The teacher used many different types of assessments throughout the time I was observing in the classroom. During reading, she kept a running record while the students read to her. She did this about once every couple of weeks, depending on the student. For students that were below level in reading, she did the running record more often. At the end of each lesson she would have exit questions to see if the student understood what she was teaching. This let her know if she was going to need to go over a certain lesson again. The students were getting ready to take the Florida Standardized Assessment (FSA) while I was there. They had taken a practice test in January and the teacher was going over it question by question. She did this to show the students why they may have gotten a question wrong. The FSA is new to the state and the teachers really had no idea what was going to be on it. This made it very hard to teach the students. They call this “teaching the test”. Back when the students had to take the FCAT the teacher would make their tests modeled after the type of questions that would be on the FCAT. I heard the teachers complain about this more than once will having lunch with them. They wanted all their students to succeed on the FSA so they worked hard practicing the best they knew how. They gave the students many different types of question styles so the students could answer them if they showed up on the test. Another type of assessment I saw, was each student had a writing portfolio that they kept at their desk. It contained different levels of their writing. The students and teacher helped decide what pieces of writing would go into the portfolio.
The teacher has many ways to help keep the students’ attention during class. Before getting ready for the next activity the teacher tells the students, “Feet on the floor, tummy touching the desk, back against the back of the chair and eyes on me.” It helps remind the students that they needed to be ready to pay attention. Another way she would get the students attention is she would tell them that she was throwing out her net to “catch” them. She did this in the middle of a lesson to clear up any misconceptions the students may be having. Then when she was done talking, she would “release” them back to their work. She called this the “catch and release” method. This is one I had never heard of or seen before this class. While the students were in line getting ready to leave the classroom they began to get loud. She then said, “1, 2, 3 eyes on me.” The students replied back, “1, 2 eyes on you.” This let her know they were done talking and ready to listen. During the lesson the teacher could tell when the students were getting bored and she would give them a little break to recharge. She also did activities that required hands on learning. During math, while learning about lapse time, she gave them clocks with movable hands to use. This hands-on activity helped the students learn new things while paying attention. There were a couple of times during teaching that she would have to remind the students to pay attention. All she would do is call the student’s name and they knew what it meant.
According to Erikson, the students in the class I have been observing are in stage 4: Industry versus Inferiority. I saw many examples of this while in the classroom. During math, while working in their journal, the teacher would choose one student and they would get to play “teacher”. They bring their journals up to the ELMO. Then they begin to show their classmates how they solved the problem. This helps build the student’s self–esteem because they are proud of their work and they get to share it with the rest of the class. One thing the teacher did that I think did not help the students in this stage is she had a competition on who could say their 3 multiplication answers the fastest. For students who could not do them all the first time, they had to say them again before going to play during recess. I feel this made to students feel that they were not as smart as the rest of the students in the classroom. This did not help build their self-worth. Another good example I saw while observing was when they were reading a passage about trees, the teacher asked them a question about the passage. One little boy, who is below level, raised his hand to answer. When the teacher called on him to answer, he got it correct. You could see the excitement for being able to answer the question with no help from the teacher or a peer. The teacher then gave the student praise for getting the answer right.
There is a student in the classroom named Maria (pseudonym). She has a delay in her social-emotional development. The teacher told me that as a small child up until she was about 6 years old, she was often told to stop talking and go to her room. This has affected her social skills. She is afraid to talk in class and has very few friends. Maria had now moved in with her aunt and cousins. Her social skills have slightly improved but in order for the teacher to get her to speak it has to be drawn out of her. Even in small group activities, if she does speak it is very quiet. The listener has to be right in front of her to hear what she is saying. Having to deal with that type of emotional abuse has delayed her learning ability. At the beginning of the school year she was below level in all subjects. The teacher’s hard work and dedication has helped bring her to just below level in reading and writing. The teacher gives her all the extra support she needs and it seems to be helping her out. She also has a para come in and work one on one with her to help improve her social and academic skills. This is a good example of the type of student we may see in our future classrooms. As a teacher, it is important to get to know the background of our students as best as possible.
The school I have been observing at is located in a low socioeconomic area. The first week I was there the school was doing a fundraiser. They were doing a color walk and depending on how much money they raised the student got a shirt, color packet and/or a head band. The school did not want any of the students to feel left out. All of the students got to participate in the color walk regardless of if they raised any money or not. I did not actually get to see the students do the walk but I heard they had a great time. I did see a lot of parent volunteers. In the classroom, I never saw any parents come in to help out. I do know that one of the students has a mom on the PTA and she does a lot of volunteering at the school. This shows me that according to Bronfenbrenner the mesosystem of the classroom is week in some students and strong in others. There are times when the teacher will try and contact a parent either through a phone call or letter in the agendas and never hears back from the parents. One student told the teacher the reason her mom could not call her back was because “she did not have any more minutes on her cell phone.” There is also the fact that the teacher has three ELL students in her classroom whose parents do not speak English. It is very hard for her to communicate with these parents. The school does have an ESOL para but she is working with all 40 ESOL students and it is hard for her to make time to come and talk with the parents.
