WHAT I TAUGHT FOR MY FORMAL OBSERVATION!

hey guys welcome back to my channel if you guys are new here my name is Jess I am a third grade teacher in Southern California and right now I am getting everything ready for my formal observation tomorrow this is my fourth year teaching and this is the first year since I have been tenured that I have to have a formal observation I don't know if it's different in your district but in my district your first two years you're on probation and your principal or AP will come and observe you three times a year where you have to submit a lesson plan template they come in and observe you for an hour and then you sit down afterwards and have like a formal meeting where they give you feedback we also do random walkthrough so my principal I forget how many she said she has to do it was a lot it was a lot I want to say like 10 or 12 a week that sounds like a lot now that I'm saying it out loud we have 30-something teachers on our campus I think 35 so pretty much at least once every two weeks you're gonna have a random walk through and then I don't know if you guys use progress advisor I'm looking at one right now but basically it's just a form that gets emailed to you where your principal can mark whether you met almost met or exceeded the district El Cap goals for each different standard and then they can give you little comments so those happen fairly frequently but they're just really quick like 5-10 minutes but the formal observations only happen your first two years three times and then after that you're tenured if they renew your contract and asked you back and then after that it's every other year once so I'm in my fourth year so I'm in the other year now where I have to get observed so my principal's gonna be coming in tomorrow during our math block for an hour so she's gonna be coming in from ten ten to eleven ten our math block is 10 to 11:30 so she's gonna be coming in right in the middle of me doing my lesson so I thought it would be fun and kind of interesting to talk to you guys about exactly what I'm gonna be doing for my lesson and then I also thought it would be interesting to wait to post it until after I have my sit-down meeting with my principal where she gives me my feedback and anything that I could have improved on and he praised anything like that and share with you guys what she thought so before I show you guys exactly what I'm gonna be doing for my lesson I want to talk to you guys a little bit about my philosophy about observations so my first two years I would pretty much be in a panic any time I was gonna be observed because it's just it's just different anyone who's a teacher knows when you're in front of kids I feel like I can be in a room of a thousand kids and I can put on the best show and be funny and engaging and entertaining or not judgmental they think you're funny and it's just not embarrassing but then the second an adult walks in the room I just get like clammy and sweaty and nervous and awkward and I feel stupid and it's the worst it doesn't even matter what adult it is it could be the nicest person in the world it's just that feeling of feeling like oh my gosh there's a thousand ways to teach there's a thousand ways to do this am i doing it right am i doing it the one wrong way so if you get nervous for observations you are definitely not alone and I posted something on Instagram this weekend as I was prepping for it and I was not nervous at all but now that it's tomorrow getting a little nervous I'm sure as soon as my principal walks in I'll be extremely nervous but its growth that I haven't been panicking for the last couple weeks so I'm gonna take that as a win one thing that I learned my first couple years that I want to share with you especially if you are in your first or second year you do not have to do something over the top at all in fact I wouldn't recommend it for two reasons one and you know this if you've tried it anytime that you do something that's different or that's exciting and fun your kids behavior is definitely not going to be what you want it to be or what you usually expect it to be because it's out of their routine it's different and they're excited so I made that mistake one time where I did like a really over-the-top lesson for an observation it did not go well the behavior was so bad and when I say so bad like my classroom management especially now is like on point so to have any kind of like deviation from that was really embarrassing to me and was just something I didn't expect so would not recommend that I'm totally not blaming the kids for it like it's something different they're excited it's fun and I think also they know that when there's another adult in the room like some of them try to show off for them so I don't want to set myself up for failure and create an environment that builds them up to have behavior problems so that's one reason why the second reason why I don't want to do some extravagant over-the-top less is because I want to get my principles honest genuine helpful feedback about the things that I do every single day so I want them to see what it looks like when we do a normal math lesson or a normal writing lesson or a normal ela lesson whatever it is because I want my principal to be able to give me pointers on things that I'm gonna be using often so for this observation I chose to do a math lesson from our curriculum so if you use engage New York or Zurn um we are gonna be doing the third grade module for lesson 10 so I'm just gonna show you guys the template that I'm using I'm gonna show you guys the Google slides that I took off of embark and then kind of tweaked a little bit to make my own and one activity that we're gonna be doing at this point I have zero idea how I'm