Analysis of Learner Centered Instruction Lesson

1.     Analysis of clarity and effectiveness of lesson plan

·        My lesson plan was very well written and very clear to follow which made it easy to stay focused during the lesson.

·        My objective was very clear but it did not tie into the rest of my lesson plan closing as much as I would have hoped.

·        By first having the students find out where they have seen percents and then by having them work with different word problems it tied into my whole lesson.

·        By starting out with board work the students were engaged in the subject matter right away.

·        Even though I wrote down some of my questions I was going to use I did not write down everything I was going to say and that gave me flexibility between the three different classes.

·        One thing that I wish I had written down in my lesson was what questioning technique to use when asking the different questions I used. If I were going to call on non-volunteers, volunteers, or the whole class, this would have helped me to try to use different questioning techniques throughout my lesson.

·        The body of my lesson was very thorough and complete; I should have thought a little bit more about the rules that I was using and the environment that I was in.  Because of the activity and the use of Balls of paper in the activity there needed to be more rules and regulations about the proper use of these materials.

·        In my lesson plan I did not include all of the materials that I needed.  I missed the balls, the hoop and the line of masking tape in my lesson plan but not for my actual lesson.  Writing these in may have made me a little more prepared for the start of the day.

·        In the body of the lesson plan I should have written more about what types of questions would be asked of the students and also what the students would do with the tracking of how many baskets they made and how many baskets they attempted.

·        I used the work shot in my lesson plan and it carried through to my lesson, some of the kids took this the wrong way, so I switched through the lesson to baskets, which the kids did not turn around on me.

·        The closing of the lesson is still the hardest part for me to establish a good one, even though I tied the objective back into the lesson I did not take into account how the kids would be very talkative and energetic by this time because of the type of my lesson

·        The last thing that our lesson plan needed was transitions, I didn’t write out all of my transitions, which made the transitions harder for me.  The transition from the activity to the closing was my biggest problem.  The first transition was in the introduction and that was getting students to see how many times they see percents in daily activities.

·        I worked hard on the lesson plan and it really helped the actual teaching of the lesson run smoothly.

·        I also needed to put a little more thought and planning into my bell work.  That was the last thing I did and I did not spend as much time as I maybe should have on it.

2.  Organization of Lesson

·        My planning helped the lesson flow.

·        One thing that I really need to work on is organization of my thoughts on the board.  I need to learn to model behaviors I want to see in my students.  If I can’t organize the way I work a problem it will be hard for them to know what I expect from them.

·        The bell work really helped the students focus on what was going to be done.  By scaffolding the students right as they got started with the lesson helped them to work on the bell work with less frustration.

·        In the first lesson all of my overheads were organized, in the second one some of the overheads got out of place so I took a little time to organize those.

·        In the second lesson the students were not understanding or answering my questions in the bell work.  This lost my organization and I stayed longer on the bell work then I should have.

·        At the end I maybe should have modeled what I wanted the students to do with the worksheets to help them and me be more organized because they would have known exactly what I wanted.

·        Another thing is when we were playing mathematics basketball I didn’t make the students write down the entire question so they had work all over there pages, if I ever did this again I would hand out a numbered sheet of paper for the students to work from and also a place where they could keep tallies of their baskets.

·        Also with the organization of the problems if I did this activity again I would come up with some way for the students to have a group contract to make sure that everyone is involved with the lesson.

·        At the end of 5^th hour I spent too much time trying to help one of the students and the other students became unorganized and not finishing what I wanted them to.  So I need to learn to only spend so much time with a student before asking them to come in for extra help.

3.     Effectiveness of Lesson Introduction

• First of all we directed all of the students to the bell work on the board, this got their attention and focused it on the lesson right away.  First and second hours I had to remind a couple of times that there was bell work but because I started out scaffolding the students 5^th hour they worked much more diligently on the bell work.

·        We started our lesson by having a warm-up of solving percentages without using a calculator.  Each of the two numbers I used started with what is 10% of ___.  I used two different numbers in that blank.  I started with this because after finding 10% of a number it is much easier to find many other % of that number.  Also because 10% is the easiest fraction to find.  This activity was a review of previously learned material and an important part of the new material coming, even though some students complained that they did this bell work all the time many students still struggled with it.

