Trey Thompson TIE535 Instructional Design AUSL Fall 2012 November 8, 2012 TPA Task 2: Instruction Commentary 1.

In the instruction seen in the clip(s), describe strategies you used to engage students in learning tasks to develop skills and strategies to comprehend or compose text. In this lesson I tried to use a variety of strategies to engage my students. As you can see in the video clip I try to use both verbal and non-verbal signals to get attention. There are points in the lesson where just a look or signal like one finger to my mouth was enough to get the students on point. At other times I used quick attention getters like show me position A to bring the focus of the students back on the lesson. There were also times that I used these signals on an individual or subgroup to increase engagement. These strategies provided a way to continually check for and ensure student engagement throughout the lesson. They are also the strategies and signals that we have been using since the start of year so they are familiar to the students and the students also know what the appropriate response is to the prompts used. I also used the strategy of think-pair-share to increase the engagement as well as accountability of all students. When the think-pair-share was over I used cold call, even though students raised their hands, to show students that they needed to be actively involved in the learning within the lesson. 2. Cite examples of language supports seen in the clip(s) to help your students understand that content and/or participate in literacy discourse central to the lesson. Throughout this lesson I tried to ask questions that would encourage the students to think deeper and more complexly about making test-to-self connections. I used thinking stems to provide language supports for my students. The graphic organizer gave the students a framework for thinking and speaking about self-to-text connections. These stems also allowed space for students to be stretched in the way that they think and speak. The students in my classroom have different levels or processing and language development and the structure provided within the graphic organizer was designed to meet the needs of all of the students. The support was provided for those who have lower levels of language development, but there was space for deeper thought and expression of those thoughts for some of my students have a high level of language development.

3. Describe strategies for eliciting student thinking and how your ongoing responses further their learning. Cite examples from the clip(s). Questioning within a lesson can be a powerful tool to increase student thinking and responses. I worked to ask questions that not only lead the students in the right direction, but also allowed them to take their thinking to the next level. At one point in the lesson on of my students said that Jamaica felt happy. Happy is a go to work for my students when asked to describe emotions, so I tried to push this student by asking why Jamaica felt happy. This question, though rather simple, required that the student provide justification for his thoughts. It encouraged him to think more deeply about the characters feelings. Another strategy that I used to increase thinking is providing think time. Often my students will raise their hand to answer a question without giving much thought to the answer. Telling my students to put their hands down and think puts the focus back on the questions and gives time for all students to think about the answer and respond appropriately. 4. Reflection The concept of text-to-self connections is one that can be hard for 3rd grade students because it requires the students to think about themselves in a transferable manner. Since 3rd grade is a benchmark year there is such a huge emphasis put into test preparation. We are always trying to encourage students to think deeply and to be able to verbalize and write their thought, but it often feels to me like we are telling the students how to think. In the lesson I tried to be conscious of this paradigm that we teach in. Re-watching the lesson and having some time to reflect I feel as though I was able to encourage independent thought, but know that this is an area that I can grow in. In order for lasting learning to take place the students must at some point in the process feel ownership over their ideas. I tried to accomplish this by really focusing on the students prior knowledge and experiences. Giving the students a chance to tps allows for meaningful thought and conversation to take place. This is a strategy that I am working to better incorporate into my daily lessons. I know that it is important that the students truly understand the format and purpose of this technique and I think that it might serve them well if I spend a little more time explicitly re-teaching the why and how of think pair share. If I was given the chance to do this lesson I think I would have spent more time on the self part of the connection. This presents a challenge because it requires great management techniques as well as a little more upfront planning. I also would have had the students copy the top of my anchor chart to engage more learning types. Doing this

would have allowed me to better me the needs of all of my students, while stretching other students who may need a push in writing and note taking skills.