Observation #1- Little Chico Creek
During the observation, are you able to determine some of the basic classroom rules, routines, and procedures? How? Are rules and procedures posted?
I have noticed that the volume of the classroom is very important to the teacher. Students are supposed to keep the volume very quiet at all times. When the teacher feels that students are being too loud, she rings her bell that is labeled “quiet” on it and when she does so, the students are supposed to put both of their hands up and be quiet. She’ll inform them that the noise level is too loud and students need to keep it down. She uses a soft, soothing voice to remind them of this. She also has a system that essentially places students in certain categories of how they’re behaving in the classroom. There’s the gold star level, the green level, yellow level and red. Student’s names are written on clips and they’re placed on the scale according to their behavior. Almost all the students were in the gold level, while a couple were at the green level. Thankfully, no students were placed below green.
She also has the students broken up into groups depending on their academic level in the classroom. There’s the zebra group, gorilla group, tiger group, lion group and giraffe group. Two of these levels are the lower levels while the other three are the more advanced. When the students do stations, they do activities that are similar to each other, but the more advanced groups read more advanced books or practice more advanced words.
Consider the segments of the lesson (introduction/opening, delivery of instruction, independent application of knowledge/skill, closure and assessment). Does it appear that students are easily following rules and procedures? Is the lesson easy to follow? Are directions clear? Do students know what is expected of them? How are the learning objectives communicated to students and assessed? What happens if rules are violated or there is confusion on the students’ part? Is there an obvious procedure for these situations or is it subtle?
The students appear to be familiar with the flow of the classroom and instruction. The teacher has assigned leaders of the rows and they are in charge of collecting their classmate’s assignments and handing them back. They also have a special chair cover to identify who is the row leader for the week. When they do assignments, the students all have their assignment for the day, and the teacher begins by bringing a student up with her to the projector and they do a few problems as a class and she is always calling on students to answer the question if they know it, or read it out loud to the class. They are working on reading, doing math and learning new words. Once she feels that the students understand what the assignment requires, she lets them work independently and goes around assisting students who raise their hand for help. Once a student is done with their assignment, they turn it in to the “finished” box and they take out their “play book”(basically a work book) and they complete that when they’re done with the days assignment. If they finish their play book, they go to the box of books and take out a book and read independently. The teacher has a list on the chalk board of the day’s objectives. She goes over the list prior to starting the lesson so the students have an idea of what they’ll be doing that day. If the students are off task, she’ll give them a warning. If they misbehave too much or are too loud or rowdy, they are told to go to the room that connects her classroom with the next classroom. They are to sit in there until they calm down and are willing to go back to their seats and get back on task. Students seem to be very aware that the noise level has to be quiet and that there are consequences. If the students are all finished with their work, they get to have “special preference” play time with games or toys on the carpet. I witnessed the students get too noisy while playing the toys and the teacher threatened to stop the play time if the noise level didn’t quiet down.
Describe what the teacher does to motivate and engage students in learning (including at-risk, those who need extra support, and those who are gifted).Does the teacher use facial expressions, gestures, problems, stories, demonstrations, etc. to motivate students? Does the teacher use any SDAIE strategies to meet the needs of English Language Learners? How does the teacher continue to motivate students throughout the lesson? Are students rewarded or praised for their engagement and attention? How do students interact with each other? How do they interact with the teacher and other adults in the classroom? Describe and tell whether or not interactions are respectful.
Students have to finish their assignment before recess or they have to stay in for a bit longer to attempt to complete it, so I found this to be a good motivation for the students to stay on task and complete their work in a timely manner. If there are problems that they do not finish or do wrong, the teacher circles the problems and writes “Fix it” on the top and returns them to the students. This is known as “fix it” work and students have to finish it by the end of the day or it is sent home with them to complete.
I haven’t witnessed any work with second language learners, but there are a few students who have IEPs and work with the clinicians during school hours. A clinician comes in and the students who work with them know it’s their time to work with them. One student in particular has a behavioral specialist come in and sit with him during class and takes notes. He helps this student with his work and with his behavior in the classroom. She also claims a “special student of the week” who I’m assuming gets some sort of special privileges but I have not witnessed what that is, but they do get to wear a crown with their name on it. There are also assignments centered around the student of the week where students have to draw a picture of them and write a sentence or two about that student. Their work is then displayed for that week on the wall.
The students seem to get along for the most part. However, there is one student who struggles in class and works with the clinician who admitted to me the other day that one of the students in the class was his bully. I informed the teacher of this and she said this information would be very helpful because it could be the cause of his distress in the classroom. But the students are very respectful to the teachers and are able to ask for help when they need it. She praises students who do well by saying things like “Good job, Bob*, you read the whole sentence and there were some hard words in there”, or “Well done, Bob*, you read that long word, very good”.
Do you see democratic principles and concepts being applied in the delivery of instruction and assessment of learning? How so? Do you see democratic principles and concepts being applied in the classroom in terms of the management of students? For example, do you see students helping each other? Does the physical arrangement of the classroom contribute to this or deter from this? What else can you see?
