Department of Teacher Education & Learning Sciences

Elementary Education Program

Pre-Observation Form

Directions: This form is to be completed prior to every lesson that will be observed by the mentor
teacher or university supervisor. It is to be submitted no later than 3 business days prior to the actual
observation along with your lesson plans.

Name: Audrey Moore Date: 3/23/17

1. What is the topic of your lesson?

a. The harmful effects of bullying, and how the words you say can leave an
impact on people
b. This lesson will also cover how kindness goes a long way

2. Why are you teaching this lesson? What is your rationale for teaching it?
a. My rationale for teaching this lesson came from a suggestion from my
mentor teacher. She told me that she has been teaching for many years
now, and her biggest issue at the end of each school year is that students
start to get antsy towards the end of the year, and they can start being
rude or unkind to each other in the classroom. When I told her that I
wanted to implement a lesson that was relevant to the students lives, she
said that doing an activity on being kind or anti-bullying would be a great
reminder for her students.
b. I am also very passionate about the topic of bullying. I have experienced
firsthand how bullies can make you feel unimportant, and I want students
to understand this through the story I read and the activity I will have
students complete.

3. What is your Teaching Behavior Focus? Why did you choose this?
a. My focus is to provide clear directions, provide ample student response
opportunities, and making sure that when I do ask questions, I am leaving
proper wait time for students to answer questions (3+ seconds.) I chose
these things because if students dont receive clear directions, they will
not be prepared to do their best work. Additionally, I want students not only
to have time to respond, but also enough wait time to respond so that
students who take longer to formulate an answer will have a chance to
participate.

4. Why did you design your instruction in this lesson the way that you did? Why did
you choose this way of teaching the lesson (e.g., Was the idea from a methods
course? From your mentor teacher? Another source?)
a. I got the idea for this lesson from my past 2nd grade teacher. I remember
reading a book about bullying in that class and doing this same activity
with paper cutouts of people. That lesson was taught over 13 years ago,
 yet I still remember doing it, and how it made me feel. I had always been
taught to apologize to people, but doing the activity where you had to try to
smooth out crumples that represented harsh words made it concrete to
me that even if you apologize, words still leave an impact on people.
b. I chose to teach a lesson on anti-bullying by beginning with a story about
school girls because the girls in the story are around the same age as the
students in my class, and this makes the story more relevant to them. We
learned in our Social Justice Seminar class that choosing topics that are
relevant to students lived experiences will help them to connect more with
the content.
c. I chose to leave time for a discussion at the end so that all of the students
thoughts on this difficult topic can be processed. I wanted accommodate
as many learning preferences as I could in this lesson so that all students
could take something away from it. The paper cut outs will help students
who prefer hands-on learning, the reading of the story will help students
who prefer listening, and making the class chart at the end will help
those who prefer visuals. I learned about these learning preferences in
my science methods course.

5. As you are thinking through this lesson, what do you believe will be the most
challenging part of this lesson for you when you teach it? Why?
a. As I am planning this lesson, I am getting excited to teach it because I
think it will be a very powerful lesson. However, I am anticipating that
some students may share personal bullying stories, and I am hoping that I
will be able to discuss their answers in a respectful way, and keep all
additional student comments on topic.
b. It may also be challenging to make sure that all students are staying on
task with the paper cutout people, and not abusing that activity by
completely tearing them apart. I will have to make my expectations clear.

6. How will you know if your learning outcomes for the students are met
successfully?
a. I will know if students are able to discuss how characters actions affect
other characters or events in the story if they are able to talk about how
Maya is affected by Chloe choosing to exclude her, and also how Chloes
actions start to change once she sees how she has hurt Maya.
b. I will consider it successful if the class is able to engage in discussion
about both the effects of bullying in the story, as well as bullying in their
own school. I will analyze the responses that are generated for our class
list of How to prevent bullying, and assess whether or not students have
an understanding of kind and accepting behavior.
c. If students are able to answer questions about the story by referring
explicitly to parts of the text, I will say that the students have met that
standard.

7. How will your classroom management support the learning outcomes?

a. One of my learning outcomes is for students to be able to describe
characters in a story and explain how their actions contribute to the
sequence of events. More specifically, they will talk about the way
 characters bully/are bullied, and how it affects them. I will guide students
to reach this learning outcome by pausing during certain parts of the story
to make sure that students are paying attention to key events, and how
characters are feeling. I think that students will be more engaged in the
story if they anticipate that I will be asking questions throughout.
b. Another learning outcome that I would like students to meet is ask and
answer questions to demonstrate understanding of a text, referring
explicitly to the text for answers. I will guide students to meet this
standard by asking them to tell me what part of the story helped them to
come up with the answers they give. Doing this will cause students to
have to base their answers off of direct textual evidence, rather than
opinion.

c. Finally, I would like for students to be able to generate a list of ways that
bullying could be prevented in their school. I will help them do this by
having them sit on a common area on the carpet around them. By sitting
in this arrangement, students will be emulating a community, and they will
be in better position to hear each others ideas and comments when they
are closer together.

8. List 1-3 areas which you would like for your observer to pay particular attention.
Why do you want your observer to focus on these areas?
a. I want my observer to pay close attention to the way that I am asking
students questions, and if they are effective or not. I have marked specific
pages in the book where I would like to ask certain questions, but I would
like to make sure that I am acknowledging all student ideas, even if they
are not ones I had planned to discuss.
b. I want to know if I am doing well with management of the class. I think that
even if you have a very detailed lesson plan, none of that will matter if you
dont have your class under control. Students wont be able to pay
attention effectively if other students are being disruptive.

9. Is there anything else you would like your observer to know before the
observation?
a. I plan for this lesson to be for 20-30 minutes. I plan on implementing it
during Team Time.