Part V: Reflection Commentary (A) Analyzing Student Learning:
• Discuss what the children appear(s) to understand well. What are areas of strength? What seems to motivate and
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intellectually engage the children? Cite specific examples.
• Describe how this lesson linked children’s prior learning and experiences with new learning.
• Discuss where the children continue to struggle, including any misunderstandings, errors, confusions or needs. Make
connections to the Standards & Objectives of your lesson. Make connections also to developmental theories and
research principles.
• Describe how you monitored and assessed the child’s learning progress.
o Consider your knowledge of each student.
o Consider the dialogue (feedback) you had with the child and how you helped the children make
interdisciplinary connections.
o Consider the dialogue children had with each other and how it supported language and literacy development. o Examine the child’s learning of academic language (vocabulary)
• What conclusions can you draw regarding individual learning?
• Describe your data collection procedures, i.e. anecdotal notes, checklists, etc.
• What do you learn from analyzing children’s work (audio tape, work samples – i.e. children’s constructions, drawings,
etc.)?
• Do not forget to make connections to your knowledge of Developmental Theories, Emergent Literacy.
• Justify changes utilizing principles of research and/or developmental theory.
(B) Using Assessment to Inform Instruction:
Reflect upon your experience teaching this lesson and consider what you learned about yourself. Analyze the effectiveness of your instruction and plan for your next steps.
• What worked to support the child’s learning?
• What did you learn from children’s responses to the lesson?
• What were they able to show about the lesson’s concepts? What did they learn?
• What about the children’s responses, interactions with the children, instruction, support or strategies worked well in
the lesson?
• What did not?
• Explain how your comments during the learning experience provided support (feedback) to deepen the children’s
thinking and learning. How does your feedback guide the children to understand their strengths and needs?
• Explain the extent to which children were able to use vocabulary to develop content understandings.
• What have you learned about your teaching, your children and their learning?
• If you could teach this lesson again, describe two or three things you would do differently to improve the learning of
the child based on the child’s varied needs and characteristics.
• Based on your experience teaching this lesson, explain why you believe these changes would make a difference in the
child’s learning?
• Explain your next steps based on this analysis of children’s active, multimodal, interdisciplinary learning. Explain how
your next steps relate to children’s needs, strengths, and interests. Support your explanation with principles from research and developmental theory. (Use citations from the readings conducted in class)
Make sure you provided citations for all research and theories. What six (6) connections do you make to the professional literature we studied in class? Please be sure to use citations in APA style. Please be sure to explain your connections to the citations. What did you learn from the lesson planning and commentary experience?