gonna go so who knows this could be an awesome lesson or it could go terribly wrong but either way I will share it with you guys and what I learned from it so I'm gonna leave you guys around so I can show you the templates that I have and share with you my lesson okay so this is the form that we use I just have sticky notes covering my school name just so I can give myself a little bit of privacy but this form came from my assistant principal which I think they've updated it since but she gave me the go-ahead to just use this one since it's the one I already had and it's really not that detailed so at the top it just says teacher subject concentration and date after that you just put the state standard the learning target and success criteria an overview of the lesson and then anything that you'd like specific feedback on so the standard that we're going to be working on is measurement in data 0.7 relating area to the operations of multiplication and division so the learning target says I can use the distributive property to find the total area of a large rectangle by adding two products the success criteria says I will know I'm successful when I can find the total area of a large rectangle by adding the areas of the two smaller rectangles so what we were taught is the learning target is the actual standard broken down for students and then the success criteria is what they're being asked to do so they know if they understood the learning target or not so I'm gonna show you guys in a second but I'm gonna break down what this means for students with them so that they understand what they're supposed to be learning and this is something that we do every single day so they're totally used to that and then I'm not going to read over the overview with you guys I'm gonna hold it here for a second if you want to pause the video and read it you can but again I'm gonna show you guys my slide with my actual lesson on it that I'm gonna go over with students in front of my admin so you'll kind of get a better idea when you see it and instead of me just reading this to you and then I just went ahead and link to my google slide for my principal obviously it's printed out so that's not gonna be linked but it's linked for her when I shared it with her on Google Drive and then the last thing on the template just says when I'm being observed I would like specific feedback on and I just said anything you can think of to help me improve my craft there's not really any specific thing that I want feedback on in the past I think I've said classroom management and then strategies for engagement and I think at this point in my career my classroom management is pretty strong and I think also so is my engagement so I really just want to know what my principal thinks and just really anything that she thinks would be helpful to me so I don't know if that's a bad thing to write that I don't have anything specific that I want feedback on but I'm open and willing to hear any ideas and next I'm gonna walk you guys through my whole lesson that I'm gonna go through with my kids this screen is mostly blurred out so you can't see my students name but we use the Zurn model in our district so we have Chromebooks for each child so I pretty much get at each in a small group every single day from math I don't do it for ela because it's too complicated and I really need to be there to walk through it with them but for a math we use the Zurn model so half my class meets with me for a small group while the other half is working on this urn lesson and then we switch and then usually there's enough time to do some kind of extension activity or game which is what I'm going to show you afterwards if there's not then we just skip that part so that's why this screen is blurred out but I just put this here so that my kids know who's with me and who's supposed to be on Zurn that way I don't even have to speak it out loud they can just look at the screen and they know where to go so any little thing that I can do to save my voice and not save my voice in a way like oh my voice is gonna go out but you know how it goes when you talk all day long they just kind of start to tune you out so any opportunity that I can get to not talk at them I try to take so that's what I show first the next slide is our learning target and success criteria so we go over these every day I do the I say you say so I break it up into little chunks I'll start by saying I can and they'll repeat after me I can use the use the distributive property and so forth all the way to the end and as you can see this is a pretty lengthy learning target and there's a lot of big words so after we go over the learning target we always break it down so I'll tell students okay remember yesterday when we are working on the break apart and distribute strategy well that word in bold distributive property is why we're using that strategy so any time then asks you to use the distributive property we're gonna use the break apart and distribute do you remember what that means we have a little hand gesture I'll put it here when we're doing that break apart breaking apart and then distributing so that's just a little hand gesture that I used to remind them of what that means and we're gonna go over in depth a little bit later so then the next part I can use the distributive property to find the total area of a large rectangle by adding two products I'll do the total area you guys can't really see that a large rectangle by adding two products what is a product mean again oh yeah that's the answer to a multiplication sentence okay so we're going to use the break apart and distribute strategy to find the area hard rectangle by adding two answers to a multiplication sentence okay I'm going to know that I'm