Teacher observation #1
EVOC 518 Teacher Observation Form
EVOC 518 Scholar's Name: David Wiget___
Name of Instructor Observed: Shirley
Romo-Valenzuela
Date & Place of Observation:
Specific Examples of Effective Teaching:
Mrs.
Romo-Valenzuela began the day with an anticipatory set that related to the
lesson of the day on “Addictive Relationships.” The anticipatory set involved
the students tossing a ball to each other and saying something positive about a
relationship they have experienced in their life. After this was completed Mrs.
Romo-Valenzuela brought the attention of the students to the whiteboard to
point out the objective of the day “Student will be able to identify five
characteristics of an addictive relationship.” She was careful to take
the students learning capacity and/or grade into consideration while explaining
what an addictive relationship is. She also included examples of healthy
relationships as well.
This lesson plan
called for a video “Addictive relationships-relationship styles” (Gorski and
Black 1985). Mrs. Romo-Valenzuela used the stop-start method while playing the
video checking for understanding and keeping students alert. She was thorough
but at the same time keeping it simple enough for the students to become
interested and motivated.
Considering the
particular population of parolees who have a history of low grade level
education and years of drug abuse Mrs. Romo-Valenzuela was able to show
compassion, patience and empathy.
She was happy to
provide me a copy of that lesson plan and it is included in this folder. Link to lesson plan
Specific Suggestions for Improvement:
Despite Mrs.
Romo-Valenzuela ability to use compassion, patience and empathy I feel that
there could have been more structure and cohesiveness during the lesson. Some
student were cross talking and off in their own little world while others had
their heads down taking a nap. Everything else was excellent in her ability to
deliver the lesson except the enforcement of the classroom rules. I would
suggest a brief review of the rules before each lesson begins.
Teacher observation #2
EVOC 518 Teacher Observation Form
EVOC 518 Scholar's Name: David Wiget___
Name of Instructor Observed: Richard
Jeske
Date & Place of Observation:
Specific Examples of Effective Teaching:
Mr. Jeske seemed to
have better control over his classroom then my first observation/orientation
with Shirley Romo-Valenzuela. He had the lesson objective on the whiteboard “Student
will provide different types of intimacy and explain the importance of
developing self-intimacy.” He then opened up with an anticipatory set using
guided imagery asking students to close their eyes, relax and think back to
their first intimate moment. But before this exercise began he added this
definition of intimacy on the white board: “Intimacy is the act of
experiencing, sharing, and/or communicating closeness, security, and respect in
a way that all people involved feel pleasure and are accepted.” He also
provided the students with examples of the different types of intimacy:
recreational, intellectual, emotional, aesthetic, spiritual, and sexual.
I thought this was
an excellent definition for this word sense most of this particular population
automatically related it to sex.
He was very
understanding and considerate of some of the students’ learning disabilities
and accommodated them in any way to ensure and enhance their educational
experience.
He was happy to
provide me a copy of that lesson plan and it is included in this folder. Link to lesson plan
Specific Suggestions for Improvement:
My suggestion for
this observation would be to have a more effective seating arrangement. The
seats were all facing different directions and only a few students were facing
the front of the class. In my experience it is easy for student to get
sidetracked and lost if the seats enable the student to have his or her back to
the instructor during lecture. One more thing I would suggest is to, just like
the other observation, enforce the classroom rules. This is a population of
students who are pros at manipulating, rationalizing, and justifying and these
shortcomings will only bring a disadvantage to ones learning experience.
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The information I
gained from this assignment has been and will continue to be a value to my
teaching career in respect to being able to observe not so much on what to do
but what not to do. I believe in an important and vital prerequisite for this
particular population; that is to provide an atmosphere that is safe, secure,
and structured. But this is not to say that all teaching arenas could not benefit
with such prerequisites. I have also learned to not limit myself to this
particular population of students and to broaden my skills to enable me to
teach at almost any level or population.