·        The next part of the lesson I got the whole class involved by asking students where they had seen percents before.  After a few seconds many students raised their hands and they were trying hard to think of more examples.  After they had finished with all they could think of I scaffold them to think of a few other common ones.

·        My introduction went really well not only were all the students volunteering in all three classes but also they all seemed very involved.

4.  Transitions from one part of the lesson to the next

·        My bell work was on the board and my first question about percents in daily lives was on the overhead so that is how I transitioned from bell work to the real introduction of my lesson.

·        From the question I put up the rules to Mathematics Basketball.  I used the overhead again and reinforced the rules by asking certain students to repeat specific parts of the rules.  This was my transition from the introduction to the activity.

·        From the rules to the actual start of the game was a little hectic 1^st hour just because I had never done an activity like this one, so I had to mover some students into groups and I let three boys that I know have trouble concentrating be in the same group, though this seemed to be ok.

·        After putting up from 5-7 problems on the overhead it was time to transition to the worksheet.  1^st hours transition went well all the students sat down and worked on the worksheet after I handed it out.  2^nd hour I had gotten frustrated with their behavior and was feeling frustrated in my transition and the transition from the activity to the worksheet took much longer and many of the students never started to work on it.  5^th hours transition went much smother but still nothing compared to first hours.  In this transition I told the students that they were to work on the worksheet until the timer went off.

·        With about a minute left of class I reinforced that the assignment was due the next day and reminded them of how they used percents for problems that they had said they saw percents in such as discounts and tax.

5.  Effectiveness of your questioning techniques

·        My questioning technique was something that I really struggled with all day long.  This is partly due to the fact that I did not know everybody’s name in 1^st and 2^nd hours.  This also had to do with the fact that I don’t know the students well enough to call on them in front of the entire class if they weren’t raising their hands.  I did not want to embarrass a student or make a student shut down.  This is why it was a struggle.

·        One aspect of questioning that I did do well in was when I went to the individual groups I told the students that I would be able to ask any one of them to explain the answer to me.  Each time I went to the groups I asked a different student to explain it to me.  This helped me make sure that everyone was actively involved with the activity.

·        I also gave the students more then one chance to get the right answer.  If they did not have the right answer I would look back at their work and scaffold them or give them a hint on what they should try and then I would go back to them after they reworked the problem.

·        My wait time with the students still needs work; I waited when the students didn’t understand my question.  I need to work on understanding the student’s expressions so I can see when they don’t understand what I am saying or if they are thinking about what I am saying.

·        My questioning technique did get better as the day went on after talking with my supervising teacher about tips that I could use, also it went better because I know the students in fifth hour by name and personality more then either of the other two classes.

6.     Classroom management

·        Because of the movement needed for the activity I thought that my classroom management went fairly well.

·        One thing that I did notice was even though I know that I missed some things I always tried to stay focused on the majority of the class.  So when I noticed myself with my back to the class I made sure that I moved so that I could see the whole class.

·        The students were very engaged in my lesson.  They all got into the introduction and all were having fun with the activity. 

·        With any sort of activity were the students are moving a teacher needs to be very aware of everything going on.  Second hour I had the worst time with classroom management, but it helped me learn and the activity went much better in 5^th hour.

·        1^st hour I did not go over enough of the rules on use of the paper balls and they were being thrown at each other. 

·        Even though I made sure that I went over more rules about the paper balls in 2^nd hour the students were up out of their seats consistently.  When there was a big group of them I knew I needed to do something so I went right into the middle of them and asked specific students to go and sit down which made the other students also go and sit down.  After this the activity ended.

·        In the activity I was really able to walk around the room and talk to individual students.  This helped me to make sure that everyone was doing their work but for the students who finished before I could get to them some of them would get off task.  Luckily the students enjoyed the activity so all I really had to do was put a new problem on the overhead and the students would get back on track.

·        While I was talking to the students and reading the questions from the overhead I tried to walk around the room and move away from the front and center of attention.  This helped me use some proximity control on some students and it also helped the students feel like I was around them so they stayed involved.

·        After second hour got a little too fidgety I made sure in 5^th hour to reinforce all the rules, and move students that are ADHD away from where all the action was.  This helped to keep the action away from them and cut down on classroom disruptions.

