Potential Post-Observation Prompts :: Reflecting on Your Classroom Experiences

The following represent IDEAS for issues that you may want to write about following your classroom observations and unit teaching experiences. They are intended to spark your thinking and help you process what is happening throughout your field placement. Please feel free to elaborate on specific questions or to consider multiple questions in your blog entries. Of course, if there are other issues you would like to consider and reflect on, please feel free to do so as well.

General Prompts:

• How would you describe the “climate” of the classroom today? Provide examples that support your description.
• What did the students learn today? How do you know?
• What did you learn about the students today? What elements of the lesson helped you learn this?
• How does today’s experience in the classroom reinforce / contradict / connect with your teaching metaphor?
• What transferable concepts were addressed in today’s lesson? How might these transfer to other disciplines or to students’ lives beyond school?
• What elements of today’s lesson remind you of your own schooling experiences? Explain.
• Discuss the instructional model used in today’s lesson. In what ways was it appropriate / effective? In what ways was it inappropriate / ineffective?
• How will today’s experiences in the classroom inform your future planning for this group of students?

Observational Prompts:

• How does what you observed in the classroom today reinforce / contradict / connect with what we have been reading about and discussing in class?
• What kind of assessment data was collected during class today? What does the teacher plan to do with this information?
• How does the lesson you observed today connect with students’ lives beyond school?
• If you were a student in the class, how would you describe what took place during class to someone else (a parent, a friend who missed school, etc.)?
• What management issues arose during class today? What can you learn from them?
• How might you have changed or adapted this lesson if you were teaching it to the same group of students? Why would you make these changes?
• How does the lesson you observed today reflect backward design on the part of the teacher?
  

Teaching Prompts:

• What diverse student needs did you consider in your planning to each this lesson?
• How did your assessment of prior student learning influence your lesson?
• How did you modify your plan and teaching to adjust to the unexpected?
• What resources did you use during today’s lesson? Were they effective? How do you know? What changes would you make to these resources if you were to teach the lesson again?
• What did you learn from your students today?
• What went particularly well today? Why do you think this is so?
• Time Machine! Imagine you can go back and make any changes before reteaching today’s lessons. What changes would you make, and why?