successful when I can find the total area of the large rectangle so for the learning target and success criteria I kind of playoff them if they seem to be understanding it and can explain it back to me then we'll move on if not I can have them turn and talk to a partner and try to break it down and then the kids who look to confuse I can go talk to them more one-on-one and then I try to keep a little note of them too I might even jot down a stick you know who looks like they're not getting it and then make sure that I'm checking in with them during the lesson so this is a big push in my district we've gotten a lot of training on learning target and success criteria and I know it's something that my admin is going to be looking for both at the beginning of the lesson at the end of the lesson and then also on the wall so I also have you guys are definitely not going to get from here but in these squares right here our learning targets one is math ones vocabulary one is the comprehension skill and one is the comprehension strategy and they change every single day so I always make sure that at the beginning of my lessons I always go over the learning target and success criteria and then at the end as well okay so the next thing is I found this little video of distributive property on YouTube I'm not gonna play if you guys actually because I think that is a copyright infringement but I will put the link down below it's one that I found that is engaging enough interesting it's short and it goes over in depth what it looks like to use the break apart and distribute strategy to solve a multiplication sentence so I just wrote a little reminder at the bottom after we watch that what is that strategy called that we use to solve problems using the distributive property and hopefully they will be able to tell me the break apart and distribute strategy because we are gonna use that next all right so we are gonna go over this part first with them so I said let's use the break apart and distribute strategy to solve seven times two so we are going to do this together I forgot to mention too that we are going to all be up there in the living room which is in front of the TV you guys probably can't see from here but there's a little futon and some little chairs that they can sit in and then everyone else will just be sitting around the room so when I say that we're going to do this together I'm gonna have this displayed and then we are gonna do it on the TV so I'm gonna be able to show them and solve it and they also have white boards and white board markers that they're going to use to walk through it with me so we'll solve that one together first and then they're going to try this one on their own we did do a lesson that was pretty closely tied to this one today we were just doing the distributive property and they've done this before too so we did this I think in unit one maybe two I can't remember now we're in unit 4 so it was quite a while ago so I'm glad that they did kind of a refresher lesson before we jumped into this lesson so Before we jump into how to find the area and breaking it into two chunks and using the distributive property on shapes I want to just make sure they have a good understanding of how to use it in general so we're gonna do one together then there try out on their own as they're trying it on their own I'm gonna be walking around checking in with kids who are looking like they're having a hard time I just wrote a little reminder down here it says remember circle the number you are going to break apart the other number gets distributed so I have them circle the number that they're gonna break apart so they'd circle the 9 and then they'd underline the 3 and I'm hoping this helps them to keep it separate because last year a lot of my kids they would break apart the 9 and then they would distribute the pieces from the 9 so one you're breaking apart the other one is going to be distributed to both number sentences so we're gonna do those two problems and then each of them is going to get this sheet that I just made which it's kind of hard to see in this lighting but this top part here is shaded so the reason that looks different from this is because this is the shape that was on our curriculum but they're supposed to be using square centimeter tiles to tile in each side length and then find the total side lengths but I don't have enough centimeter squares for all of them to use so I just added lines on PowerPoint and then you can see I added them on to the shape on here too so they're gonna get this shape and then they're going to trace each rectangle their fingers they're going to trace the large rectangle they're gonna trace the shaded rectangle and they're going to trace the unshaded rectangle and then it says what are the side links for the large rectangles so they're going to use the square tiles to count the side lengths and label them on the sheets so the next thing they're gonna do is find the area of the large rectangle and now that they have the side length and they can solve that on their right board then they're gonna use the square units to find the side lengths of the shaded rectangle and label them so just this piece they can label that on their paper now that I'm thinking about actually I'm kind of glad I'm filming this first that I can see any mistakes that I made so I think putting this in a sheet protector would be a good idea so when they're finding the side lengths of the entire rectangle they can write it right on there with dry erase marker and then when we're switching gears and finding the side links for just the shaded and then the unshaded rectangles they don't have those numbers already written on here to confuse them so I am going to be putting these in sheet protectors