Cassey Jones

Instructional Decisions
Date
Thursday,
5/12/2016

Lesson Description

Instructional Decisions

Class 2 Phonics, 40
minutes
Lesson: The students will be
introduced to the sp- sound
and words that begin with
sp-. They will see pictures of
words that begin with sp-,
and beneath the picture will
be the word with sp- missing.
For example, the word spider.
The teacher will draw a
picture of a spider and
beneath the picture write
___ider. The students will then
fill in the missing sp- sound.
Then, the students will be
shown pictures of things that
begin with the sp- sound.
They will match the pictures
to the word written on the
chalkboard.
Next, the students will
pronounce a list of sp- words.
Then, the students will use
the words to complete fill-inthe-blank sentences, by
choosing the sp- word from

1. This was my first day teaching in this class. I had not yet
taught students younger than 9 or 10 years old in Arusha. I
immediately knew that I needed to speak more slowly and
clearly. There was a clear language barrier between myself
and my students.
2. Some of the students were confused by the words that they
were selecting to complete the sentences. The words that
they were selecting did not make much sense. I thought,
maybe I had not explained how to select a word so that the
sentence made sense, so I modeled once more. This time, I
told the students to choose each word from the word list and
read the sentence using each word to fill in the blank. This
helped them to compare how one sentence sounded
compared to another.
3. The students were supposed to complete the fill-in-the-blank
sentences individually, but I knew they were having trouble
selecting the correct word. Instead, I decided to complete the
sentences together as a class. Students volunteered to come
to the chalkboard and write their answer on the board.

the list that will make the

sentence make the most
sense.

Friday,
5/13/2016

Class 5 Mathematics, 20
minutes
Lesson: The students will
practice how to interpret
word problems that require
multiplying a whole number
by a fraction. Students will
use a clock model to model
1/3 and 1/4 of an hour.
Homework: Students will
choose six of the 30 problems
from the exercise in their
textbook on multiplying a
whole number by a fraction.
They must explain why they
chose the problems they did.
I chose this as homework
because my students were
very comfortable doing the
exercises where they needed
to use the algorithm to
multiply a whole number by a
fraction. I was interested in
which problems they would
choose to solve and why they
would choose those six.

1. Since the first period is shortened by about 10 minutes due

to students settling in in the morning, I decided to begin by
explaining the homework immediately after reviewing
classroom rules. I wanted to be sure that students would
understand what I was asking them to do for their homework,
because I had not explained it well enough in the days prior.
2. While explaining the homework, the students seemed
confused on what I was asking them to do. Even though I was
short on time, I decided to spend class time working on
strategies for choosing non story problems, because it would
help them to better understand their homework. For
example, "I notice that 4/8 is equivalent to 1/2, so I know I
need 1/2 of the whole number."
3. Since I had not planned on teaching the strategies for their
homework to be completed, I had to think through the lesson
on the spot. After sharing some strategies, one mentioned
above, I gave the students three problems to choose from.
They needed to choose one to solve in class right then. I
walked around the class looking or understanding and
misunderstandings.

Thursday,
5/19/2016

Tuesday,
5/24/2016

Class 2 Grammar, 40
minutes
Lesson: The students will be
introduced to the following
capitalization rules: the first
letter of a sentence is always
capitalized, and the first letter
of the name of a person or
place is always capitalized.
The teacher will provide
examples of sentences that
have capitalization mistakes.
The teacher will reference the
rules to correct the mistakes
in the sentence. Students will
practice correcting sentences
with capitalization mistakes
on their own in their exercise
book.
Class 2 Phonics, 40
minutes
Lesson: The students will be
introduced to the gl- sound
and words that begin with gl-.
They will see pictures of
words that begin with gl-, and
beneath the picture will be
the word with gl- missing. For
example, the word globe. The
teacher will draw a picture of
a globe and beneath the
picture write ___obe. The
students will then fill in the

1. The classroom teacher wanted me to tell the students the

capitalization rules, to model one sentence, and to let the
students practice correcting the sentences on their own. She
wanted the rules written the same as they were written in
the text book. The second rule was written as follows, "The
first letter of the name of a person or place is always
capitalized." I thought that the students would be able to
understand the rules better if they were written as two
separate rules. I wrote the second rule as two new rules. 1)
The first letter of the name of a person is always capitalized.
2) The first letter of the name of a place is always capitalized.
2. After modeling one problem for the students, I was walking
around the classroom checking for student understanding. I
noticed that many of the students were capitalizing the
whole name of a person or a place. I decided to continue to
model two more sentences, emphasizing that it is only the
first letter that we capitalize.
1. I did not want the students to draw the pictures that were on
the chalkboard. I only wanted to discuss adding gl- to the
incomplete word beneath the picture to find the full word.
The students are so used to always writing exactly what they
see on the chalkboard, that they asked me many times if
they needed to draw the pictures and write the words below.
I eventually needed to erase the pictures that were on the
board when they began writing sentences. I wish that I would
not have had to erase the board, but it was too distracting to
their learning.
2. The teacher did not return in time for the end of the period.
The next period was Kiswahili. To practice Kiswahili, I wrote
some of the words that we had been working with in phonics
(sk-, sp-, and gl-). Then, the students would pronounce and

Thursday,
5/26/2016

missing gl- sound.

