INSTRUCTIONAL DECISION MAKING

MDD Standard 4 ­ 5 ∙ The teacher candidate makes adjustments to the lesson plans based on assessment data and pupils’ engagement, communicating the analysis and conclusions regarding the impact of instruction. 3.1 Student Response to Lesson 1: Did the student(s) respond in the ways

you had predicted? What do you think accounts for differences in student responses and learning? Consider motivation, management, understanding of instructions, complexity of task, and individualization to student ability.

Yes, they did it. Students’ response was according to what we had predicted, because they caught the idea of the activity immediately. Moreover, the knowledge that we supposed they had to know, “imperative structure of a sentence”, was really exposed by the students during the class. This fact did easier to work with the activities prepared, they were able to perform the requested dialogue as the final task, and all the previous control, and less control activities, such as complete a short dialogue (writing), and fulfill a worksheets specially design for the class by the teachers to be. Students’ response to the lesson was positive. In order to comprehend what of

all the areas, and components of a lesson help us to get this result, we analyze in detail our first lesson. Motivation of the students increased enormously when they realized that the story told by the teacher to be was about their own neighborhood. They were really enthusiastic to work on something familiar with them, and not with a different cultural­setting that they do not know. The 95% of the class was immediately motivated; however, the work with the other 5% was a little bit harder “2 Ss approx.”. We needed to give some minutes of special attention to them in order to engage them and involve them into the given activities. These 2 students were pointed out by the mentor teacher as who always are difficult to work with.

The highest point of the lesson, in opposition of our suppositions, was giving instructions. Students were able to understand instructions in English language, although it is true that the students’ English level was not appropriate for their grade (they are under of the required level) they comprehend with very little difficult the simple instructions given by the teachers to be. Very few of them “2 students” have an English level upper of the average of their classmates, they were a huge help at the moment of creating the dialogue. The complexity of the task was according to the level of our students, even

though some of them were under the average. That fact was our weakest part, during the lesson was complicated for us to adjust the lesson, and the planned activities to the students, who have a very basic level of English, and they were not able to complete all the tasks, successfully. Some of these students “4 approx.” do not know not even more than 5 words. So that, we need to put more effort trying to help them to comprehend how to perform the tasks, and

what they need to write in order to fulfill them. In that part and how we mentioned before the English higher­level students were crucial. “Management”, this is the last component checked. Because this is more

related to the teacher than the students themselves. The management displayed by the teachers to be was correct, this mean that they controlled the class, they got that all the students worked even who always had misbehavior. However, the management always can be improved, the timing manage was one of the point that needs to be enhanced, because some of the students took more time doing the worksheet that the teachers had planned. So that, they need to deal with this problem in a better way trying to know and plan for all the different abilities of the students into the classroom. Finally, to complete all the tasks was possible; however, some students were pressed to hurry up their work, and this is not beneficial for creating a good learning atmosphere. 3.2 Adjustments for Lesson 1: Describe how you will adjust your second lesson in response to your analysis above. Consider instructional strategies, the organization and content of the lesson, motivational strategies, preventative management strategies, procedural changes, materials, activities and assessment. Explain why you believe these adjustments will improve student learning. According to the previous analysis, the most important point to be corrected is “Management” in terms of time distribution. However, we have to take into consideration that the second lesson plan developed by the teachers to be was a 45 minutes lesson, so as the time was less, the teachers to be had to plan shorter activities in the three stages. To be able to achieve this goal, the second class planned was designed in order to be a reviewing and reinforcing class, where students could apply directly what they learnt in the previous class. To do this, the majority of the class time was devoted to the production stage in order to prevent students lack of time to do accomplish the final task, carrying out a brief review in the practice stage; moreover, in the presentation part, as the word says, the final activity was “indirectly” presented. Additionally, the context where the final production of the class was developed, teachers to be made a bit “underground survey” to detect what students like, so it was known by the teachers to be that the topic chosen was appealing to students. In these terms, we can say that this aspect was improved as well as the motivation, because students’ response was positive to the class prepared by the teachers to be and the time was distributed and used wisely. Students participated in the class giving the answers in the practice stage (review), they remember most of the vocabulary, so students felt comfortable and familiar with the topic in the second class. They were willing to do the final task, because they like drawing and painting, and also, because in this lesson other aspects were taken into account, such as students preferences, for instance, there are some students that do not like working in pair, so this class was designed for those students as the previous class was for the ones who like working in groups, so there is a

compensation there. this lesson gives students the opportunity to show their skills, and make them think that English is not only writing and reading, but also they can learn the language through painting and drawing too. In terms of giving instructions no changes were made, because they work well for the teachers to be in the first lesson, and in the second lesson instructions again were well comprehended by students. As a conclusion, is right to say that the teachers to be were able to carry out a good class in terms of management, instructions and motivation. Students could develop other abilities and they learnt English doing what they like, they can understand instructions in English, contrary to what the English teacher of the school thought, and finally, I have to say that knowing your students is essential when motivating them, because when they do things they like, they are more willing to participate and collaborate in the class, as a result, they learn better and more.