so super glad that I caught that before I was in the middle of my observation anyways so then they're gonna find these side lengths of the shaded rectangle and they're gonna write the multiplication expression that they're going to use to find the area okay then they're going to use the information that they just gathered for the shaded rectangle to help them find the side lengths for the unshaded rectangle one of the question says what side length do we already know for the unshaded rectangle so they're gonna already know this piece and then they're going to use the tiles to find the other side length for the unshaded rectangle and write the multiplication expression on their whiteboard they are gonna have both expressions that they use to find the shaded and unshaded and it says how can we use the two expression oh well let me fix that really quick that should say expressions again so glad I'm doing this ahead of time all right so how can we use the two expressions to help us find the total area of the large rectangle they're going to talk to a neighbor and then tell me oh we can add them and hopefully they make the connection from yesterday using the break apart in distribute that once we break it apart we're adding it back together so this is the same thing we have the total we broke it into two parts and we're going to add them together to find the total again okay then they're gonna write a number sentence to show how they would find the area of the large rectangle just solve it and then is this the same answer you got when you found the total area for the whole rectangle yes okay so what two numbers are we adding to show the length of the large rectangle so the length of the large rectangle is going to be five plus three what will you multiply to find the answer they're gonna multiply eight times six and then once they find the answer for this one that is actually going to be the end for them when I hit next it's gonna show the exit ticket but we're gonna do that at the very end I guess I forgot to show you guys to the lesson that we did today which was module four lesson nine was a really really good intro into what we're gonna be doing tomorrow for this lesson that I'm showing you on my observation because they had them take this template so they had to cut out this rectangle it was all one piece together they found the area for the entire rectangle and then they said how can they split this into two identical shapes which is funny too because one of our vocab words this week is identical for ela so they made that connection which is cool and they split them into two different shapes they found the two areas for each of these and they asked them if it changed depending on where we put the shape so does the area change when the shapes are like this does the area change if we make one long rectangle can we overlap them and so forth so I'm going to keep these with me tomorrow and then at the beginning of the lesson if it looks like they're struggling a little bit to make the connection between what we did yesterday and what we're gonna do today I'm gonna show them these and talk about how it relates to it so hopefully I won't need to pull these out but if I do I have them there just in case okay so once both groups have finished the small group lesson with me then I'll have them go back to their seats they're gonna put away their Chromebooks and there's er notes and they're gonna get out their whiteboard markers their whiteboard erasers and then they're gonna find a partner and each partner will get one of these grid papers it's actually like a grid poster dry erase which is really cool and it's giant so I don't if you guys can tell up on my hand here for comparison it's probably like a foot and a half by two feet it's pretty big I got these I think I want to say Oriental Trading I will look it up and let you guys know for sure and if I can find a link a link it these are the coolest and I've used these before with my class and they absolutely love them so if I can find the link for them I will share with you guys I just got them over the summer so they should still have them but basically what we're gonna do is we're gonna gather back as a whole group and we're gonna practice the skill we just learned about how to break apart a larger shape into two smaller shapes find the two areas and then add them together to find the total for the large rectangle so students are gonna be able to take this with their partner and say anywhere they want and around the room a lot of times when I do stuff like this the kids like to sit on the floor but they don't have to they can really sit wherever they want they love getting to do this too because most of the time when we're doing lessons the kids are up here and they're kind of like cramped together while we do a lesson so they like getting to spread out and be wherever they want because they don't have to see the TV they just have to be able to hear my voice and we're in a small portable so they can hear it from anywhere so I'm going to be calling out two different side lengths and they're gonna take their whiteboard marker they're going to draw the shape and they're gonna label the sitelinks then they're gonna write the multiplication sentence and then with their partner they're gonna figure out which number am i going to break apart which number am i going to distribute and they're gonna break apart the shape with our dry erase marker then they're gonna use the break apart and distribute strategy which we were just practicing in the small group lesson to find the area of the two smaller shapes that they made and then solve the area for the whole rectangle the larger rectangle we're gonna try that with a couple different ones so they're gonna do 8 