objectives.
Lesson planning is very evident.
Interaction
I want you to first share what you know.
I’m going to number you off and each number will go to a different poster to tell what you know to answer the questions on the posters.
What causes the changes from day to night?
Describe and draw examples of moon phases?
What causes the moon change?
What causes the seasons?
Why does the earth tilt on its axis?
What does tilt mean?
What is an axis?
Teacher clarified directions.
The students were going to cycle from one poster to another.
If you don’t know what to write. Let me suggest that you draw.
Teacher emphasized the need to know the vocabulary during this activity to prepare for the experiment.
Teacher used a rain stick to get students to change teams. / Roundtable:
Students were asked to take turns writing on the poster.
The students went to the posters quickly and started talking about them.
The option to draw provides helpful differentiation for students with less literacy or language.
Teacher adjusted one group because too many students were there.
Teacher rotated from one group to another. She noticed any student that was less engaged and used different strategies to engage them.
Two boys were dominating at one group. She encouraged the girls to become more engaged.
Use of classroom procedures for orderly on-task behaviors is evident.
Students were discussing what they knew. They were generating questions about what they didn’t know.
What makes the earth rise and the sun set?
Rain stick. Students rotated.
The collaborating teachers rotated from one group to another encouraging engagement of all and asking thought-provoking questions.
Teachers encouraged students to label any of their drawings.
Teacher prompted active involvement of students who did not have ideas to write.
Ex. Can you draw a picture of what the moon looks like sometimes?
One boy was clarifying for his group some of the incorrect assumptions on the poster. Her drew and explained.
Teacher used a clap pattern which the children repeated to get attention. / Suggestion: Have the students initial anything they write. It will be easier to determine if all students are writing.
Students have many misconceptions. The group near me was confused about why we have night and day.
Some felt the cause of night and day was related to the revolution around the sun rather than the rotation of the earth. On some posters students thought that the sun rotated.
Use of the posters is a wonderful way for the teacher to determine not only background knowledge but she can teach specifically to student misconceptions.
Having the students discuss their current awareness of the ideas will promote interest in the correct answers.
Teacher put two of the posters on the board that related to the lesson for the day.
She read the questions and emphasized the critical content vocabulary: tilt, axis,
What does the word tilt mean?
E (Ell) please come up and show use with the meter stick, show us what tilt means.
The meter stick was on a stool.
He picked up one end.
The teacher used the word slant, showed and angle and tilted.
Most of the
The teacher had a student bring up a globe.
She held the globe with her fingers on each end and asked him to tilt the earth.
He was confused how to tilt the earth. She showed again with the meter stick. With this example, he was able to tilt the earth.
The teacher then modeled an axis by using two pencils one on each end of the globe.
The teacher demonstrated the earth tilted on its axis.
The teacher asked students what the word strike meant.
They answered hitting.
The teacher demonstrated striking something with her hand and then a flashlight beam striking different objects.
Let’s read our directions to make sure what materials we need and the procedure.
What does the earth tilt on its axis and what causes the seasons?
We are going to tape a graph paper to the book. The book will represent the earth. Shine the light straight down. The beam will make a circle on the paper. How do I hold the flashlight to make it a small circle?
Students answered.
The students will draw lines around the light when it is direct and when they tilt the book with a block.
They will draw a black line for straight light rays.
They will tilt the book up with a block and draw around the light when the book is titled with a red line.
They will decide when the light is the strongest. They will later predict which would have the hottest temperature.
The students will also be asked to predict what the light would look like if they had an even larger block to tilt the book (their earth) even higher.
She gave roles for each person in the team. One gets the materials, one will read the directions. Different members will conduct the activity.
Students moved to their number teams to do the investigation.
The directions indicated how high to hold the flashlight and to hold it in the same position.
The students near me were checking the procedures to see if they were doing it right. However, they put the meter stick down and weren’t doing that.
The collaborating teacher came and asked,
“Where is the meter stick? You have to keep the constants constant. That is what we need to do in the scientific process. If you’re moving it around, it isn’t the same.”
When recording the answers about how many squares on the grid paper were included in the circle, one student said,
“Are we doing math now? This seems like math.”
One student didn’t have his procedure sheet.
He said he thought they could share. The collaborating teacher explained the need for each student to have their own procedure sheet and to record their own data. / Teacher is having an ELL participate in the modeling to incorporate as many modalities as possible for the learner as well as to ascertain the understanding of the students.
Using the meter stick before using the globe was very helpful because it was easier for the students to understand the concept of tilt.
They could then transfer that understanding to the more confusing task of tilting the earth.
One ELL student was ill and could not participate in the demonstration the teacher had planned to do with her.
SIOP
Comprehensible input throughout the lesson.
Effective vocabulary instruction: connecting the word to more familiar uses, explaining the word and giving examples, rather than a definition.
This is reflective of research-based practices.
Thought-provoking questions rather than just showing and telling.
Using the flashlight and shining it on the students engaged them more than if she had just shined it on the objects in front of the room.
SIOP
Strategies
The teacher was not only sharing the directions for the activity but sharing the need for materials and correct use of procedures.
Higher-order questions
Teachers circulated and focused on the procedures that the students needed to follow in the scientific process.
They were constantly using words related to the scientific process and emphasizing the need for scientific controls during any scientific process.
We are out of time.
Let’s review what we did today.
How many of you found the brightness of the light to be in the black circle?
There were some different responses.
If we got different answers, we need to look at our variables to see if we did the experiment correctly. / SIOP
Review
Referred back to the objectives for the lesson.
Again emphasis on scientific processes, not just this one activity. Very helpful in getting students to really understand the need to always control the variables.
Students were asked to line up by having each group that was ready line up quietly. They did so in a very orderly way.

POST-OBSERVATION FORM

How did you feel about the lesson?

It always takes longer than you expect, so at the end I felt a little rushed.

I wanted to make sure I tied in the previous knowledge that they had. I don’t want to wait to do that.

I am trying to decide whether to wait one more day to introduce the hands-on activity.

I think the other thing would be saving time in helping students get their materials quickly. Normally I have a designated student handle the materials. I probably would have a bag to put the materials in. That would be faster. I can’t have the materials at the locations because they rotated to the posters earlier.

How did student behaviors compare with what you expected?

I think about what I expected. I have some students that I have to get involved or the other teacher needs to. I know which students they are and go to them right away. The other students tend to be engaged quickly.

Do you think the content objectives were met?

I think in terms of building the background knowledge and the vocabulary terms for the lesson they were meant.

I think that the idea of comparison of the suns rays whether they are direct or tilted was not meant yet. The connection of light rays to the suns rays on the earth will be continued. There was not time to complete that objective today.

Do you think the language objectives were met?

I think the language objectives were met in that they were able to explain to each other previous knowledge. They were able to explain to each other what they had studied previously and seemed to be using the new vocabulary. Discussion of the new ideas will be continued.