Next, the students will
pronounce a list of gl- words.
Then, the students will use
the words to complete fill-inthe-blank sentences, by
choosing the gl- word from
the list that will make the
sentence make the most
sense.
Class 5 English, 40
minutes
Lesson: The students will
receive letters from a third
grade class in Michigan. They
will begin by reading the
letter with a partner. Next,
the teacher will demonstrate
the proper format for writing
an informal letter to a pen
pal. The students will work to
write a first draft of the letter
they will send to their pen pal
in Michigan.

spell the word in Kiswahili.

1. I had planned to distribute a letter to groups of students. I

had 28 letters to distribute, and almost 60 students in my
class. I thought it would be better to choose the four most
informative pen pal letters and to read them to my class. This
way they could ask me questions and I could explain a bit
more of what the students had written. I also thought they
may have a difficult time reading some of the letters because
of handwriting and grammar.
2. After explaining how to write an informal letter to a pen pal, I
thought it would be a good idea to brainstorm some different
questions, or things the students wanted to learn from their
pen pals. We spent time coming up with a list of things they
were curious about.
3. I was going to randomly assign who each students' pen pal
was. Then, as I was writing the third graders' names on the
board, one student asked if their pen pal was a boy or a girl. I
remembered that the girls in my class in Michigan wanted to
write letters to girls, and the boys wanted to write letters to
boys. I thought the students here may want to do the same. I
asked them, and sure enough, the girls wanted to write
letters to girls, and the boys wanted to write letters to boys. I
knew that if they were more comfortable with who they were
writing to, they would want to write more.

Monday,
5/30/2016

Class 5 Mathematics, 1
hour and 20 minutes
Lesson: Review of different
ideas we have discussed
during the past three weeks
including, whole number
multiplied by a fraction,
fraction multiplied by a
fraction, and drawing models.
The students separated into
two different teams. There
were originally 9 problems,
then I added equivalent
fractions as a category, and
there were 12 problems. Each
team had to solve every
problem, in case the other
got the problem incorrect,
then they could steal the
question and earn the points.

1. For drawing models, the students were given a fraction, and

they had to draw any type of model to represent the fraction.
I asked the students for an example, and no one volunteered.
2. We had briefly discussed equivalent fractions. I knew from
another teacher that the students had previously learned
about equivalent fractions. At the last minute, I wanted to
add the topic to our review because I knew that they needed
to active what they had previously learned. I thought
Jeopardy would be the perfect time for this.
3. For the first round, the team would read their answer, and
give a short explanation of how they found their answer. In
the second round, I decided to add a bonus of 50 points if the
students came up to the board to show how they found their
answer. This helped the other students to see how they were
solving the problems.

Management/General Decisions
1. I had three different strategies for gathering the students' attention when we needed to come back
together as group. Whenever one strategy seemed to not be working too effectively one day, I would
switch to another.
2. In my Class 5 class, there were two students who have albinism. I knew that people with albinism often
have visual impairments as well. I was conscious of this during each lesson and knew that when using
colored chalk, I had to be careful of which colors I used. I made sure to use brighter colors. Once I
became conscious of this, I no longer noticed my students with albinism having problems with reading
what was on the board.

3. In my Class 2 class, the children were very young, and this contributed to a larger language barrier. I
knew that I needed to speak more slowly, and more simply to help my students better understand. By
speaking more simply, I mean saying as little as I needed to to help them understand. I needed clear,
short definitions and words to help them as well.
4. In my Class 2 class, I used a lot of "repeat after me". I was teaching phonics and English/grammar in this
class, so it was very important that they practice speaking, as well as reading and writing.
5. In my school, the students remain in their classroom and the teachers rotate for each subject. Whenever
I taught the first period of the day, I would wait outside of the classroom door and greet each student
with a high-five as they entered.
6. In Class 5, I was the sole teacher for the duration of my time in Arusha. I knew that I needed to establish
classroom rules the first day in order for the remainder of the time to be productive. Each morning I
would write the rules on the chalkboard. The first thing the class would do in the morning was read the
rules aloud together.
7. The teachers at the school would let students use the bathroom whenever they needed. I would only let
two students use the bathroom at a time. It was difficult with nearly 60 students to keep track of when
two were using the bathroom.
8. The noises created by students' metal desks and chairs scratching against the concrete was very
distracting. On my first day teaching, I told the students that they were to remain in their seat unless
told to do otherwise. This helped a great deal to eliminate the noises/distractions.