times 7 and after they solve it I'm gonna have one that's taped up onto the board here too so I can show that and they can check their work then they're gonna do another one they're gonna do 12 times 4 6 times 9 and 9 times 13 and we're gonna see where we're at with the time depending on how much time we have left we might do some more we might cut it a little short because I also want them to do their exit ticket and I especially want them to do their exit ticket before my principal leaves because I want to go back over the learning talk I just said trigger to thought in me that I needed to add this slide before my exit ticket so that I could go over it with my students again to check in with them before we do the exit ticket so we're gonna go over the learning target again they were gonna self evaluate and they've done this before so we talked about four three two and one because we are a standards-based grading district so they understand what four is what a three is what a two isn't what a one is so we're gonna do a blind vote where they cover their eyes and then they show me the number of fingers based on how they feel their understanding is and then they are gonna do the exit ticket so this is the exit ticket from the actual engaged in New York but I just copied the shape and then I just changed the wording a little bit because I don't want them to do on a paper I want to add in a little bit of Technology and collaboration so they're going to use the distributive property to find the area of the two smaller rectangles then find the total of the large rectangle they're gonna solve that on their right board and then when they're done solving they are gonna go to Google classroom I have already posted a link to flip grade and we've used flipgrid several times so they are like pros at it by now and they're gonna record a video explaining how they got their answer and then when they're done they can submit it and then watch someone else's video and give them a glow or grosso a glow is them telling one of their classmates something that they really liked or something that they did well and then a grow is an area of improvement so if a student got the answer wrong or if a student feels that another student got the answer wrong then they can make a video giving them a grow in a nice way explaining to them where their mistakes were and how they should have solved it but we've talked several times about being kind and making sure that you're not making someone feel bad and talking to them how you would want someone to talk to you if you got the answer wrong so it's not to make anyone feel lesser than or feel dumb for getting the answer wrong and we always talk about too that everyone has different strengths so this might be really easy for you and really hard for someone else and the lesson that we do tomorrow might totally go over your head and someone else might totally nail it so we always want to be kind and even if someone gets it wrong it doesn't mean that they're not smart they just need a little bit extra help so let's give them that support and that help so that is what we've got going on for our lesson if we finish early I also link on the lesson template that I'm giving to my principal where is it if there's any time left over we'll be going over a few problems from the last standards mastery test on this slide so I linked it for her I just made a really quick google slide I'll show you hold on okay so I just made this slide we do standards mastery tests on already based on specific standards and they mirror the CASP test that the students are gonna have to take at the end of the year and they're very very challenging so like all of this that you see on the screen right now is one question so I just took this style of question from the standards mastery test and made my own questions to review with students so this is not directly from I ready this is just the type of questions that get asked that students have practiced with them is that when they get to the state test or even when they get to the standards mastery they understand what is being asked of them so like one thing that was really tricky for my kids with this was that there's so many correct answers so it says which number of sentences are true if six is in the blank most of them got this wrong on the first standards mastery that we took because they just picked a and then moved on a is true if you put six in the blank but on I ready all of these are clickable so you have to click which ones are right and you can click all of them if you believe all of them are true so it's not just like pick the one right answer and move on it's you have to solve every single one and there's multiple answers so I think this one I haven't lived it really quick but I think there's three that are right yeah so that's one thing that's really tricky the other thing that's really tricky is when the answer comes first so let me see if I included one like that I thought I did yeah so like these ones seven equals something divided by three oh that was hard for them because they're not used to the answer coming first it looks backwards to them they all understand what it's asking of them so if there's time then we're just going to be going over a couple of these questions which is something that we do anyways so trying to think if there's anything that I missed that I want to share with you guys and I'm also kind of trying to like prepare myself for I'm gonna miss anything tomorrow um I don't think so I think that's it so again I'm just doing a lesson that we would have done normally and I want to get my principles honest feedback on what she thought anything that I could have improved on anything that I could have added any suggestions that she has and yeah