Psych Observation Reflection

For this observation, I watched my mentor teacher, Mrs. King. I observed a really interesting math lesson. Mrs. King was introducing polygons to the students. They had a class discussion about what polygons were. She had different shapes on the board and the students had to sort through them and figure out what a polygon actually was. The really fun activity was that the students would get to do a picture scavenger hunt around the school looking for different polygons.
During this lesson, I saw many strategies that we have talked about in class. Behaviorism was one of the theories that we have studied that I saw in place. For this activity that I observed, Mrs. King told the students that if they paid attention, listened, and participated in the discussion that we would do a really fun activity. This really motivated the students, a good example of extrinsic motivation. The students were really engaged during the class discussion on polygons. You could tell they really wanted to do the “fun activity”. During the class discussion, the teacher really applied Bloom’s taxonomy. She asked the students simply recall questions to see if the students really remembered the knowledge they just gained. She also asked more critical thinking questions to really see that the students understood what was being taught. The students had to apply their new-found knowledge in order to identify and evaluate the different shapes and categorize them according to if they were polygons or not.
The principles were effectively implemented. The students were engaged and Bloom’s taxonomy was reached. The teacher made sure to ask questions that both required recall of information and critical thinking. She also had activities that allowed students to apply the knowledge they just learned. They had to analyze and evaluate different shapes and place them into categories of polygons or not. The Behaviorism was effectively implemented because activity was meant to increase a certain behavior, the behavior of participating in class.
I think the way she taught is similar to the way I teach. I always try to provide students with different types of questions so that I can see if they can remember the information as well as really understand it. I always provide activities for my students to do so that they can apply what we have just discussed. This is extremely important. Students need to be able to apply their knowledge so that they can see what they may not understand.
The behavior of the students was interesting. They loved the activity as well as class discussion. They were all extremely engaged, and I think that is because they got to apply their knowledge. Because they were so engaged, I could tell that they were really trying hard to understand what polygons were and how to classify them. They all did a great job and got to do the picture scavenger hunt which allowed them to apply their knowledge even further.