Mentee: Joseph Marszalek

Mentor: Lyzzette Grassi

Date: October 22, 2015

As students entered the room, they immediately began to follow their routine of
retrieving their personal binders and beginning their Do Now activity. As I walked
around the room, I noticed there were at least three different Do Now activities.
These activities were varied according to the ability of the students. While students
worked, Mr. Marszalek took the opportunity to speak with the two teacher aides in
the room and instructed them to work with various students. The teacher aides
reported to their assigned places in the room and students reported to their
assigned groups once the initial activity was completed. The class was focusing on
a short story. Mr. Marszalek led one group as each student took turns reading and
discussing the story. One aide led another group in a group read-aloud and a
discussion. Another aide led a group that was completing a lesson in a reading
program. Towards the end of the period, Mr. Marszalek assigned a short writing
assignment to his group and used this time to touch base with the other two groups.
He gave a cue to the aides to begin closure activities within their groups. Students
cleaned up their workstations and returned their binders to the shelf. Mr. Marszalek
walked around to write earned points in each students planner (point system is
part of the school-wide behavioral intervention program). During this interaction Mr.
Marszalek used a lot of praise.
The group that was observed is a behavioral group with each student having various
learning abilities. Mr. Marszalek is very good at understanding the students needs.
His differentiation of materials keeps all of the students focused, interested, and on
task. He fosters a very positive learning environment.

Mr. Marszaleks Language Arts Lesson:

history teacher

Adam Reap Middle/High School

I observed a lesson of Mr. Marszaleks in which he differentiated instruction to

match the ability levels of all the students in his classroom. One student was
assigned a Word of the Day as their Do Now. Two other students were assigned a
writing prompt that was related to the reading that the students were covering that
day. The last group of students were exposed to vocabulary / sight words, and
practiced tracing. In addition to that Mr. Marszalek was running an Edmark reading
program and a Milestones reading program. To finish the lesson Mr. Marszalek had
created multiple reinforcing activities to provide the students with as many
repetitions as possible to ensure learning was taking place.