I'm I'm way way less nervous this time because I'm not doing something crazy different so I do have an idea of how it's gonna go because I know how it goes every single day so that's one thing that helps alleviate the nerves a little bit I think is because when I was doing like an over-the-top dog and pony show type lesson if you will I had no idea how it was gonna go because I'd never done it before it was just something totally random so this is a tried and true method that I know works with my students and the only thing I could think that would go wrong is if like all of them aren't understanding the concept but we did something very similar today that was building up to this lesson so I think I would have an idea if they just totally didn't get it so I'm actually kind of excited I feel like this is gonna be the first time that I'm able to get authentic feedback from my principal from a formal observation actually my principals never observed me formally my first years it was always my assistant principal and then they switched so this is the first time that she's gonna be doing a formal observation so that adds the pressure just a little bit but I'm excited to get her feedback and see what she thinks so like I mentioned before I not sure I don't remember since it was so long ago that I got observed I don't remember what the window is from when they have to meet with you after your observation I would assume it's fairly soon because like with students you want to give feedback as soon as possible so I'm assuming within like the next week maybe two weeks I'll sit down with my principal and be able to go over the lesson they always ask like how do you think it went what would you change so I'm gonna jot down some notes after she leaves tomorrow that way I'm prepared when I go into that conversation I already know some things that I want to talk about with her in case she asked those questions and if not then cool I'll just listen um but I will share with you guys the feedback that she gives me afterwards so you'll see that next yeah I guess that's oh that's my cue to go I guess that's my cue to stop talking you so I will there goes so the next time I see you guys I will know how my evaluation went and I will share with you guys and yeah I guess I'm just gonna put this on pause right now so I will see you after my lesson wish me luck oh it is Tuesday now and I had my observation earlier today so I thought it would be kind of interesting to just sit down and reflect with you guys about how everything went before I had a chance to meet with my principal so everything went really well there really wasn't a lot of room for things to go wrong because I was doing what we do every single day so the kids were used to it I was used to it I think this was a good lesson to do - although distributive property is really hard for kids it definitely helped that the lesson we did yesterday was a refresher from what we learned in module 2 so when they had it today it wasn't like I was hitting them with this brand new concept and they were just totally lost so the only thing that I feel like I kind of deviated from what I wanted to do was I spent way too long with the first group so I wanted to start our extension activity I like 10:50 we started our math block at 10:00 so I wanted to spend like 25 minutes with both groups I spent 40 minutes almost with the first group I got nervous I was talking too much and my kids were kind of nervous too because my principal was in here and she was sitting right next to all of them so I felt like none of them were like raising their hands or like sharing answers out and at one point I was stuff that I was like you guys mrs. viola is not here to judge you or like to make you feel nervous she just wants to see how awesome you guys are so share that with her and then they kind of loosened up a little bit but they weren't themselves and I get that because I wasn't either and I'm not when adults are in the classroom cuz it's awkward have someone just like watching you so I felt like I kind of had to like pull more out of them but luckily the second group went much quicker they seemed to get it a lot better so I ended up spending like almost 40 minutes with the first group and the second group I took about probably okay well we started that activity at like 11:10 which was a lot later than I wanted to so it took me about thirty minutes with the second group too so I think because I'm not used to someone watching me I felt like I had to like over explain things I don't know so that's the only thing that really I didn't love about how it went so she actually ended up leaving at 11:10 which is the time that she was supposed to leave but we started the activity at that time so she left right before we started that so she never got to see the extension activity or the flipgrid the exit ticket anything like that but it was in my observation notes so she knows that that is what was going to happen next if I had a feeling that she'll bring that up that that small group was way too long what else there was one point where one of the groups started to kind of get off track a little bit so I let one of the kids go up who was complaining that it was too easy I let him go up in front of the group and then solve one of the problems and he was being super silly and I feel like normally without an adult in the classroom I would have cut that off like I would have let him be a little silly and then I've been like alright it's time to get back on track like what's really been a little bit and then get them going but it feels kind of awkward to do things like that like to be a little bit more Stern with students and that's just something that I need to just get over because it was disruptive and I should