Sample Observation Scripting

Kate Quinlan

Principal Internship Fall 2020

10-23 9:30-10:10 preK observation

6 children (4 boys, 2 girls)

Zoom

Ms R has created a little classroom backdrop and is sitting on the floor to create a virtual carpet to make
more of a community classroom feel.

Start with morning routine.

S. say hello as they all llog in. Then “hello friends” song. Ms. R has a poster with “how are you feeling”
and asks kids to point to how they’re feeling.

-q s. doesn’t participate, another says “proud”. Ms. Riser says “como estas?” for one of them. One s.
says he’s “angry” but with a smile and Ms. Risner says “what? I don’t believe it. Then goes back to the
first s. and he points to “angry”.

“Can somebody ask me how I’m feeling?” S. ask and she says “I’m feeling happy…it’s going to be our first
Science Friday”

Warm up

Moves ball around and reviews positions “above” “down” “in front”

[some background noise from the different households]

“go, go go go find something you can use” “una pelota por favor” [kids go and come back with balls from
their house]

“We’re going to go super fast” they play the song with positional words. Ms R. and G. are modeling the
movements. Kids start to do the motions, the “inside/outside” words are confusing. But the “review”
section works.

[I don’t’ know about kids’ audio, but mine cuts in and out a bit]

Clear directions for transition “Now we are going to put our balls to the side, you don’t need them.”

Activity – Look inside the pumpkin

“Prediction is what we do when we make a guess….” Says they’re going to make a prediction together,
then asks s. to unmute themselves. Fatima is very engaged and says “Pra-dic-tion”.

We’re going to make a gues “que esta al dentro tu calabaza?” “Can you make a prediction?” Ms R
changes language based on s. to get them engaged in the lesson. All s. given opportunity to speak or
shrug

“One more question. What color is my pumpkin? what color is your pumpkin?” s. answer “What color
will be on the inside?” s. answer with predictions “Any other guesses?”

Move on for “The big reveal…count down 1, 2, 3, open it. What do you have inside your pumpkin?”
Discussion about the colors and inside, encourages touching and talking “they feel like butter, like
peanut butter and jelly” Ms. R holds the seeds up close to the camera and encourages them to look.

Discussion with a s. about what you can do with the seeds and what might happen. Adults are nearby
some kids, and can see hands helping s. explore the pumpkins. It looks like 1-2 of the s. may not have
pumpkins.

Ms. R models planting seeds in a pot with dirt and the seeds. S. discuss the process. Access prior
knowledge from other plant experiment, first seed, then water so it will grow…

Wrap up

“Does anyone want to say anything about your pumpkins before we say goodbye to each other?” No
one has anything to say, Ms. R says they might be able to cook the seeds and eat them, s. remember
seeds from class. One says “I didn’t like it”

Shows dirty hands, “Look what happens on science Friday”

On Monday we’ll look and see if our seeds grow. Remember you need dirt, water and sun.

Wrap-up routine with another “how do you feel” poster. There are a few options for how to say
goodbye (butterflies, bears, waving, etc.). Each child is recognized specially after saying how they want
to say goodbye.

Goodbye song with motions that they all sing together.

One of the s. doesn’t know how to turn off Zoom so Ms. R asks him to get his sister or adult to help, and
he calls for his sister who then comes.

Observation Thoughts

Excellent community building and developmentally appropriate activities, language and engagement.
10-29 9:00-9:45 Classroom Observation – 3rd Grade (15 students, 5 have cameras off)

Beginning 9:00-9:20

Starts by greeting all students and giving them a chance to speak about their morning. Starts lesson with
morning warm up review, PDF with about 4 problems

Asks question about “Standard Form” and ask says “raise your hand if you can tell me”. S. gives wrong
answer, and probes with some other questions to elicit the right answer. S says “writing”, and Mr. T says
“these are words”. Asks s. to send answers in the chat, and thanks s. by name.

Most s. get the information and Mr. T. says that s. showed that the review shows that he doesn’t need
to re-teach. Moves on to another question “about how long is the pencil”, again s. send answer in the
chat and he thanks s. by name.