Students do help each other if they need it, I have seen it a couple of times when some students need help and it’s taking a while for the teacher to get to them so their neighbor will help them. They are in rows and are discouraged from talking too loud so it is kind of hard for them to collaborate or discuss assignments. They are in rows and have a row leader each week. They lead the students out of the class for recess or when they leave for the library or the reading room. I think that if they were in groups and the noise level wasn’t such an issue they would have more opportunity to collaborate and work together. Project Based Learning does not seem to be a part of this classroom as the students work independently most of the day except for stations where they’re grouped together for lessons.
What do you think motivates students in this classroom to be good citizens? Does this apply to “real life”?
The students sing songs about the country and the flag when they do the pledge of allegiance after recess. The noise level and the importance of finishing their work on time seem to be good lessons for real life, as they’re learning that work needs to be done on time and correctly or they have consequences, such as working into recess or lunch. Also, they have to bring the work home if they do not complete it. When I have had students in my station being mean to each other or pushing their buttons I inform them that it is very important to be nice to their friends and not to hurt their feelings because we’re all friends. I informed one boy who was being rude to another girl that he hurt her feelings and that’s not nice. I asked how he would feel if someone made him feel sad or upset. He didn’t respond but seemed embarrassed by his behavior in front of me. He still came up and gave me a hug at the end of the day so I assumed I didn’t embarrass him too much if he was still willing to give me a hug.
I think that assigning a group leader for their row is a good way to teach them how to be a leader and be in charge of the groups’ work. This could be a good way to instill leadership and responsibility into them and they can carry that lesson with them as they get older.
Describe any assessment methods the teacher used to determine success and check for student understanding and/or progress. What types of formative and summative assessment are used?
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The teacher grades as I would be graded in college. If they make mistakes on their work, they have to do it over again. I’m not familiar with how she assesses them overall, but she seems to value giving homework every night and assigning work that needs to be completed each day.
Reflection questions:
How did your ideas on this topic compare to what you observed?
I was very surprised by my experience on the first day in the classroom. I was impressed by how much the students understood and how disciplined they were in the classroom. Of course there were students who would be off task and have to be to quiet, but overall they were pretty well mannered. I had wanted to work in a first grade classroom prior to my experience but it was also intimidating knowing how much I would need to teach the students in the first grade level. They have to learn to read, write, count and do math after coming from kindergarten which has lesser expectations of the students. I am constantly making mental notes of ideas and activities the teacher implements into her curriculum in case I end up teaching at that level.
What did you learn about effective classroom environments and effective instructional strategies and assessment through this observation?
I have noticed that the noise level does play a huge part in how well the students are behaving well and staying on task. As soon as the noise level gets louder, the students seem to get distracted and wander off task. So keeping the volume down and the activity level calm seems to keep the students on task. The teacher begins lessons by first helping a lot at the beginning and then backing off once she thinks they understand the lesson. This scaffolding method seems to be effective with the students learning and they are able to first be engaged with the teacher at the beginning and then work independently.
Like I mentioned earlier, I’m not aware of how the teacher assesses the students’ progress overall. I’ll have to ask her during my time on Monday how she does so. I do think that the environment of the classroom prohibits collaboration amongst the students which I think is unfortunate. In my classroom I want to allow students to work together and problem solve together as it encourages collaboration, problem solving, and the ability to work in teams to reach a common goal, which I found to be very beneficial, as it applies to real life skills which students should learn.
Consider strategies used to maintain effective classroom environments. Based on your prior field experiences and your current placement compare and contrast the strategies observed in these settings.
I have never worked with this level of students so I wasn’t prepared for what I was going to experience. I did expect there to be more play time and rowdiness, since they’re only six years old. However, the teacher keeps them on task doing work books and daily assignments most of the morning. I am only in the classroom before lunch time so I’m not aware of what happens in the afternoon. I know she does something that she calls “on the spot PE” which I assume is a random PE session. The other day, a boy stuck his pencil in the hand sanitizer pump and broke off the lead in the spout and got it stuck, prohibiting students from being able to pump out the sanitizer. She informed me that this student is one of her trouble makers and said that she was going to surprise the students after lunch with on the spot PE and would make the boy sit in his desk and try to unplug the sanitizer while the others got to do the PE lesson. So the students must enjoy this activity a lot. This was her way of punishing one student by prohibiting him from being a part of the activity.
What ideas pertaining to these topics will you take with you?
I like the idea of on the spot PE, as it’s a way to break up all the work and let them get some of their energy out. Sitting for long periods of time is hard for me as an adult, so I can’t imagine how hard it would be for six year old to do it all day. I enjoy her “quiet bell” idea, as the students are familiar with what it means and they know they need to quiet down a bit. As much as I want my students to have fun and enjoy learning, it is important to keep them focused on their work and know that they need to stay on task. I like the idea of assigning group leaders for the week so that they can experience some responsibility and know their roles in the classroom. I think that they can benefit from being a team leader and be in charge of the work for their group.
What would you do differently in your own classroom? How and why?
I don’t think I’ll give my students the amount of homework she does. At that age level, they need parents to help them with their homework, and a handful of these students go home to broken households and their chance of completing their work is low. So I wouldn’t want to put that pressure on students to complete more work with no help, it would probably hurt their self-esteem and I would never want to do that to a child. I would also want to have child room in groups more often, and would like to encourage collaboration and helping each other out with work. I think assistance from peers could help them learn how to work together.
