Essay about Observe a Sixth Grade English Class at Bain Middle School

In a good classroom, students should feel safe and comfortable. The classroom was staffed with Ms. Caitlin the kindergarten teacher and Mrs. Doherty the teacher's assistant. The class size consisted of twenty children. The classroom held five round tables with four students per table. Having tables rather than individual desks, Ms. Caitlin encouraged a sense of community rather than allowing a child to be alone at a desk. The furniture was at an appropriate level and size for 5 and 6-year-old children. Also, there was space for children to store their work and personal belongings in cubbies. The class had four different learning center stations these included: writing/reading center, block center, math center, and the kitchen center. Bulletin boards were displayed and decorated with colorful pictures which reinforced concepts learned in the classroom. For example, the alphabet, numbers and days of the week. Student work was also visible in the classroom. In the front of the classroom, a smartboard and rug was arranged for the students to gather for lessons and play. This area was kept free from all forms of distraction. In the back of the room, extra materials were available such as pencils, erasers, crayons, glue sticks, and scissors. Overall, I believe that Ms. Caitlin provided her students with a positive, cheerful, and organized learning environment. She instilled in her students that the classroom is a

My number one concern in a classroom is giving my students options as well as providing structure, accommodation and room to move. The whole group area would be utilized for lessons that can be taught to the entire class, such as the whole class portion of the literacy block, as well as morning meetings and calendar time. I plan on utilizing the smart board, a wonderful resource, quite a bit and would provide a visual calendar on the bulletin board just above the word study/writing center, while also using a digital calendar program on the smart board. I placed the whole group area in an area that doesn’t have lots of distractions, such as the door or any windows, or the bathroom. It is my hope that this setup would help keep my students engaged in the lesson.

On the right side of the classroom there is a closet that has four doors and on each door there is small bulletin board three of them with students names and their weekly tasks. Also the teacher also has one of the four bulletin boards with the student of the month and his or her achievements. On the left side of the room there are organizers with books and materials for students use. This same side of the room has the wall with another bulletin board with vocabulary words in which words are added daily and changed weekly. The vocabulary words a placed in alphabetical order. The words placed on the wall are based on the topic of the day. Also, I noticed that when the teacher is going to collect work from the students she first hands the their individual folders for them to place their work in and later she collects everyone 's folder.

Since my time at Sparks Elementary I have only been able to observe two routines that my mentor teacher has done with the other 3rd grade teacher’s. To start off the morning, Mr.Locklear meets his class in the cafeteria to greet them before the day get’s started. The teachers then instruct the student’s to set their backpack’s in their designated area and take the materials needed for their first rotation of class. When the student’s have set there belonging’s down, the teacher’s line up the students in the middle of the common area, where the student’s will be lead to their special’s classes like Music, P.E and Art. While the student’s part take in special’s, Mr. Locklear takes care of any last minute assignment’s or note’s he need’s before he start’s teaching his first class. He also take’s part in a weekly meeting the 3rd grade teacher’s conduct to go over any announcement’s or strategies. Once the student’s come back from special’s, Mr.Locklear starts off his math lesson with Mrs. Sanchez classroom. As soon as the student’s enter the class, they are instructed to take out their journal’s and engage with what the teacher is teaching for the first 10 minutes of class. In those first few minutes of class Mr. Locklear introduces the topic or objective that the students will be learning and engages them to participate in the examples he places on the permithian board. He then has the student’s break up into group’s to do their daily math station’s. While some student’s do

The desks in the classroom were arranged in a pattern that I have never seen before and I liked that there was also a big space on the rug for the students to sit and listen to a story or have a discussion. Ms. Mak, Josh’s teacher, had a warm, relaxed, and fun loving way about her. Respect and admiration was the way these students looked at her, and they were all so well behaved. If I had to describe the appearance of the classroom itself, I would say it had a look of “organized chaos”, meaning that everything seemed to have a place however there were so many materials that had been accumulated. The colorful, cheery room had various reference posters on the walls and students work displayed. The daily schedule was loosely outlined on the white board for the students to see, and weekly vocabulary words were displayed as well. Each of the thirty students had a pencil case on their desk, along with a folder filled with things they have been working on. I noticed that Ms. Mak often would encourage the children to work together on their class assignments, and most of the students seemed to have no aversion to this. Josh however, did have a bit of trouble with working with others for reasons that I will explain

She began class by telling her students to get out their textbook and turn to a specific page. Her class had just came back from recess, so the students were constantly trying to get off topic. It took the teacher a lot of effort to keep them on task. She began to read them a story, where they would focus on connotation and denotation. She put the class’ instructions on a large flat screen television; they did not have projectors of any kind. During my observation she handed out a worksheet for the class, and she told them they could work in groups because she did not have enough dictionaries for each individual student in her class. The boys seemed more easily distracted than the girls. The girls saw the task at hand and completed it rather quickly, and afterwards goofed around. Some of the boys did not even finish the worksheet before class

When I arrived at the classroom, Mr. Art was in the room and appeared to be picking up a stack of books. He told me that the class was out at lunch and that when the class returned, they would be splitting into two groups. The 6th graders would be staying in the classroom with another teacher to work on math and the 5th graders would be going with him to another room to work on a few different subjects. Since the students were not currently in the room, I took this time before my observation to get a layout of the room and note all the information that was written on the whiteboard. I looked around to see what was on student’s desks and what materials seemed to be available to students in the classroom. The student’s desks were in a pod like

