Danielson Model At Louis E. Dieruff High School

Charlotte Danielson developed a system, the Danielson’s Framework for Teaching, which guides the way many teachers are observed in terms of their instructional planning and delivery. The classroom of a high school mathematics teacher, Mrs. Park, at Louis E. Dieruff High School will serve as the subject for a classroom evaluation based on the four domains of the Danielson’s model. The analysis of each of the domains will be based on observations and reflections.
Domain 1 A variety of resources are used throughout Mrs. Park’s instruction. She utilizes the resources that accompany the students’ workbook. The workbook provides many templates for card sorting activities. Study Island is also used for diagnostic testing, benchmarks, and practice.
Park’s Keystone affiliated classes are prescribed by the school district. The lesson plans are provided from Agile Mind, a program that designs mathematics and science related instructional materials to promote 21st century skills and job-related qualities. The lessons are divided into sections including a lesson opener, a core activity, consolidation activity, and homework, following an indirect instructional approach. The opener often ties previously learned material into a new situation, where a new concept makes it easier to approach the problem. Then, Mrs. Park creates a discussion from the opener, which transitions the class into the next topic. The formal introduction is supplemented with a few examples from the core activity. The students then complete a few examples with the teacher to ensure understanding. Then, the students either work independently or in a small group to complete the rest of the
Mrs. Park utilizes formative assessment techniques such as observations of her students’ thought processes and activity performance and mid-unit quizzes. When the students are working independently, Mrs. Park will walk around the classroom to observe the students’ content comprehension to see if the majority of the students are comfortable or face challenges with the concept. Through the observation of student feedback, Mrs. Park will make changes to her instruction if necessary. For example, Mrs. Park was teaching a lesson on graphing inequalities. The students were working on a few problems independently and Mrs. Park noticed that many of the students were struggling. By talking one-on-one with some of the students, she observed a common problem. The students knew how to analyze an inequality, but they forgot how to graph a line. Mrs. Park took this opportunity to do a refresher on how to graph lines in point-slope and slope-intercept form. After the refresher, the students were able to graph the inequalities with more