have stopped it looking back now but I don't know I just got nervous and I didn't but other than that I couldn't be happier with how the lesson actually went because they really really grasped it and I was kind of nervous because last year this was one of the hardest concepts of teach using the break apart in distribute strategy to use the distributive property of multiplication and then apply that to area like my kids last year did not get that so I feel like we've hit it a lot harder this year and we've practiced a lot more and I've showed them a couple different things with it I've shown them videos we've practiced with partners they've got to be hands-on they've used centimeter tiles we've used a lot of different manipulatives with them and I feel like that's really helped so I feel like overall it went really well because the kids got it and they had fun with it and the group that was on Zurn both times were so focused where sometimes they can get a little bit distracted or they start watching what we're doing in the small group like especially if I play a video or something then some of them will start watching instead of paying attention to their computers so that didn't happen also a super proud of them I gave them a point for that I don't think I've talked to you guys about that I have like a little a little T chart up there where they have to beat me in points for the day and if they do then they get a game at the end of the day and they usually be me um trying to think if there was anything else that I would have done differently oh the paper that I showed you guys that I made that I put in the sheet protector I'm so glad I ended up putting that in the sheet protectors so I'm super glad that I filmed this because I wouldn't have put it in the sheet protector had I not filmed it to show you guys because I was kind of walking through like the process and the steps of what it was going to look like in my observation and it was perfect that was really nice and easy to do the large square first and find the side lengths in the area and then erase it and then do the shaded and then the unshaded so I'm really glad I put that in a sheet protector and yeah overall I'm just really happy with how it went and I'm happy that it's over so we'll see what my principal thought I will definitely be sharing with you guys any feedback that she gives me um I want to say when they do this they give us a forum gosh it's been so long since I've had an observation like my last one was in December of my second year and I'm in January of my fourth year so yeah it's been two years since I've had a formal observation so I'm pretty sure that I remember that they give you a form yes okay now that I'm thinking about I have a folder in my file cabinet so they give us a form that they type up and then they print out and go over it with us on all the different things that they noticed and all of their feedback so I will definitely be sharing that with you guys after I meet with her I have no idea when my meeting is with her so I hope soon so I can put this out for you guys cuz I know some of you guys were asking on Instagram if I could share what lesson I used for my observation so I'm super glad that I didn't end up using something that was kind of like the over the top extravagant lesson because I think that this was a lot more calm and there's a lot more part of our routine every day so the kids totally like totally nailed it so oh one thing that I want to share with you guys that I thought was cool that I know my principal noticed was when we were finding the area I didn't even put on the observation template that we were gonna be practicing multiplication with this good counting song but every time that we were finding the area we talked about okay if we're gonna do 8 times 6 and I don't know my eights what can I do to help me and they're like oh we can count the 8 song and then we would sing it together so we could get the answer and I loved that she got to see that because they were all on and they were all singing it so she knows that they have been practicing that several times and that they know that that's part of kind of our routine so I liked that was built-in and then one other thing is when I was letting students come up and solve problems on the board they were giving each other praise as they were doing it so after the person was done solving the problem a random student would shout out good job so and so and I never won also be like good job so and so and then that person would get to pick a celebration and then we'd all celebrate and cheer for them so I like that she got to see that too um trying to think if there's anything else that I want to share with you guys or anything else that happened that I could possibly share um I don't think so I think that's it so I'm gonna pause this here I will pick you guys back up whenever I have that meeting with her and go over what my principal thought and share her feedback with you guys so oh why does that keep happening every time I'm about to be done filming the lights turn off it's like there's a ghost in here who knows hey guys it is now a couple weeks later from the video that you just saw because I just had my meeting with my principal about my observation feedback and I wanted to take a second to sit down with you guys and share with you guys how it went this part is gonna be really quick because it went really well so I don't have a whole lot to share but I will tell you about how it went so I think I shared this part with you guys last time that there's like a form that the observer will fill out and one part of it has like like a dictation of exactly what you said or exactly what was done and it's really broken down so that anyone who's reading it