TIE535 Instructional Design

AUSL Fall 2012

TPA Task 2: Instruction Commentary Template

Caitlin Sherlock

Write a commentary of 2-4 single-spaced pages (including prompts) that address the

following prompts.

1. In the instruction seen in the clip(s), describe strategies you used to engage students

in learning tasks to develop skills and strategies to comprehend or compose text.

a. Cite examples of strategies aimed at engaging all your students and examples

aimed at engaging specific individuals or subgroups. If you described any of

these fully in the lesson plans or the planning commentary, just reference the

relevant description.

A strategy that was used to engage students in the learning task was

using the clarifying ideas strategy within the lesson (Video #1 00:08-00:35). The

students are familiar with the clarifying ideas strategy and recognize it as a

helpful reading strategy. The lesson was also structured as an I do (Video #1

6:30), we do (Video #2 3:06), you do (Video #2 7:10). Using the I do, we do, you

do strategy helps the students see examples before they are set off on your own.

This strategy helps the students become familiar with the material and

comfortable enough to do it on their own. Another strategy that was used during

this lesson was cold call. Cold call was used effectively when I asked Demarcus

to share his answer (Video #1 6:11), his group seemed to be getting off task so I

wanted to utilize the cold call to encourage them to get back on task.

b. How did these strategies reflect students’ academic or language development,

social/emotional development, or cultural and lived experiences?

The students have become very familiar with the language focused on the

clarifying ideas strategy. First of all, they are able to distinguish the clarifying

strategy from the others we have learned. The students are also familiar with the

work paraphrase, which is the last step of the strategy. In this clip, on of the

students had to help another out when I was looking for paraphrase as an

answer, but I think she was just a little confused about the question. Our students

are very reluctant to work with others, so they need practice with working in

groups and that is why we often enforce the “we do” so our students will become

more comfortable with working with others. It seems as if they were never taught

how to work with groups or ever involved in group work, but that is something we

are trying to change this year.

2. Cite examples of language supports seen in the clip(s) to help your students

understand that content and/or participate in literacy discourse central to the lesson.

a. How did these strategies reflect students’ varying language proficiencies and

promote their language development?

These strategies reflect students’ varying language proficiencies because

the I do, we do, you do strategy involved verbal, written, and projected directions

and notes. Having multiple sources during the lesson increases the students’

comprehension and decreases process time for some of our struggling students.

Also, the reinforcement of academic language such as paraphrase (Video #1

00:33) and important details continuously promote their language development

because the students become more comfortable using the terms and have more

confidence when applying them to their work. Also, in the lesson the students are

using prior knowledge of adverbs so they are able to understand the academic

language concerning grammar.

3. Describe strategies for eliciting student thinking and how your ongoing responses

further their learning. Cite examples from the clip(s).

A strategy that elicits student thinking in this clip is the I do, we do, you do

strategy that this lesson is structured as. Students first think along with me and we

complete the first section, then the students think in pairs to complete the second

section (Video #2 3:06), finally the students work independently (Video #2 7:10). My

ongoing responses, which takes place as narration (Video #2 4:10), helps the students

to stay on task while answering clarifying questions. It reinforces what the students

should be doing and giving those who are completing the task correctly some

recognition.

4. Reflection

a. Reflect on students’ learning of concepts and academic language as featured

in the video clip(s). Identify both successes and missed opportunities for

monitoring all students’ learning and for building their own understanding of skills

and strategies for comprehending and/or composing text.

This lesson was review for many of the students; however, I think this was

necessary to cover because the grammar performance in our class is very poor. I

think the students could have used more opportunities to write their own

sentences including adverbs. I also think identifying adverbs that don’t end “–ly”

would have been extremely useful. In addition, more narration would have been

more helpful for monitoring the students’ learning. Paraphrasing what they

learned was successful because it showed me that they comprehended what

they read about adverbs. Reinforcing the reading strategies are always helpful in

a lesson because they help the students clarify any ideas and transfer

knowledge.

b. If you could do it over, what might you have done to take advantage of missed

opportunities or to improve the learning of students with diverse learning needs

and characteristics?

If I could do it over I would have made the “you do” portion of the lesson

longer and more challenging. I think I could have offered extra credit for those

students who finished early, they enjoy extra credit it and it could have shown me

the students who really understand the concept. I think I would have

differentiated the worksheets as well (a high, medium, and a low). Some of the

tasks on the worksheet were too easy for some students, but then they were just

the right level for some of the other students. I would have pre-assigned pairs as

well. I think it would have been beneficial to have a high student work with a low

student and so on.