MTTC Training Observation Record
Course 1002 Fall, 2006
Thelia Lisle MTT | Debbie Birdsong MTT
Thelia Lisle, Teacher: I thought Kelly’s unit studying Dia de los Muertas (Day of the Dead) went great. The students spent time researching and discussing various celebrations that are unique to Mexican cultures and aren’t prevalent in the US. She talked to them about the cultural background behind the celebration and told them about the alter assignment.
Debbie Birdsong, Coach: I like this assignment showing students how other cultures celebrate holidays.
How are the students graded on the alters? She used a rubric. When she made the original assignment to construct the alter, she put the rubric on the overhead and discussed each point with them so they knew how they would be graded.
Were they told what kinds of objects to represent the person? No. Just that each artifact needed to represent something unique and special with regard to the person they were honoring.
How did they present the alters? They just brought them to class and set them up. Then each student took a digital photograph of their alter. They also had to type up a script to submit for approval where they described the person they were honoring and each artifact and elaborated on them.
Do all students present an alter? Yes. It is part of their grade.
Then how is the final presentation made? On presentation day, they just took turns going to the front of the room in front of the ITV camera and introducing themselves and putting their photo on the document camera. While the remote sites were looking at their alter, each student talked about why they chose to honor that person and elaborated on each artifact and what significance it held to that person. Each of Kelly’s students made individual presentation in this manner.
Debbie Birdsong, Teacher: Michelle’s class did a great job. The students really got into it and worked really hard on the movie trailors, She did find out that it would take much longer to locate the pictures and put the movies together than she originally anticipated though. She had to have individual coaching sessions with each group and help them to formulate and expand on their ideas.
Thelia Lisle, Coach: Did she have any problems with the technology? No not really, except that she needs more computers with Movie Maker loaded. I also think it may be helpful the next time she does this to create shared network folders for each group so that they can each save images or music files into that folder.
Did she allow enough time for research? No. She found that process to take longer than she’d expected. I don’t know if students were off task or just read slower than she expected or what.
Did they use a graphic organizer to plan out their video? She had them storyboard using Word. I think Inspiration might have worked better for her though.
How did her evaluation process go? She had check points and assigned due dates for the plan script and story boards to be evaluated. She just had to keep revising the dates.
The groups presented their movie trailers in the media center to other 7 th grade classes. Did they have a final evaluation? Were they evaluated on technology issues or design or originality or what (combination)? A final rubric was done on the presentation. The teams were graded on the process of discussion and the final product. Michelle also offered comments for elements she thought they did well and what needed to be improved.