evaluation tool, it was a challenge to complete this process. My struggles came with
having a teacher who wasn’t aware of the expectations or requirements that is assumed
in this model. It was evident that proper professional development is needed for
teachers to understand the FfT process and understand what effective teaching looks
like and what is expected during the FfT process (Danielson, 2008). However, we
worked collaboratively and found the FfT to be powerful and helpful for improving
teaching and learning in the classroom.
The lesson observed used a few strategies of best practices learned throughout
this course. However, the use of more …show more content…
Teacher A’s use of explaining why the students’ situation was an example of
elapsed time is a best practice. This best practice involves higher level thinking and
being able to build connections with elapsed time to their real lives. This type of best
practices helps students make sense of the mathematical concept to make it useful and
more understandable to them (Zemelman, Daniels, & Hyde, 2012). Teacher A also
acknowledged during her post-observation conference, that she wants to redesign her
lesson to include opportunities for her students to engage in elapsed time with a real-life
situation. Teacher A realized that her struggling students needed a more hands-on
approach and not a worksheet to help engage their learning. Engaged learning builds
students’ knowledge and love for learning which keeps them wanting and asking for
more. The hands-on real life situations helps students make connections that transfer
into lifelong learners (Blankstein, …show more content…
Teacher A uses this documented list to
modify teaching and learning activities to improve student learning (Blankstein, 2013).
The documentation system is used during the creation of her differentiated exit slips and
TEACHER EVALUATION PROJECT 6
communicate who needs conferencing during independent work time. The creation of
the exit slip uses the data collected to determine what problems to create, what levels to
create the problems at, and who will receive which problems. The use of the
differentiated exit slips communicates to the teacher what and how much each student
is learning throughout the lesson (Zemelman, Daniels, & Hyde, 2012).
The pre and post conferences that were held with Teacher A were insightful and
informative. I would have missed crucial information on the knowledge Teacher A has of
her students, her planning abilities for day to day lessons, as well as, her holistic view of
the mathematics curriculum (Danielson, 2008). Plus, the conversations began to
become professional and build relational trust and Teacher A’s pedagogy. Teaching is