On March 3, 2016, my peer and I observed each other’s lesson as a way to get new eyes on how teaching to see what we can do better. At our pre conference we both had a pretty basic idea about what we were going to teach, we just weren’t exactly sure how everything was going to play out and what we could incorporate that would also support our inquiry. We also talked about what we wanted each other to focus on and take notes on. Daniela wanted me to pay more attention to herself as a teacher because she wasn’t able to teach the class that her inquiry students were in. I wanted her to try and focus on the engagement in my focus students and the rest of the class as well. Both of our lessons ended up being after lunch, but luckily I had a substitute in my class that didn’t mind switching reading and writing.

After lunch, I went into Daniela’s classroom, and she began her lesson by having the students reflect and retell what happened in the prior articles that they’ve read about time travel. When the students had a basic review, she then had the students read a new time travel article that included well known movie references that probably would trigger the student’s interests. While they were reading the students were to write down on a sticky note so that they could use them for a class discussion when everyone was done. One of the suggestions that I gave Daniela was maybe reviewing with the students more specifically what she wanted them to write because I saw many of the students confused by the sticky note. When students finished reading they had a class discussion centered around students volunteering what they wrote on their sticky notes. I thought that her lesson went well and her students for the most part were well behaved.

Since I had introduced the interest journals to my class, I wanted to use them in this lesson. I felt it was appropriate to first do a mini lesson on what it means to critique and what a critique should include. I knew that my below level focus student was very much a visual learner so I wanted to incorporate art in the lesson in some way. After long consideration and collaboration with a friend, I decided that starting with a piece of art and having the students tell me what they liked about it, a question they have when they look at it, and a suggestion or something they might have done differently when they see the art. I had planned on using popsicle sticks to increase engagement, however, many of the students really wanted to contribute because they had their hand up so I felt bad ignoring them. As the art critique on Vincent Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” began I soon unrevealed a true passion in my below level student. His level of critique input was at an extremely high level and far past that of a fifth grader. My other two focus students weren’t as thrilled as this one was. Daniela had informed me later on that there were a couple of students in the rest of the class that were off task as well. When I was almost done reviewing the things I had asked the students, we were interrupted and had to go to the computer lab to take some sort of test. I was slightly disappointed, but I continued my lesson when we got back into the class. However, the students were very talkative and slightly distracted now. I finished the review and gave the students a pneumonic device that would help them with their critiques as they went to practice peer critiquing. I then had the students get up and walk around the room as music played and when I stopped the music the students were to stop and go to the nearest interest journal. Each student at the interest journal was to read what one of their peers had written and write their critique on a sticky note then stick it into the journal. After they had practice, I pulled popsicle sticks to have students come and choice an interest journal. During this, the students were really rowdy and I should have established a more strict expectation when it came to their behavior.

I think that next time I do a discussion, I will establish with the students in the beginning that I will be pulling popsicle sticks so that the same students aren’t always contributing. Additionally, I think that I should have walked around the classroom as the students were giving their discussion to keep a closer eye on each of the students and to have more ‘withitness’. As I looked through the sticky notes and the critiques in the journals most of the students seemed as though they did understand how to make an appropriate critique. When I conferenced with Daniela afterwards, she was just as surprised about my focus students interest in the art critique. She actually found it surprising that he was my below level student. She informed me that a few students weren’t to engaged, so I need to work on keeping student engagement and having higher expectations for the students. I think that after this lesson it did confirm my below levels interest and engagement link to art, and it also showed me that art may not be the most engaging or enjoyable thing for my other two focus students. Next time I would like to incorporate being outside or doing some sort of physical movement to see if this might create more of an enjoyable lesson for my students.