School of teaching, Health and Care
PCET – Subject Specialist Mentor Observation Form
Teacher Observed: Dale Cotton
PCET course and year: PG Dip Pre-Service Full
Time
Observer: Leanne Clark
Observed course/ level: 3
Date: 14/3/14
No. of students: 5
Session Focus (context):
This lesson will be for my second year Extended Diploma class, the class if full should consist of
10 students but may be less, it is a good size for the classroom and to be able to see if all the
students are engaged and learning. The focus of this lesson is to move onto the third assignment
for the Understanding the television and film industries module. While the lesson will focus on the
information needed for the students to be able to do the work set, the lesson will not look at or
focus on the assignment this week (the brief will not be given).
The class is a generally good class who I know well at this point, it seems to have a split in terms
of half being more engaged than the other half, although I tend to get answers from everyone
when asked. The lesson itself will be getting back to a more teacher led system as appose to
previous lessons recently as the work before this required a more humanistic one to one
approach. This is due to the amount of information I will need to present to the class as it will be
more based on specific fact rather than opinion or discussion. I will look to gauge where the
learners are as the lesson progresses to see if the information has been received properly so that
are able to write fully and incisively for their assignment.
The module itself is more geared at helping the students to become ready for life after they leave
college, specifically in relation to the media, as it focuses on presenting information, it has a very
surface value and I will look to see that they remember what is presented and are able to recall
for later purposes and hopefully be able to elaborate upon this by gaining an understanding in the
lesson.
Summary of any outstanding features and particular strengths:


Subject knowledge – you have some really good examples which are current and
which engage the students. In terms of development though I would try to make
sure that the students are retaining this information as it could prove valuable to
them.
Referring back to students by name after they’ve given an answer –
acknowledging their contribution to the lesson.
Summary of areas for development:

Breaking down information – 31 slides is far too many, think about separating the
lessons up and making the individual lessons engaging as opposed to just trying
to get through the information.
 Questioning – you pose questions but don’t give them the opportunity to answer
them. You need to give the lesson chance to breathe and essentially give the
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School of teaching, Health and Care
PCET – Subject Specialist Mentor Observation Form
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
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students chance to digest the learning as opposed to just trying to deliver the
most amount of content possible.
You need more activities, the lesson was far too teacher led, there were no
activities that broke up and refreshed the lesson which therefore affected the
learning.
Differentiation still not clearer on lesson plan, it is very generic and doesn’t show
a knowledge of the students.
More stretching and challenging activities.
How has the trainee planned effectively to deliver the subject specialism?
(Consider how planning take into account curriculum and learner needs, while remaining flexible.)
In terms of researching the subject area I think that you worked really hard and were prepared
with good examples but in terms of preparing a challenging and engaging lesson I definitely
believe there is room for development. You planned effectively enough to deliver the content but
you hadn’t planned around how they could best engage with that content. I think you need to
spend more time brainstorming ideas of how to make the subject matter engaging. You explained
that one of the activities you had planned didn’t work, you need to make sure that this isn’t done
last minute and that you have double and triple checked that material. I think an engaging activity
would have made all the difference to this lesson and without it it just felt quite flat.
In terms of the lessons place within the curriculum, I think it definitely had a place but I worry that
you tried to deliver so much within one lesson because you have possibly got behind with the
unit.
I think you need to consider stretching and challenging activities for the future as the two more
able students finished the quiz quite a bit before the others. Instead of trying to stretch and
challenge these students you stopped the others who needed more time. Then the lesson
finished 10 minutes early so there was definite room for everyone to complete the task.
How effective are the resources in supporting learning in the subject?
(Consider how they made links between specialist area and its wider context (e.g. work, legislation, current issues)
and helped learners identify transferable skills.)
I think you need to readdress your PowerPoint slides, there were lots of slides that contained far
too much information and also had an extremely small font. The impact this has is that the
students either feel overwhelmed by the amount of content and disengage or they just furiously
try to write everything down and they are therefore not engaging with what you are saying. I’d
suggest that you take out some of the key points of the information that you are trying to get
across and either give them a hand out with the rest of the info or use that information and turn it
in to an activity (as I suggested the matching legislation to name activity). The only resource
provided was the quiz which had an overwhelming amount of questions on it, especially
considering you only gave them 5 mins to complete it.