The classroom teacher has one ESOL student who is falling behind in all of his academic subjects. The main reason for this is because he does not comprehend English very well. The teacher has been trying everything she can think of to help him with his English proficiency. She allows him to have extra computer time on a program called i-station. This program helps him with his reading by teaching him new vocabulary words. Another thing she realized that helped him was to make him repeat important things back to her. The rehearsal process has helped the student not only with the important information but with his English proficiency. They were doing math and going over a problem that had more than one answer because she had him repeat the things she says, he was the first to tell her, “It will never be just one and it will never be them all.” This made her very happy and she was bragging about him to the other teachers at lunch. The teacher also uses a lot of visual images in her classroom not just for her ESOL students but for all of her students. The classroom is filled with chart paper that has all kinds of information on them. Some of them are reminders in math and to how to write the perfect hook in an essay. The students know where to look in the classroom for reminders because it is organized by subject. They know to look at the visual reminders before coming to ask the teacher for help. If they do not look at the reminders that is the first thing she asks them before giving them the help they need.
Today while observing the classroom, I noticed that the teacher used a lot of positive reinforcement in her classroom. The type of reinforcement I saw the most of was praise and ignore. When the students were getting ready to move onto the next activity, she would say, “I like the way the zebra table has their journals out and are showing me that are ready to move.” The teacher would ignore the student till the behavior started to disrupt the other students. Then she would say something to the student to get them to stop. I also felt like sometime the teacher would encourage the students’ behavior by laughing at them when they would say something funny about what they were working on. Sometimes the behavior would stop as quickly as it started. Other times, because the teacher laughed, the student would keep going causing more of a disruption. Overall I never saw any major behavior problems. There were times where a student would get up out of their seat without asking or talk without raising their hand. I did like how when the student would blurt out the teacher would tell them, “Sorry but my special teacher ears do not allow me to here you if you hand was not in the air.” This reminded the students about how they were to act in the classroom without calling out a student or embarrassing them. While working in their groups, one group got a little noisy and the teacher gave them a warning about getting to loud. She told them, “This is your warning. The next time I have to talk to you, you will go back to your seats and do the work independently.”
Today in the classroom, they were doing a lot of test prepping. They are getting ready to take the Florida Standard Assessment (FSA) next week. The teacher went over the math practice test they took in January. She showed the children why they may have gotten a question wrong. One of the main reasons is that they were not coding the text to see exactly what the question wanted to know. One of her ELL students is new and was not here to take the practice test. The teacher wanted to give her a chance to answer the questions, so I sat in the middle of the pod with the student. I found out that as an ELL student the teacher is allowed to read the directions and the question out loud but not the answers to the question. While watching the student take her practice test, I could see that she was still in the pre-operational stage according to Piaget. At her age, she should be more in the concrete-operational stage. She had a hard time with numbers in general. The student would draw a model or write out the equation but if her answer did not match one of the answers given she would just guess at the answer. Then she would change her model or equation to match the answer, even if it was the wrong answer. I really noticed her stage when she was trying to round numbers. I am not sure if she did not understand the logic behind rounding numbers or if because she is an ELL student, she did not understand the question. She would write out the correct answer and not the answer the question was looking for.
Today, during my observation, I started off in a different classroom. While in that classroom, I noticed that the children really were friendly and kind to each other. They had cute little sayings such as, “can you please project, I would like to hear what you have to say” or “I kindly disagree with your answer and here is why.” Another thing I really liked to see and hear is that the children wanted everyone in the class to participate in the discussion, so one student would say, “we have not heard much from (student’s name) today, would you like to share?” This classroom setting would be a classroom that lends more to Vygotsky style of learning. They worked a lot in groups and partners. They were working on a poem and the first time the teacher read it she read the poem fast. Then she asked the students if they understood anything she had just read. They would talk to the person next to them about what they thought. All of the students found the poem confusing because she read it too fast. She did this to help explain to the students that you do not get much out of a reading if your breeze through it. The next time she read the poem she slowed it down and paused after each stanza. Some of the students seemed to have a real hard time grasping the meaning of the poem. The students were acting silly today and I am sure it is because there were other people observing the class. They definitely had a hard time concentrating on the teacher and the lesson.
I have been observing in a third grade classroom and while in the classroom, I noticed many different things. The first thing I noticed is that the students used hand signals if they needed different things in the classroom such as they would cross two fingers if they needed to go to the bathroom. I found this very helpful because they were not interrupting the whole class to ask the teacher. She could just look up from what she was doing and tell the student yes or no. I noticed that in the classroom there is a wide diversity of students. The classroom has three ESOL students and two of them speak English really well. The third one is a new student and even though she can read and write in English she has a hard time answering questions that are asked of her. The teacher feels that she just does not have the vocabulary needed to answer the questions and plans to work more with her on increasing her vocabulary. The first day I was in the classroom, they were at a program for gun safety and what you should do if you ever saw one. I found this to be a little much for third graders to handle but the school is located in a lower socioeconomic area. I feel they do this because it is common for bad things to happen in that area. As a parent, I am not sure this is something I would want my children to attend. I feel this is something I should be talking to them about.
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