Teacher Observation

From the Star
So I went to school on Friday and talked to my principal about the conference that I had just attended on Silent Reading and Student Conferencing (which was fabulous by the way and very informational!) I can truly say that I learned a lot of great stuff and some great ideas for lessons. One of the lessons that I really liked which is one that I took with me and can be found on YouTube was the "Good Fit" lesson. This lesson was so great because they use something called an I PICK model. It teaches the students to look at books like shoes and finding a book to read for purpose instead of just because your friends are reading it or because you heard it's a good book. It not only finds books that have a purpose and an interest for the students but it also shows them how to choose a book that is appropriate for their level of reading without getting into all of the lexiles. If you want more on the lesson, the YouTube video is great.

So, I begin by telling my principal about all of the great resources and information that I got from the training. Then I go into telling her about the "Good Fit" lesson and how I am going to implement it in my class that day. She says, "Great let me know before you start because I want to come and see it." That would normally be okay if I had prepared for her to come and had time to get all of the kinks out of the lesson, but considering that I had just learned it, I was really putting myself out there. I don't know if some of you remember about my first pop-in lesson. I didn't feel prepared at all.

I prepped as much as possible and began my lesson. I was relieved and even a little impressed with how well the lesson went and how much the children really loved it. They were intrigued the whole time and really got into the lesson. In other words, it went great! The principal seemed to really like the lesson as well. I did get good feed back. So all in all it was a pretty good day.