How To Write A Class Observation

On Monday February 24, 2014 I visited Mrs. Randus’ third and fourth grade split class at Kline Elementary. Her classroom consisted of a mixture of third and fourth grade students who were tested and labeled as gifted in various subject matters. Mrs. Randus was responsible for teaching the children language and reading skills. The class consisted of an equal number of boys and girls, along with a wide variety of cultures. According to my observation, Cushner, McClelland, and Safford (2000) were correct when they stated, "Schools, in particular, are cultural crossroads in

At the beginning of the lesson, show the slides of the presentation. For each image, have the students come up to Smart Board to circle the objects that they see. Be sure to give different students a chance to circle the objects, as some students see different objects than others.

Shapes – teacher should be familiar with manipulative that enhance children’s knowledge about shape, such as tangrams, pattern blocks, 3-D shapes/blocks, and so on.

Description: Today I was observing this student to see what he has trouble in. This student is having trouble writing and has someone writing for him. He has really bad handwriting and the teacher has trouble reading his writing. He always has someone writing for him because he has trouble writing. When the teacher writes for him we make him trace over the writing to see if can get him to write better. Every time we write for him and he traces over it. He is getting a little better each time. He gets an award every time he does something good or listens. He gets to play video games for his award. Sometimes he doesn’t get an award because he acts up in class. Other than that, he is such a sweet kid. He can get on peoples nerves a lot so we have

I chose to observe a class for my scene. The class I observed was Professor Ingram’s 3920 “Interviewing” class. The reason I chose this as my scene was because with it being a classroom setting I assumed there would be more than enough human activity. Also, I have had professor Ingram for a class before so I know her style of teaching is very conversational involves a lot of class participation.

I was assigned to Ocean Bay Middle School. I observed four different 7th Grade Math classes. Two classes were General Education, one was an Accelerated class, and the other was an Honors class. The school culture was positive. The students respected their teachers and the teachers respected students.

I made my first field site visit at Caffe Strada on Saturday, October 21st at 1 pm. The cafe was slightly emptier than usual as it was “game day” that day and a good amount of people were instead at the football stadium. However, the atmosphere and ambience was still lively and loud and customers who were getting work done still managed to stay focused. I noted that the workers behind the cashiers were fast-paced, and worked in conjunction to minimize ordering time and keep long lines at a minimum and cater to as much people as possible. People from all different ages came to study, some ordered food while others just ordered a coffee. There was an older man right next to me reading the newspaper. On my other

Can you recall a time in elementary school when your teacher brought out blocks of all shapes and colors to use in the daily lesson plan? How he/she allowed you to play and become familiar with the blocks? By exploring the blocks you were able to visually and physically understand that although a blue and red block are in essences the same shape, they are different or can be distinguished by color. Not only were your instructors striving to keep you engaged, they were also utilizing a very important method used in all grade levels today: Manipulatives. “Manipulatives are physical objects that are used as teaching tools to engage students in the hands-on learning of mathematics” (Using Manipulatives, 2017, p. 1). From examining what manipulatives are, the benefits they have on children, and the wide variety of topics you can teach using this method it is clear that manipulatives are an important tool to use when teaching mathematics in the classroom.

The first week as I observed the class, there was an obvious concept in play through the class. A new student was taking part in the class, and she stuck out like a sore thumb. I could tell that she didn’t have the same flow and presence that each of the other student had. She was different and new, and the rest of the class saw that as well. There was a cultural difference taking place, even the minor differences in how she dresses and how she spoke had a noticeable impact. After reading about ethnocentrism and cultural relativism (page 41-42), I was interested to see how the class would react. I was taken off guard when the teenagers took an interest in her newness and different points of view.

The school I was able to do the observation was Eastside High School where I observed sixteen hours of a class. The class I observe is an English as a Second Language (ESL) class that prepare students for college. The class is taught by Wilfredo Betance and he teach a 12-grade class. I wanted to do the observation at Union City High school were I graduate but the board of education took a long to give me permission. The other rest hours of the class observation were done with the classes videos. Those videos were very interesting to watch and they have so much information.

1. How does the child show curiosity? Is the child showing interest in a new situation? Describe a time when a child was curious. (2 points) He showed curiosity by staring at a child who was looking at the toy cars. He shoes interest in the situation by looking very intrigued whenever the cars crash. He goes back in forth from putting the toy cars in boxes and then crashing the toys together on the track.

On November 6, there was a sub the for 7th period and most of the students sat in their assigned seats. The sub explained her expectation and how respect is her one of her rules. She then continues to explained the instruction for the two worksheet that the teacher left for the class. Within 15 minutes into class, I noticed that there many groups forming like a group of girls would be grooming/putting on makeup, others would be talking, and the rest of the class would be doing the worksheet. I then observed one student and the sub for twenty minute, and the student for the most part was doing the worksheet and collaborating with his partner. The sub did walk around the class several times to make sure that students were doing part of the worksheet. She would event ask the student question over it, but mainly because she wanted to know what they were learning. I was able to help out some students, but most student were off task. A student had an accordion, he would play it until the sub told him to put it away. Most of the student finished the first sheet, but not the second worksheet. Towards the end of class, she let the student with the accordion play it.

Mrs. McLamb, my clinical teacher, handled her class room very well. In my opinion, she was very good at managing her time. She does the same routine every day, which I think is best for managing time. When the students come in she starts them off with a challenging problem or a review problem. They are given about five minutes to do the problem while she takes attendance, then she goes over the problem. After she finishes going over the problem, she reviews previous lessons and adds on a new lesson. The students are given time to try to solve the problem based off what they know so they can discover the strategy to solving the problem. Students gives their ideas, and Mrs. McLamb goes over why or why not their strategy will work. Then, the students are taught the proper way of doing of the problem and how it is similar to their approaches. This gives the students the opportunity to see the problem done multiple ways and to find what works best. I like this way of teaching, and I plan on using this in my classroom. It allows the students to discover the way to do the problem, which they will have to do to pass the test. It also engages the students into the lesson. In math, there can be many ways to solve problems, so it is good to help students find what works best for them. I also like that she combines lecture with cooperating learning, and I believe that it benefits the students more than just lecturing.

What I planned to do was to explain to the students that points, lines, line segments, rays, and planes are everywhere. They are the building blocks of geometry. Then, I went through my PowerPoint and explained what each of the figures are. I explained that a point has no dimensions and is a location on a plane. It is also represented by a dot. I went on and did the same thing for a line, parallel lines, perpendicular lines, intersecting lines, line segment, ray, and a plane. Throughout the lesson I went through the worksheet and showed the students how to draw, name/read, and write each one of them. After that we did the line song. I should them what each one was using my arms. Finally, I play the game Simon says. During the game, I kept saying Simon says, but then I did not to see if the students were listening. A couple of students were not, but then got the hang of it then. I changed my lesson a little bit by going out of order. I did the PowerPoint first, then did the worksheet, played a game, and then the coffee stirrers.

Throughout the reading of the curriculum documents the thing that stood out the most was not the units and lessons themselves, but the procedures that my classmates shared of how they run their classrooms. Many of the procedures I had heard of before, but had never tried because I didn’t know how they would work in an art classroom. Seeing how other teachers are able to use warm-up activities, the release of teacher control in the use of station, and seeing assessment through the scope of another teacher has inspired me to change how I do these things.