Observations on Classroom Teaching

This week I taught three sample lessons at an elementary school: 5th grade, Inferences; 3rd grade, Main Idea and Supporting Details in Expository text; and kindergarten, Words beginning with the “S” sound. After finishing each of the lessons, I had teachers come up to me and say various positive comments such as: “This was the most helpful example of Explicit Direct Instruction practices I have ever seen. I wish I could observe more.”

Another teacher in 5th grade said to me, “I now know how to TAPPLE [a DataWORKS Checking for Understanding strategy] effectively and to include cognitive strategies so students remember.”

When I walked out of the third grade class, several students walked past me saying, “Mr. Federico, that was a fun class. I never learned so much.” Other students said that “we were so busy that we didn’t have time to be bored.” One student asked me if I could come back and teach again because “I asked a lot of good questions”.

One teacher told me that when I randomly selected an English Learner student to answer a question, she was amazed that he answered his first ever question in English.  Previously, he was so shy that he only whispered his answers in Spanish to the aide.  When he was selected a second time, he also answered correctly in English.

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