Sixth Class Observation

This student may need extra support to understand the meaning of words or what is expected of them. If they are particularly bad at English you could provide things such as flash cards and labels on items to help them learn. You could also encourage some more extrovert, friendly, 'wise' students to befriend them to help with their language.

For my Field Experience I chose to observe at Krahn Elementary which is a part of Klein Independent School District. After my approval, I was assigned to four teachers and their classrooms. I observed at Krahn Elementary on six Tuesdays between 15 September 2015 and 27 October 2015, and more or less followed the schedule that was given to me by the Assistant Principal Ms. Shannon Strole. From 8:30 am to 9:15 am I observed Ms. Judy Burkes, who is a third grade Math and Science teacher. Her classroom is comprised of twenty students which range from average to below average learners and a student with ADHD and another with autism. For most part of my observation, M. Burkes had been working with her students on fractions and multiple digits addition and subtraction. From 9:15 am to 10:30 am I observed Ms. Lisa Parker who is a Math co-teacher and resource teacher at Krahn Elementary for grades K-5. During my assigned time, Ms. Parker usually joined Mr. Duru’s fifth grade class of twenty three students as a co-teacher and when required would pull out a group of six students after initial instructions from Mr. Duru and would teach them the concepts separately at a slower pace. This particular group of students with special needs was mostly seen to be focusing more and more on mathematical word problems. These students were students with Learning disabilities, behavioral issues and one of them was a student with ADHD. From 10:30 am to 11:15, I was with Ms. Janice Bluhms, who is a

“Juan was 7 years old and is new to the country from Mexico. Juan and his parents do not speak any English. Juan has moved to an area that has a very low immigrant/ELL population and are not familiar with proper ELL student teaching techniques. While brainstorming, one staff member suggests just simply putting Juan into a mainstream 2nd grade classroom he will quickly pick up on English because it will be all around him. The staff member claims that they heard this was the best method because if you allow Juan to have any Spanish materials or speak to him in Spanish, which no one really knows at the school, he will be babied and not want to speak English anyways. Without any other knowledge to go off the staff decides to follow through with this plan. After being placed into the mainstream classroom and hearing nothing but English Juan quickly becomes scared and stand-off-ish. Juan becomes resistant to anyone trying to communicate and begins to seclude himself from the rest of his peers. Juan does not attempt to

The classroom I observed consists of seventeen students, eight of which girls and nine are boys. Of the seventeen students, nine receive services from UCS, and five of which understood and speak English, though not fluently. The students are often pulled out the classroom to receive

Tuesday was my first day in my general education classroom. When I arrived, there was a substitute in my classroom for the first half hour of the day, because Ms. Keane was in an IEP meeting. The substitute and the paraprofessional showed me around the classroom and told me about some of the students. There are 20 students in the classroom, and two of them are English language learners.

Melindas spanish teacher only speaks spanish and Melinda does not understand her teacher.She has alot of problems going on in her life as you can tell. She only has one friend her

The language development of the students in my class come from Spanish speaking homes, I only have seven proficient English speakers, some of my students are reading below grade level. Most of the students are able to communicate, while

He would prefer to work in groups rather than by himself. One disadvantage of working in groups with Student G is that he easily gets off track and begins talking to group members. Sometimes members rely on him to do all the work because they know he will and can do it correctly. During class Student G volunteers answers frequently and with ease. When the teacher gives assignments orally he does well with the direct instruction and seems very comfortable with it. He doesn’t need to write any information down when the teach give instruction. Since the teacher mainly gives directions orally the other classmates would benefit if she would provide more information in writing about assignments. The student is very close with his parents who are very involved in his education and life. Student G has always been successful in school partially due to the help of his parents and because of his ability to figure things out for himself. The strengths he possess in the classroom are the ability to figure out answers by using reasoning and context clues, ability to work with all people and willingness to answer questions. Student G also has weaknesses in the classroom that include the inability to explain how he came up with the answer (a weak use of metacognition) and his apparent over-eagerness to answer questions. There needs to be balance with how often he gets to answer questions, so that other

The first student that I conducted the lesson with was a girl I named Shiloh. Shiloh was an eight-year girl that was in the second grade, but would be entering in the third grade in the coming Fall. Her mother explained that she was an ESOL level two student. She was born in America, but both parents are Hispanic. The father is Cuban and the mother is from Venezuela. At home Shiloh’s family mainly communicates in Spanish. Shiloh’s mother explained that she wanted her daughter to speak Spanish at home because she does not want her to not learn Spanish or forget “where she comes from.” As I learned in TSOL I many parents do this this because they do not want their child

I think that with the proper understanding of your student’s cultures and diversity could really help with their classroom behavior. I believe our situation we discussed was not handled correctly. Especially if this escalated into a lawsuit. It is our job as teachers to handle our issues in the classroom. She could have talked with the ELL student and found the root of the problem herself. My future implications in the classroom are to find out the entire story, but I believe we should take from these situations that understanding and background knowledge could go a long way for you as an educator. If I run into an issue like this, I now know that different cultures pronounce words differently, and in the English alphabet all letters do not sound all the same with other cultures. Not only is it our jobs as teachers to accommodate our ELL students with a proper education. It is written by law in the Florida Consent Decree that all students have rights to the best education we can give

Sometimes you might need a translators in order to communicate with students from different countries. It gets very difficult when the parents of children I work with do not have a solid base of English since they are not able to help their children with homework at home. To overcome this problem, at times I have morning tutoring, where I work together with students on their homework instead of sending it home. This is very challenging, for example this year I am working with a second grade student who is Romanian. His mother does not have a solid base of English and the student himself is neither fluent in Romanian nor English languages. So, I believe overcoming language barriers is one of the challenging aspects of working with diverse

PS. 45 is a school in in Staten Island New York, serving 900 students, 61% of the students are economically disadvantaged. This is a diverse school where 5% of students are Asian, 17% Black, 48% Hispanic and 27% White. They have a population of English Language Learners that take up 6% and 23% of the school's population have disabilities. I am observing a 4th grade classroom at P.S. 45. This class is a general education class with 26 students, two of these students are English language learners and two others struggle with focusing. There are also a number of students in the class that need extra support.

At the Intermediate School I was able to observe a 5th grade math class taught by Mrs. Geanolos. Overall, her class was really interesting to watch, and I pulled a lot of good strategies from her lesson. Most impressive was her ability to calming handle crisis. In the middle of morning work a student’s nose started bleeding, resulting in a trip to the nurse and having to call a crew to clean the blood. Never once did she become flustered or frustrated. She was calm and collected, and her class was not thrown into chaos as a result. Her room was also really organized. I was especially drawn to her missing work calendar.

When trying to communicate diversity issues with parents about certain needs in your class for their child may be difficult. Especially, when trying to communicate among parents of ELL (English language learners) and ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) students. Some of the difficulties you may run into are language barriers, misunderstanding of dialect, offensive gestures, and even frustration. As teachers when need to keep a cool head on our shoulders and approach this situation with a positive attitude, a plan, and a great expectation of the outcome.

Mrs. Tijerina has a sturdy relationship built with her students. She has desire to see them succeed and flourish in the Spanish culture while mining high expectations. Mrs. Tijerina wants every single student to be involved or to give feedback. There was not a single student in the classroom that did not participate in discussion or did not have a chance to voice their opinion. Mrs. Tijerina treated every student with respect, and expected that she would be respected as well. If a student was talking out of hand, Mrs. Tijerina was capable to getting them to stop immediately. Since she has a strong desire for the students to excel, she predominantly speaks in