You also need to think about the layout of your PowerPoint in terms of asking questions but
having the answers already on the board. This doesn’t challenge the student, they were just
giving you the answers you’d already provided.
In regards to applying your specialist knowledge to the wider context, you did this throughout the
session and the examples you used engaged the students. What I would say though is to ensure
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PCET – Subject Specialist Mentor Observation Form
that this information is retained as sometimes it comes across as though you are just telling them
anecdotes.
Describe the range, and quality, of teaching techniques used in the subject and how the
trainee established a purposeful and motivating environment?
(Consider how the trainee used a range of appropriate, flexible and varied teaching and learning techniques, and
motivated all learners.)
This session didn’t contain any variety in regards to teaching styles and I honestly feel like
although the majority of the students were following along, they weren’t motivated by the lesson.
The activity didn’t change the dynamics of the lesson and you didn’t cater to different learning
styles. I felt like there was great opportunity for some writing on the board or matching activities
which could have appealed to the kinaesthetic learner. I would say that for the majority of the
lesson the students were following the lesson but they weren’t motivated and once you’d said that
they didn’t need to take notes as you’d be giving them the PowerPoint a few of them seemed to
stop engaging; one student was on her phone twice, was writing on her hand and did a full page
doodle during the lesson.
One of the main reasons why I felt like the session lacked a motivating environment was your
negativity surrounding the subject matter. You opened the session with ‘if you remember all of
this then you have good memories’. This already sets up that it’s going to be quite an information
heavy session which doesn’t create a motivating environment. Throughout the session you
followed this up with ‘I know this isn’t the best lesson’ and ‘I know this is all boring stuff’. You
shouldn’t need to be saying these things, you should be devising ways to make the material
engaging as opposed to bemoaning the content. Not all sessions are going to be as dynamic as
others but you need to ensure that you don’t project this negativity on to the students as it made
for quite a demoralising atmosphere.
How did the trainee use formative assessment to check all learners’ progress and was this
assessment accessible?
(Are the assessment records are accurate, standardised and relevant to awarding bodies?)
I think you could have benefitted from a bit more of a diagnostic at the beginning of the session. I
felt like because you were 10 minutes late and the students didn’t arrive till 11:15 you really
rushed the opening of the session. As these students are 2 nd years I think you would have
benefited from gauging their level of knowledge with the subject matter before you began
delivering the content. You asked a couple of times whether the students were keeping up but at
one stage when you asked, Nick actually said ‘no’ but you continued anyway. You need to think
of more activities that would check the students learning; the activity did this to an extent but not
all students engaged with it.
How were questioning and answering used effectively, and describe how the trainee gave
constructive feedback?
(How has the trainee encouraged reflection amongst learners, supported and promoted inclusivity and diversity?)
I think you really need to slow down your questioning and answering process. You have a
tendency to pose a question and then very quickly answer it yourself. On two occasions the
student started to offer an answer at the same time as you started to give the answer. There were
three occasions in which a student gave an answer and you obviously didn’t hear it so just
answered it yourself or moved on. When asking a question you should be expecting an answer
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School of teaching, Health and Care
PCET – Subject Specialist Mentor Observation Form
so even if you hear something mumbled don’t be afraid to ask them to repeat or ask them to
speak up. Also don’t be afraid to ‘enter the horseshoe’ and get closer to the students; if you are
having trouble with hearing this will rectify the matter.
You started with open questions and then moved on to direct questioning which was good but
you seemed to abandon direct questioning half way through the lesson with Sarah getting away
with being very quiet and Brandon dominating the session. Make sure you try to stay consistent
with direct questioning.
How has the trainee managed the classroom to support the learning of the subject?
(Consider how they managed behaviour and challenged discriminatory attitudes, while ensuring professional
boundaries are maintained.)
As this is quite a mature and small group there were no instances that needed to be managed but
I do think you need to have a policy on having phones out. There were two phones out on the
table and one of which a student used twice. These really need to be out away at the start of the
session in future. As this was such a small group I think you could have tried to manage the fact
that Katie was clearly not engaged. You stated that you asked her more questions in the quiz at
the end to try and catch her out for not engaging with the session but if you’d noticed this then
you need to be addressing it actually in the session, not just in the recap element of the lesson at
the end.
Circle as many of the following that best describes the trainee during this
observation:
Fluent
Articulate
Creative
Effective
Sound
Innovative
Secure
Original
Dynamic
Re-observation
needed
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