Practicum Evaluation

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ESL_523N | Rationale Essay | Ada Berry | | Instructor: D. Imlay Hatcher | 7/10/2013 | | In my practicum I observed a fifth grade class who had a veteran teacher as the instructor. It was a 5th grade elementary school class at a Title One school. These students were in summer school because they had to make 5-2.1 SC standards improvements. The teacher took the lesson directly from the state standards and incorporated instructional implementations for ELLs. The students were preparing for the next school term that will start back in the latter part of August. The lesson was chosen because according to the state test results, the strand that the fifth grade students performed lowest on was ecosystems. Cells lay the foundation…show more content…
As she drew each structure, she labeled it and pronounced it out loud and told what its job is. Next, the teacher explained that animal cells and plants have some of the same structures but the plant cell had more than the animal cell. She then drew the animal cell on the Smart board and labeled it. The teacher allowed the students to associate each structure of the cell with something they already knew to help them recall each structure. When the students were unable to make a connection, the teacher gave them one. For example, she stated that vacuole stores food, waste and water for the cell. She associated that with a vacuum cleaner because the terms sound alike and waste, food and water are stored in the vacuum cleaner until they are disposed of. Mrs. Calvin informed the students that they would be placed into homogeneous groups of three and given a random cell structure to “act out”. They had to demonstrate what the structure does for the cell without using words. She gave them the scoring rubric and next fifteen minutes of class to prepare for their show. I liked that the teacher only went over the requirements for the highest scores available for each criteria because she only expected the best from her students. The students really enjoyed preparing for this…show more content…
She called students back to their seats and asked them questions about what they learned. She then stated the objective and summarized what they did to accomplish the objective. She directed the students’ attention to the bulletin board on the back wall. On it she had the plant and animal cell with each structure labeled in English and Spanish. As an exit ticket, Mrs. Calvin instructed the students to choose one structure; tell whether it was found on plant cell, animal cell, or both; and tell its function. The next day, Mrs. Calvin started the lesson by going over the objective and vocabulary with the students. Then the teacher reviewed the scoring rubric for the “Act it Out” project. She also gave the students the opportunity to share what they learned the day before. Next, the students went back to the groups that they formed the previous day to make final preparations for their performances. Each group was given three minutes to perform while the others watched quietly. If a group correctly guessed the cell structure that was acted out, that group received five bonus points. The teacher used the rubric to grade the group as they performed. The students had fun and correctly demonstrated the cell structures. At the end, constructive criticism and positive praises were
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