would know exactly how the lesson went so any time we had any like little chant or cheers she put it in there um any like manipulatives that we're using she would say when we pulled it out what we did with them any time I had like a student go up to the board and share an answer she wrote that down so it was very detailed which was nice for me because it's been a couple weeks now so I don't even remember what the lesson was that I taught um I know now because we just talked about it but after that there's a section where it says suggestions and then there's like the L cup goals for the district um if you met them or not and any notes that the observer had so today was kind of a crazy day campus-wide apparently which I didn't realize until I got up to her office but today was a super crazy day for me so maybe there's just like something in the air right now at my school but my principal didn't have a chance to complete the rest of the forum so I don't have the forum to show you guys but that's okay because it wasn't filled out anyways and I can just tell you what it said so she had written down all the little notes about exactly what the lesson was and then if and she basically just told me that I did really well that she was really impressed she loves all the little chants and cheers that we did she loves the way that we build classroom community by having students as lift one another and I think I shared with you guys that we had the multiplication songs that the kids were singing and she loved that because she knows all of the kids so the upper grade levels like fourth and fifth she sees that as kids are progressing through they don't all know their multiplication songs so she loved that they all knew them she loved that the kids were the ones initiating the songs with the rest of the group so they knew when to start them the other kids picked up on when to join them we do have two student teachers that are on my campus right now that are with different teachers one is in fourth grade and one is in first grade and she actually asked if I would be willing to have them come into my classroom and observe me and teach them all of the little like celebrations and the songs and the things that we do that really help build that positive classroom community and that was just like so cool for me because what an honor for your boss to tell you like I trust you and I believe in you so much that I want to send other people to you so that they can see what you did and learn from you like that's so cool and so nice and just made me feel really good and especially after the day that I had to it was really nice to hear that because today I didn't feel like such an awesome teacher my kids were not listening to me and just going crazy and oh it was exhausting so that was really awesome to hear and just made me feel really good and appreciated and valued and seen and yeah just fill in all kinds of mushy and happy inside right now so I think part of my observations are so scary too is because in our classrooms all day long we're teaching right we're just with the kids there's no other adults in there usually unless you have like a para or something pair Mahlon tears or unless you're being observed so when you do have an adult come in the room all of a sudden there's this fear like wait this whole time have I been doing this wrong like is there something that I should be doing that I'm not doing or if I first saw something that I'm doing that I definitely shouldn't be doing and it feels like this like scary like role reversal thing where all of a sudden like you were the one in charge you were the confident one who's delivering lessons and you feel like your kids are learning but no one's watching you like you're in there by yourself and it feels like you're doing a good job most of the time I think but then when you're gonna have someone come in and judge whether or not you're doing a good job you're like wait am i doing a good job am i not doing a good job like all these fears start kind of like tumbling around in your head so I was just thinking about that and thinking that observations can be scary but it can also be super validating and I feel like that's kind of what I'm feeling right now like and I hope that doesn't come off the wrong way like I don't mean to you know be bragging about myself or be like yeah my observation was so awesome like I'm not trying to rub it in anyone's face I really genuinely just wanted to share this but I'm feeling really validated because I feel like I try really hard and I I think that I'm doing awesome things for my kids but to hear someone who knows what they're doing who's been doing this a lot longer than I have who has a lot more experience who watches other teachers all the time hearing them say you're doing the awesome job and I was really impressed it just feels so good so yeah I just wanted to share that little tidbit I'm sorry that this wasn't more helpful I wish that I had like some suggestions to share with you guys yeah I don't really have anything else to share I guess though um I'm gonna end this video here feels like it's ending on like kind of an awkward note but I hope that this was helpful for you guys in whatever way I hope you can take something from it thank you guys for watching and I will see you there soon for another video bye

Channel: Hello Miss Romeo

Views: 8,110

Rating: 4.9195981 out of 5

Keywords: teacher, third grade, third grade teacher, formal observation, lesson plan, lesson plan for observation, what to teach for an observation, how to teach math, how to teach a lesson, how to teach, my lesson plan, third grade lesson plan, math lesson plan

Id: G_BHGG4WU-I

Length: 40min 33sec (2433 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 21 2020