Field Work Experience Journal

 

Observation Focus

 

When I first walked into the classroom, I saw children.  Honestly, that is what I saw.  Then I saw some other things.  The teacher’s desk is situated diagonally over in the corner.  Students’ desks are in quads instead of rows.  Everything has its place.  Books are on a rack in the front corner and there is a table with lots and lots of mathematical manipulatives.  On the side of the classroom is a series of closets where crafts materials are stored and the lung bags are placed.

A very typical classroom I thought as I perused the walls lined with self-portraits drawn by the students.  The blackboard in front of the classroom is completely covered with posters and examples of different sorts.  There is a slim window of green where the teacher may write something if necessary.  It is a very comfortable classroom with lots of color.  One feels immediately at home upon first entering.

The students in the class are according to the teacher a very highly intelligent group of children.  All of them after having spent several days with them are good-natured and mean to do well even when the urge to misbehave overcomes them.  Mr. DeMartino is a very calm and even-tempered teacher which adds to the warmth of the room.  Sometimes the students get a little loud and he uses different techniques to quiet them down to which they respond almost immediately. 

ON Mondays, Dr. Irving Miller a local volunteer comes to the class and teaches the students how to use math strategies to solve multiplication problems.  The students very much enjoy his company and appreciate his tools that make solving times tables much less daunting.   Eventually he leaves and the day’s activities resume.  Depending on the day, these activities can include library, gym and music.  Also, lunch (my favorite) is followed by recess.  During Inclement weather, recess is held indoors.  Things can get a little out of control during indoor recess.

When I did my lesson plans, it some times became a bit overwhelming when students would begin talking.  I quickly picked up on Mr. DeMartino’s techniques of squelching the class and they work temporarily until progressively the class works themselves up from a whisper to a loud crowd roar.  Many times the young girls would crown around me more so than the boys.  It could be difficult to get to know the boys because of this affinity the girls felt for me.  In the library, some of the girls would be laying on me and holding my hand as they listened to the story the librarian read to them.

In gym class, students are exposed to all kinds of really fun games, games that I never got to play when I was in elementary school.  The gym teacher is a young man who is very good with the kids and gets them excited about the activities.

There is a lot of writing and idea formation in this class’s curriculum.  Each student has a writer’s response journal in which they write all of their essays.  One piece that struck me as interesting was about Arthur Ashe.  The students learned about prejudice, overcoming adversity, standing up for themselves and about maintaining focus even when they are mad.  In the story, Arthur throws his racket when he gets angry and his father sternly tells him to not do that again.  The children learn from this instance that they too must keep their focus in order to win a game or stay on task in real life situations.  After, they wrote their essays, a few weeks later, they made timelines of events in the story and drew pictures of scenes in the story.

Intellectually and socially, there are a wide range of students in the classroom.  There is one student whose parents mostly speak Spanish and is very hesitant about expressing herself in social and academic situations.  When I was working with her on a writing assignment, she was very shy and I am not sure if she understood what I was asking of her.  Then I put questions on the top of the page and she smiled and seemed to get the idea.  She is very kind.  Another boy seems very moody.  He seems quite bright, but becomes angry easily and during one gym class he called another student a “retard.”  However, when he is in a good mood he is very funny and witty. ☻

For my direct instruction lesson, I taught the students how to subtract using two digit numbers and tens.  You probably won’t believe it but I had forgotten how to carry the one and had to review it real quick before I went in there and did my thing.  I’m so used to a calculator.  The lesson went very well.  I started out by asking the students if they knew what subtraction was and how did it work.  One young lady kept raising her hand and as my field work days went by, I noticed she was one of the small number of kids who always had their hand up with an answer.  Later we went over some problems on the board and I had them come up one at a time to solve the problems.  I think being in front of the class was a little intimidating so I would stand next to some of the students and draw a picture to help them solve the problem.  One thing I definitely did not like was when the other students made negative comments about another student’s inability to solve a problem.  I put a stop to this right away and gave everyone a stern warning.  I had the power of recess reduction minutes under my belt.                   

 

At the end of the lesson, I walked around the room to make sure everyone was on track with the exercises from the book.  Anyone who had issues would ask me to sit with them and I was only more than happy to help. 

The Information Processing Lesson I chose was about the Native Americans.  I began with an anticipatory set about how they keep themselves comfortable in hot and cold weather using electricity.  Then I gave the students books about different tribes.  Each group researched and found information about how the Native Americans kept themselves comfortable and alive during bad weather.  Some of the things I noticed were that some of the groups had to be refocused.  I walked around the room and tried to clarify the assignment which admittedly seemed a little abstract.  Some of the groups really got into which showed in their final answers which they presented to the class.  Others gave answers that were great too but more than what I had asked for.  This class is the type of class that you can give anything to.  Throw them a wet blanket and they’ll dry it off and figure out 20 things that can be done with that blanket.  Very awesome group of kids.

These students have a routine that they follow on a daily basis which is necessary to maintain order.  They know what is expected of them and understand when it is time for work and no play.  For the SIM lesson, I used a substance called OOBLECK.    Great stuff.  This was to teach students about solids, gases and liquids.  Each group had a different person for each role.  One person did the recording, observing and decision making and one person actually handled the goop.  Very messy and some of the consistencies that I handed out were a bit off which added to its mysteriousness.  Everyone loved this lesson.  One thing I would have done differently would have been to handle the substance because I really didn’t know what I was getting myself into.  But in the end when everyone had observed its properties and made their inferences about the stuff and compared them to their predictions on the worksheets I provided, it was well worth the mess.  After the lesson, everyone kept wanting to handle the substance and it was hard to keep them from going over and touching it again.

Some of the students are also preoccupied with their newly acquired caterpillars which was a fairly hard competitor to beat.  I had to keep asking some of them to do their predictions and draw their pictures.