Observation Example #6

Teacher: Marvin

Date: 11/1/11

Class Procedures

This was a Chemistry class with 11 students in it. Class started on time with you taking attendance and projecting slides about ionic bonds and ionic compounds. You wrote the homework on the board and all students got down to writing it in their planners. The baseball card game is clearly a motivator for students. At 2 minutes into class you collected the homework.

You mentioned what was done yesterday – valence electrons. In order for the students to come out of their morning “fog” as you want, I suggest you ask students to do something to show their recall of valence electrons. A brief starter problem involving valence electrons is a great way to get their neurons firing and will provide a ‘hook’ for them to attach new learning.

You then introduced the importance of paying attention to ionic bonds. The first slide connected this concept to the evaporation of seawater, and you read the slide text to students. A general connection to the salt compound was made. Students were asked to take notes without their computers, but Katie was on her computer and connected to a website not related to this task.

At 9 minutes in you began reviewing the valences of Na and Cl as a teaser. You then projected a video showing the reaction of sodium and chlorine. The students were shown that this combination is very reactive. The students were asked to explain this and Michelle was able to connect what she saw to the valences of Na and Cl. You explained that this is the process that results in more stability.

At 17 minutes in you continued modeling with the Octet Rule. Students are pretty good about taking notes as you presented on this, even Katie. Ji Hyun, however does not seem to be taking notes and his computer is open, but black. (You reminded students that these slides are on the class website.) As you presented, students are quiet and generally taking notes, though Katie is reading her website again. She is going back and forth between notes and what she is reading.

At 23 minutes in you moved to information about cations. Your slides are well done and your use of the Smartboard is well done. Ji Hyun now has the slides on his computer, but he is listening to you. Again students are quiet and generally attentive, but it is hard to know how many of them are processing and internalizing what you are presenting.

At 28 minutes in you made a connection to sodium streetlights. Then you moved on to presenting anions. Could you have broken up your presentation by having students do something to show you that they understand what cations are? This would be a logical place to break up the process of listening and would help with their attention. Presentation continued well but there were very few opportunities for students to respond to questions along the way.

At 35 minutes into class you summarized what cations and anions are. Again, this would be a place where you could stop to check for understanding of what cations and anions are with a guided practice activity. You then continued modeling by explaining what ionic compounds are. Ionic bonds were illustrated with the example of Neon and Argon.

At 43 minutes in you shifted to how to represent ionic bonds with dot structures. You modeled the transfer of a dot going from sodium to chlorine and the accompanying charge change.

At 45 minute in you now asked students to do a guided practice problem with potassium and bromine, but you modeled the dot structure for students on the board before they had a chance to do it on their own. This was not guided practice; it was modeling. After this you gave them one to do on their own, magnesium and sulfur. You called this independent practice, which it is as students are doing the whole process independently. You did start to circulate to check student work, but you ran out of time to check each student’s work so you went to the board and modeled for students how to draw this structure.

At 52 minutes in you projected another example of magnesium with 2 chlorines. With the remaining time you modeled calcium and iodine. Again, you are showing students as opposed to having them having to do it on their own. They did not really have to think about how to represent the change in valences here as you did that for them.

Summary

Marvin, this class was a direct teaching lesson on ionic bonds. I was impressed with the demeanor of the class. They were quiet and respectful and surprisingly attentive during your presentation. The modeling was very well organized, deliberate, and sequential. Your presence in the class is more confident and your pacing of the lesson was good and deliberate enough to serve the ESL students that you have.

In reviewing the components of direct teaching, you did do a link, but it could have been better if students actually had to do a valence problem that they learned yesterday. A reason for learning this was given (anticipatory set) but the connection to salt water evaporation was not connected to what students learned in this lesson. The modeling, though well done, lasted way beyond the 15-20 minutes that we use as a guideline for presenting information to students. There really was no guided practice, which should have been done in 2 steps (show me the dot structure and show me the change in charge). There was one independent practice problem, but you were not able to give all students feedback on whether they had done this correctly.

As we discussed, providing more opportunities for students to actually show you that they can do the work you want them to (more product oriented) would be a necessary revision for this lesson. I hope this helps! Thanks for having me in! - Peter