- The document summarizes a student teacher's reflections on two English lessons taught during their teaching practicum. - For the first lesson, most students understood the content but some struggled with instructions or complexity. The teacher aims to improve time management and include a variety of activities for the second lesson. - Assessment showed whole class improved in speaking, though there was no written evidence. Two focus students showed different levels of progress, with one improving grammatical errors. - The teacher believes interactive speaking activities helped learning most. They aim to improve lesson variety and how instructions are explained going forward.

1. Universidad Católica de la Santísima Concepción
Facultad de Educación
Pedagogía en Educación Media en Inglés
“Instructional decision making”
Teaching experience 1
Carolina Rojas
Student: María Lagos
Concepción, November 2014

2. I. INSTRUCTIONAL DECISION MAKING
MDD Standard
 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, students react the same way that I have expected. Even though there
were some students that it was hard for them to understand the instructions
or the contents, at the end all of them were able to answer my questions and
fulfill the activities. In the tutorial there are different kind of students; some
of them are very enthusiastic and predisposed to learn, some others have a
low profile, they do not ask for doubts, so I, as “teacher”, play an important
role at the moment of guide them and clarify doubts even though if they do
not ask for help.
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.
My first class was not completely perfect, although students understand the
contents and practiced them, there were some problems related to the
amount of time, it was not enough time to do all the activities that I had
planned. Besides, I should prepare a variety of activities to be developed in

3. the class. If we always do the same activities students are going to get bored
and they are not going to see the class as a challenge as it should be.
Furthermore, I should implement the use of strategies in order to make
easier the teaching-learning process of my students.
3.3 Analysis of Learning Results
3.3.1 Whole Class: Use the assessment data you collected to draw conclusions
about the extent to which the whole class attained all learning goals.
Support all claims about student learning with observable data (e.g. student
writing, test results, specific student comments, or observed student
performances). Include samples of student work. (Attach these in the
appendix.)
My activities were mainly focused on speaking rather than writing or
grammar, so I do not have physical evidence to prove that they have achieve
their goals. But based on what I observed during my teaching practice
classes and the observation classes they have improved their skill, specially
speaking, they are not expert but they are motivated to speak and little by
little they are improving their performances.
3.3.2 Individuals: Select two students that represent different levels or kinds of
performance. Describe what these students learned in relation to two
significant learning goals, one of which must represent higher-level learning.
Use specific examples of the students' work including student writing, test
results, specific student comments, or your observations to draw
conclusions about the extent to which these students attained the learning
goals.

4. 3.3.2.1 Student 1: Sebastian Cabello
Sebastian is a very active student, he always pays attention in class, and he
always asks every doubt that can come up to his mind. My first class was
based on vocabulary related to weather and clothes, he did the activities, he
repeated when I asked him to do it. In that class where more controlled than
in my second class, and he has some problems with the use of the “s” in
third person singular when he described the kind of clothes that people wear
in different seasons. On the other hand, my second class the activities were
freer than the first one, so they have to produce a short description about
someone. In this activity he was able to produce the description without any
problem; he mastered the “s” in third person singular.
3.3.2.2 Student 2: Sebastian Varela
The first class that we worked in, he was not able to answer all the questions
that I asked him due to the lack of vocabulary and knowledge that he has. He
had grammatical problems at the moment of speak, he omitted the subjects.
Nevertheless, in the second class he was able to fulfill the speaking activity
describing the person without severe problems.
3.4 Impact of your instruction on Student Learning
3.4.1 Identify what you believe to be the instructional strategies and activities that
contributed most to student learning.
In my opinion the activities that contribute more to students learning were
the ones in which they were able to produce the language and interact with

5. others using the language rather than memorizing a grammatical rule. The
more they practice the easier will be for them to understand.
3.4.2 Explain how your teaching behaviors affected student learning. Consider
student response to explaining, giving directions, modeling, organizing
activities, leading discussions, the pacing of the lesson, and the overall
organization of the lesson.
On one hand, we as “teachers” must master the contents and the steps that
we will follow in the class; otherwise if we have not prepared the contents
students will learn something wrong. On the other hand, we have to deal with
students’ understanding, it could be possible that we have planned an
activity but the students were no able to complete it, so we must “improvise”
and look for another way to complete the task. This may occur due to a lack
of knowledge or vocabulary by the student.
Repeat same sequence of prompts for Lesson 2
4.1 Identify two concrete aspects of your lesson planning, assessments or
implementation of the lessons that you will do differently the next time you are
asked to plan and deliver instruction to a group of students.
Two aspects that I would like to change are the variety of activities
implemented in the classroom and the way that I have given the instructions.
First of all, after my teaching practice classes I realized that all the activities
that I had planned for the class were more or less the same. They were
mainly focused on the same skill or language system; afterwards I realized
that I should prepare a variety of activities in order to satisfy all the students’
needs in the classroom. Furthermore, I also would like to change the way in
which I gave the instructions, I never asked a student to model the
instruction or to explain it to his/her classmates. As we have seen ask to a

6. student to model the instruction is helpful for all the students because they
will see that all of them are able to answer the questions.
II. REFLECTION AND SELF – EVALUATION
MDD Standard
• The teacher candidate identifies the main things learned in this practicum and
ways in which this learning has informed their professional development needs,
reflecting on the meaning, values, and purposes that will orient his or her
professional life.
4.1 Reflect on the main things you have learned about teaching and how these
relate to your understanding of the profession and the values that guide your
work.
After my first teaching experience I realized that were many factors that I
forgot to apply, such as state the timing, make students interact among each
other, to name but two. But after my second class I learned that
improvisation is not an option, but we need to be able to find another
strategy to fulfill the activities if the students cannot complete it. I think that
the most important factor in the classroom are the learners.
4.2 Describe one or two areas of professional growth (e.g. instructional strategies,
content knowledge).
I am not very good at grammar, but as I had to correct my students’ mistakes
I become more aware of these mistakes and now is easier for me to find
them.