The rational for the classroom is to build a collectivistic environment for learning. Students are positioned in 2 H’s and each of specific table is its own group. The rest of the classroom area is around the outside of the student desks. The classroom is also set up which allows all students to be visible to the teacher no matter where in the classroom. I believe the classroom set up is effective because of the community that is created in the different areas of the classroom. I also think that it is specifically important that all students visible no matter where they are at in the classroom. Knowing the high needs of the students and their background tendencies to hide when they get overwhelmed. The area of the first H- tables allows students who need to be in chairs to not have to move their chairs to the carpet. I believe that for this class I would not change because they foster a collectivistic learning environment, which supports student from diverse collectivistic backgrounds. They downside of being of this having this environment is when they must be in an independent testing environment. This desk set up aligns with my teaching style and personality because of the inclusive environment, which encourages collectivistic learning. I also think it is important personally to have an open space plan to know where all students are located in the classroom. I would however add a break space in

I conducted observations at the high school, middle school, and elementary levels. At the elementary level I observed a first grade teacher on October 22nd and 23rd at Hambright Elementary school and observed language arts and math instruction. On the first day I went in the morning and observed the beginning of the day routines. At this point in the year the teacher had established the rules and procedures for student arrival. Students arrived and immediately placed item in their individual compartments, sat at their desks, and worked on assignments posted on the board until all students arrived. The teacher gave verbal reminders to the class as a whole. She gave positive corrections and verbally pointed out positive examples of students following the appropriate procedures. I observed the teacher instructing on vocabulary, sentence structure, and reading. The following day I came in the afternoon and observed a math lesson, the teacher and a guest reading a chapter book, and the dismissal procedures. The elementary classroom functioned on a lot of structure and procedures: transition from one activity to another, submission of homework, restroom request, and arrival/dismissal. The amount of energy and enthusiasm needed by the teacher to keep the students engaged was commendable. The teacher changed the activity every ten to fifteen minutes. During reading time, she worked with a group of six students at a table while watching the remainder of the

The classroom I observed is a special day class with Mrs. Cody, and it contains 11 students from first grade to third grade. The 11 student desks are arranged separately in rows facing the front of the classroom; the teacher’s desk is at the front of the classroom with two large whiteboards and the teacher aide’s U tables are situated behind the student desks. Behind the student desks is a listening center with six laptops. The walls are simply decorated with typical educational posters such as the writing process and artwork in order to create a positive learning atmosphere. There also has a word wall of high frequency words, which is an organized collection of words displayed in a classroom by using marker to write down each word on

Thank you for subbing for me today! Please leave me a note with how my class was acting today.

This was probably the most interesting classroom for me. I stated that because special education is the field where I want to pursuit my career. The first day I started my observation in this classroom was on October 12, 2017. I arrived 20 minutes before the class started because I wanted to have enough time to observe in context the whole school scenario. At JGES parents are allowed at the playground while children line up waiting to go to their classroom. Ms. Gonzalez was waiting for her students to arrive and exactly at 8:00 am, the class proceeded to go to their classroom. The classroom is located on the second level. In this class the staff consists of three adults Ms. Gonzalez the Special Education Specialist teacher, a full-time teacher assistant and a case worker assigned to work one to one with a child for instructional support and behavior. In this class there are 12 boys and 3 girls, a total of 15 students all of them are Hispanic. This is a combined class with 4th and 5th graders. The classroom has everything labeled and in perfect order. There are 3 big boards assigned for Mathematics, Science, and Language and Art class projects. In the front of the class room along one of the short walls is a large white dry erase board. The student work area is also in this part of the classroom. Each student has an individual desk. The desk arrangement has 2 rows of desks on right side sand 2 rows on the left side facing the main area. In the back of the classroom is an

Since my time at Sparks Elementary, I have only been able to observe two routines that my mentor teacher has done with the other 3rd-grade teachers. To start off the morning, Mr.Locklear meets his class in the cafeteria to greet them before the day gets started. The teachers then instruct the student’s set their backpack’s in their designated area and take the materials needed for their first rotation of class. When the students have set they're belonging’s down, the teacher’s lineup the student's in the middle of the common area, where the students will be led to their special’s classes like Music, P.E, and Art. While the student’s part takes in special’s, Mr. Locklear takes care of any last minute assignment’s or note’s he need’s before he start’s teaching his first class. He also take’s part in a weekly meeting the 3rd-grade teacher’s conduct to go over any announcement’s or strategies. Once the student’s come back from special’s, Mr.Locklear starts off his math lesson with Mrs. Sanchez classroom. As soon as the students enter the class, they are instructed to take out their journal’s and engage with what the teacher is teaching for the first 10 minutes of class. In those first few minutes of class, Mr. Locklear introduces the topic or objective that the students will be learning and engages them to participate in the examples he places on the Promethean board. He then has the student’s break up into group’s to do their daily math station’s. While some student’s do

The arrangement of the tables is another pleasing aspect of the room. The tables allow plenty of space for students to push their seats back without hitting the table behind them. The tables only have two students per table, allowing a larger area of work room to spread out books, pencils, and notebooks. This way, students aren’t worried about writing on top of their books, having items fall on the floor, or constantly bumping into their

The overall aim of this research is to explore historical and contemporary discourses of social policies of identity, assimilation, multiculturalism and sense of belonging in relationship to the ‘practices of the everyday’ (Lewis 2004) and to explore how the individuals make sense of their world through and by their experiences and practices of it. I will particularly focus on the area of language learning as a part of identity formation to find out how participants are involved in the act of making their language learning possible in spite of all the challenges. By this I mean not to reveal what 'really' happens, but rather to analyse participant's accounts in relation to the political discourses surrounding language, assimilation and