Teacher Observation Paper

Teacher Interview & Observation

Overview:

Create a brief paragraph and include in it: the date of the observation;, setting (K-5 school, high school, alternative school, private school, etc.); subject; grade level; and any other appropriate background information for:

Teacher A

On Friday, March 25, 2016, I interviewed and observed a mathematics teacher at Whitley County High School. This teacher is a freshman Algebra I teacher and has been teaching for 8 years. Prior to our meeting, I discussed with Teacher A that I would specifically be looking for literacy strategies and she suggested that particular date since the literacy strategies in that particular day’s lesson would be more obvious than they are in some typical math lessons.

During the lesson observed, students were participating in a formative assessment lesson. At one point the teacher recognized that one of the tasks to be completed used the word “simultaneously” and she asked students what it meant. One student responded that it meant at the same time, and she asked him to use it in a real-world scenario. The student replied that he could do his work in class and simultaneously talk to his buddies, Teacher A said “nice try!” She then had students simultaneously pat their head and rub their stomachs, which I thought was a good strategy to remember what the term means. Then students were given equations based on a scenario of buying notebooks and pens for school. In student groups, they had to interpret in written form what the equations represented and what various input data would mean in the real-world. At the end of the lesson, students were asked to identify one thing that they learned during the lesson and one thing that they would like to learn before the chapter’s