7.  Movement around the room and body language

·        In the first two classes I tended to stay at the front of the room when I was giving out directions but by fifth hour I was comfortable moving to the back or side of the room even for a second to take the focus off of me.

·        I walked around the room consistently during the activity.  I tried not to be in one place for more then a minute.

·        When the students explained the problems to me most of the time I would slouch down or try to get to their level somehow to make them feel like I wasn’t being threatening over them.

·        I did use some body language when I went to go break up the group of students I talked about earlier.  I was a little frustrated and the students saw that in the way I was and decided to listen to me.

·        When I was trying to explain something to a student I tried to either crouch down or sit in a seat next to them so that I could see the whole classroom and I would be at their level.

8.  Effectiveness of Lesson Closure

·        My lesson closure still needs some work in organization and timing.  In the first class I gave closure too late, 2^nd class I gave closure too late and the 5^th hour I didn’t finish my closure.

·        Closure is important in a lesson so that the students are not left hanging so I tried to create closure to the lesson.  Part of the reason that my closure did not work as I wanted it to was because the students were still excited and fidgety from the activity.

·        Another reason that closure was hard for me was because I didn’t know what was happening in the future and were the students were going so this made it difficult to define closure in my lesson.

·        In each of my lessons I made sure that the students had the assignment and that they knew that it was due the next day, I did this by repeating that it was due and having it written on the board.

·        My assessment of the students was done during class by walking around and talking to the groups it will also be done by correcting the worksheet that was handed to the students.

·        One of my closure items relating what they were doing by playing basketball with percents I did not tie into in both 5^th and 2^nd hours.  This left the students hanging on how the activity related to real world problems.

9.  Use of Different Teaching Strategies

·        I tried to use both verbal and written skills on all of the questions that I asked of the students, even though I have not perfected doing this I did read most of the questions and have most of them written somewhere.

·        One thing that I made sure to do was use different cultural names in all of my word problems to help tie into the diversity of Morgan Park.

·        I had the students get up and move around which is bodily and kinesthetic.  We related this actively to percents.  The percentage of baskets made.

·        The students were required to work in groups of two to solve the problems posed.  This forced them to work on their interpersonal intelligence, working cooperatively within their small groups and to communicate with those people effectively to finish the task at hand.

·        I also made sure that they were working together by asking any student I wanted to how to solve the problem, if they didn’t know I would say I was coming back.

·        The worksheet that I gave them was intrapersonal, although some of them worked on it together in class, the students will have to finish it on their own.

·        I also let one particular student explain to me how he answered the questions without writing it down, because it is hard for him to write his thoughts down on paper.

10.     Enthusiasm, confidence and ability to capture student’s attention

·        I was very excited about my lesson and my lesson plan, which I brought into my classroom. 

·        I have been in the classroom fro over 2 months now and I feel very confident in the classes and it showed in my how I directed the students to the bell work and answered all their questions with confidence.

·        I knew all of the answers to the questions that I posed to the students, which helped with confidence level.

·        The introduction question was really fun for the students along with the activity.  Answering questions and helping their group members out actively involved the students.

·        Having he schedule up on the board helped students to stay focused on what we were doing at the time instead of what else they had to do.

·        By having the chance to ask different students to explain how they figured out the answer to the question it excited me to see and it built my confidence throughout the lessons.

11.     Anything else you noticed about the lesson

·        This is a great way to get everyone involved and interested!  Learner Centered Instruction is definitely worth the time that it takes to prepare.  It creates lessons that the students will remember because they are interesting and because the students become part of the lesson…it becomes their lesson!

·        I felt confident and was very excited about doing this lesson, I also found that even though I might have been frustrated for a couple of minutes I focused on what good I saw in the lesson and that helped me say positive.

·        Even some of the students that I know never participate I saw participate today and that was really exciting for me.

12.     Overall Summary of what you learned from teaching and from your lesson analysis

·        Even though I was a little nervous about the behaviors of the kids for this lesson plan the good that came out of it outweighed the negatives I saw.

·        Specifically I need to work on questioning techniques, organization especially on the board, and lesson closure.

·        I did learn that I need to be very specific about what the students can and cannot do with any object that I were to give them.  I also learned that I really need eyes in the back of my head.

·        Even though I was fairly organized I feel as if being more organized would have helped everything flow a little smoother together.

·        I also learned that I need to make sure to not spend too much time with one student.