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For Observation 1, I had to decide with my CT, Mrs. Kreeger, what kind of lesson I wanted to teach. Our classroom is departmentalized and Mrs. Kreeger handles ELA and Social Studies. We settled on ELA, but then the question was what did I want to do within that subject?
One option was teaching "Rosa" by Nikki Giovanni, since we are in Black History Month and our Essential Question for the unit is "How do people come together to create a positive change?" After reading Rosa, we usually do a questions sheet together about the story for comprehension, then the students write a short answer response.
The other option was to show my supervisor our group read, which is a book called "Out of my Mind" by Sharon M. Draper. It is about a fifth grade student with cerebral palsy. She cannot speak or control her body, but she has a photographic memory and a very brilliant mind. We read a chapter together, then discuss the chapter and complete the day's packet lesson. Each lesson in the packet has a different "skill of the day." During my observation, the students needed to analyze the text in order to make an inference about a quote in the chapter.
We decided to go with the second option, Out of my Mind (which I will refer to as OOMM for the rest of this journal), since I just felt a lot more comfortable doing that with the class.

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2. Adapting the Packet for my SOLAMP Long LP

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2. Adapting the Packet for my SOLAMP Long LP

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The packet for OOMM was already created, so I had to figure out how to tailor the packet to go along with the SOLAMP Long Lesson Plan I was creating. I chose several vocabulary words from the book that I thought the students would not be familiar with (petulant, defiance) as vocabulary words to focus on. I also used the words "generate" and "inference" to express the learning target we were heading towards. I noted to myself that I would try to define the words before we began our group read of the chapter. I also had to figure out what would serve as the "assessment" for the lesson. Would the response in the packet be the assessment? I ultimately decided that the assessment would be the students' individual responses in their packets, after our group conversation regarding what we had just read in the chapter/inferences that we made.

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Well, I went into the day thinking I wasn't really that nervous about the observation but, after the observation Mrs. Kreeger told me I had seemed nervous all morning so I guess I was, lol. I taught my lesson at 1:35 in the afternoon. We began with our "ELA Everyday" which is a warmup we do every day that has a trivial fact, a random question (example: Today is National Ice Cream Day! what kind of ice cream flavor do you think should exist?) and then a literary skill review (that day it was text structure).
Before beginning the new chapter, I went around and called on students to assist in summarizing what had happened in the previous chapter for those who weren't there.
Then we began our group read. To differentiate, I chose students who may struggle and circulated the room to provide extra assistance to those in need. If students were having trouble pronouncing words, I did not hesitate to assist them. I paused the reading when the words "petulant" and "defiance" came up and had the students help me define them, based on context clues in the chapter.
After, we discussed the quote from the chapter. Students raised their hand and made inferences about what the quote meant. I collected their ideas on the smartboard.
I have attached the "Evaluation Criteria Rubric" I created for the lesson.

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After the lesson, Shirley and I left the room to debrief.
It wasn't as scary as I thought it would be, neither the debrief nor the lesson itself.
I have attached the notes Shirley provided me with. She gave me a couple of tips to make the lesson better/more complete. At one point she said I brought up "theme", which I should not have done because that is an entirely separate and different lesson in itself. As the students were answering with short response as their "Exit Slip", the students also should have been asked to provide at least 2 supporting details that explained HOW they inferred what they did.
Shirley's biggest piece of advice was that the "closure" in the lesson was lacking. For my next observation, I should consider closure more. She gave me an idea of what Closure on a lesson could or should be/look like. I attached above the notes Shirley gave.

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For my next observation, one big support I am relying on is Shirley's notes, especially the ones about closure. I felt very supported by Shirley and like she gave me great advice on how to close out a lesson. I am definitely implementing her closure advice for my next lesson.

A success I encountered during my observation was how interactive the students decided to be. Many of the students decided to participate and offer their thoughts and ideas. I think they were aware of someone else in the room and were trying to help me out, lol. Which was very sweet of them!

Something I learned about myself during the debrief -- I really liked something Shirley said. She said, "Right now, you're still learning to be a teacher. By your last observation, you'll be a teacher." It's a learning process and it takes time and effort and practice.

One thing with SOLAMP Long I am still struggling with is implementing the assessments into each part of the process-- the introduction, development, and closure. I need to work to make sure the assessments are strong in each part of the lesson plan and connect with the procedural part of each lesson plan.

The observation process helped me because now I have an idea of what it will be like to be observed in my first teaching position. My supervisor also gave me a lot of great advice and ideas (especially regarding the closure aspect of the lesson). I am actually excited for my next observation (tomorrow!)