(Some s. are wiggling around some in front of the screen after they answer Jaime has a transformer)

Reviews answers and says that some s. said it was 8 inches and others said 8 feet. Stops screenshare and
asks s. to show with hands about how big and inch an foot are, connects this to the question to show
which is. Asks s. about how tall they are and sone says “8 feet” one says “10 feet”, they’re confusing age
with height. Mr. T. says he’s 5 feet 4 inches. Discusses this and all the s. are wrong. “It’s a good thing
we’re going to be doing some measurements later this quarter, guys…most of you are about 4 feet tall.”

Brings it back to the worksheet “I have never seen a pencil that is 8 feet tall….it would be taller than all
of us”

[would be helpful to have measurement tools like rulers or paperclips to help show length even if the
screen distorts the size]

Word problem “what are the clues in the word problem that tell me what operation I need to use?”
(Can’t tell if s. are reading, but when Mr. T asks a student is able to say it’s subtracting and explain why)
Asks s. to solve the problem an put answers in the chat, when s. get answers wrong he re-directs specific
students with tips to correct errors.

(5 have cameras off, Mr. T. says, “Make sure those cameras are on, the cameras should be on while
we’re in Zoom.” 4 cameras are still off.)

“Those reviews are a great opportunity for you to practice those skills and for me to see what we still
need a little practice on”

Transition 9:20-9:25

“What are the main things we’ve been working on?” S. says Division, time [Mr. T says, multiplication]
Another s. says time, not multiplication. Mr. T. Calls s. by name, and s. has trouble expressing clearly but
Mr. T. says some other things like word problems.

“Today we’re going to do something different with word problems today. Who would like to read our
first objective?” S. volunteer to read
“We’ll be creating word problems on our own, do you remember what the word problems are about?”

Main Lesson

Skip counting 9:25-9:38

“First we have our fluency competition. What do you have to do as part of the Fluency competition?” S.
answers correctly about counting by 5 up to 60. Directions are for s. to beat Mr. T’s time from yesterday
(10.2 seconds)

S. are given one minute to practice and most of them are counting (mouths moving). (Some are not and
4 cameras are still off)

Calls individual s. to go one at a time. First s. does it in 5.8 seconds and Mr. T says “Oh my goodness, we
have a new record to beat” Calls other s. and he skips some numbers to Mr. T asks him to practice and
then try again. Pretty much all s. have the chance to go, some with more success, others repeating. (Mr.
T. is recording all s. progress)

“We are out of time for fluency for today, but I’m going to keep this list and we can try again for
tomorrow”

Word Problems 9:39-10:00

Pulls up images of Padlet and ask s. to raise hand and tell something about Padlet, some s. do raise
hands. Then moves to give instructions about typing Halloween word problems, gives instructions and
provides a chart of key words to use in a word problem.

[might be helpful if Mr. T did a shared writing to model how to write a math problem]

“The Zoom will be open and I am happy to help you guys, just let me know if you need help with it. You
can go ahead and open Padlet and start working.” (most s. with videos on do appear to be opening
Clever to find Padlet. There are 7 cameras off)

Mr. T. seems to be able to see s. working on Padlet and answer s. questions as they go about how to use
Padlet, spelling, etc.

[when s. unmute there is a lot of background noise, it’s a hard situation for s. to learn and concentrate]

To one s: “I like what you’ve got so far, but I want to see if you can make that into a 3 rd grade word
problem, can you make that a little bit more challenging?”
After 13 min Benecia asks “What are we supposed to do?” Mr. T. is very patient and friendly with all
students. For students who finish before others, Mr. T asks them to make another one with a different
operation.

Transition warning “Ladies and gentlemen, you have about 3 more minutes to work now” Still asking
some s. to start questions (Diego) and gives some feedback to s. to make some changes.

Closing 10:00-10:02

Asks s. to “Come back in” to Zoom room. “Ladies and gentlemen so far those word problems look
awesome” and gives specific compliments, says he’ll give time this afternoon to work on a few more and
finish incomplete ones.

Tomorrow as a class they’ll solve the word problems.

Time for Mr. M’s PE class, so Mr. T reviews the rules for the PE time. S. reply with rules.