First Class Observation

Andrew “Andy” J. Stoneridge is a 3rd grade student attending Michael Valley Elementary School in Pasadena, Maryland. His homeroom teacher’s name is Ms. Julie King and in her room, are approximately 28 students. Ms. King is a general education teacher teaching the subjects reading, writing, and social studies. Andy’s other core teacher, Mr. Baker, teaches Andy math, science, and health. Mr. Baker is also a general education teacher. In each of these rooms, there are two teacher’s aides and one classroom tutor.

Today Students of Mrs.Mcmanus's literacy class observed the seventh-grade students of Mrs. Holyoak’s gym class in the annex gym. Luke Cahill reports that as soon as the seventh graders entered the room you could tell that the group was a high-energy one. Right away there were to boy pushing each other around in a playful manner which also gave of the mood. The class began with a warm-up that included adding and multiplying numbers that were shot from fingers and then whoever got the answer first would run to the next corner of the gym. This warm-up lead to a very loud atmosphere where kids were flying all over the room from corner to corner screaming out answers to the math problems that appeared on their fingers. Although most of the students

All of the walls are plastered with student work of hand-cut construction paper snowflakes and stockings. In the mornings, excited students swarm the hallway as they look for their classroom and their teacher. Echoes of “good mornings” bounce around the hallway from student to teacher. But farther down the hallway, the older students are not as excited for the day while the bare walls match their expressionless faces. About halfway down this hallway is a wide staircase down leading to the fourth grade classrooms. It is rather quiet in this hallway because there is a distinct lack of

Jayden King Jr. is a seven-year-old boy who is currently in a District 75 program. Jayden Jr. is classified as emotionally disturbed since 2014 and is currently placed in an 8-1-1 second-grade class. Jayden Jr. has a one to one crisis paraprofessional to ensure the safety of the student’s and himself. The crisis paraprofessional works closely with the student to provide assistance with assignments, staying on task and transitioning throughout the building.

In Mr. Rodriguez class there was a kid that I could tell right away that he was a special kid. He sat in Mr. Rodriguez desk by himself, and he had to be constantly moving a chair next to him. I sat right across him, and observed closely. As Mr. Rodriguez will talk about an assignment the student would interrupt constantly, and then he would start laughing out of nowhere.

The next class, a young boy stood out to me. While all the first graders were working on pages in the workbook, he was looking around fidgeting. I later found this young boy’s name to be Jake*. I found

Singer Sam Cooke once said, “I think the secret is really observation. Well, if you observe what's going on and try to figure out how people are thinking, I think you can always write something that people will understand.” When I went to my observation on Wednesday, I tried to view the second grade classroom through the eyes of the teacher, and figure out how she ran the show. I was privileged to observe Dana Fedders’ second grade reading class at Hull Christian School. The whole experience opened my eyes to many different things some of them were shocking and others were not that shocking.

One of the classes which I observed was a first/second grade spilt classroom. For mathematics they separated all the first grader (ESL, SPED, and mainstream) into one classes which consisted of 10 students. First the teacher linked the vocabulary she had written on the board about graphing to prior knowledge they had been learning by asking questions. The students responded by raising their hands. The new vocabulary word she introduced to the class was compare. Since the majority of the students were wearing red for a drug awareness campaign she had the student compare the number of students wearing read to the number who were not wearing red. Initially she had all those who had red on stand up and form a line. Then those who were not

When N got into class, she followed her other classmates to her seat. She sat in the middle of the carpet and stared sideways for the first part of the class. The teacher wrote the word ‘respect’ on the board and asked the class to spell it with her, but N continued to stare off to the side of the classroom (where the piano was). The class also sang a couple of songs, one that just introduced them to

At 5:22 p.m. on May 12, 2010, I was dispatched to 239 Carol Avenue regarding a theft. Lawrence Cooper (DOB 7-15-1987) reported that his son David’s bicycle had been stolen.

On today I observed Mrs. Dillon’s 6th period art class. The room was filled with students’ artwork, both from the past semesters and the current semester. Among the artwork were mosaics, murals, cement masks, and art guides — color wheel. It was a combination of 9th, 10th, and 11th graders, both male and female. There were 23 students present and they sat in groups around tables consisting of two boys and two girls and one table filled with all boys. The teacher was absent on today, but the students behaved just as if she were there. When they entered the classroom, the grabbed their journals and headed to their assigned seats. Usually there would be a journal displayed on the board, but since the teacher was absent, today there wasn’t. Their

I walked into my first period class. I immediately noticed something was off. It was the same old crowded room. But, where was Youko? Youko was always the first person in the classroom. I took my seat, which was next to Youko’s seat. Maybe Youko was running late.

The reading class was working in a whole group setting, using the READ180 book. Each student had a book and worksheet at their desk. During this time Ms. Smisko asked comprehension questions, had the students read a loud, and then completed a worksheet independently.

At his locker he was getting his stuff for math as Noah sprinted past and flipped will’s books out of his hands. As Will entered the class he is tardy and gets an office referral. He explains to the principle that,

Ms. Guba, Nicholas’s first grade teacher, states that Nicholas is a bright student. He is meeting grade level expectations and has many friends. Although speech is an area of weakness for him, his speech does not affect his academic performance and he has demonstrated improvements. Ms. Guba commented that it is a pleasure working with Nicholas.