Observation #1 Notes
The first class I observed was an Entomology class in which ten students were reviewing for a cumulative final test. The class is at the school where I teach, a small, non-traditional public high school. The setting is much like the one in which I teach and is conveniently located across the hall from my own room. The teacher has two years of experience behind her and is interested in branching out from her “comfort zone” and trying new things. She is teaching this course for the first time, and wants to evaluate how she can alter her instruction in the future. Since I was very familiar with her situation and desires for her students, I believed she would be a good candidate for an observation
Before class, the teacher told me that test taking was an ongoing concern for her, as a few of the students were slow to develop good study habits. In reaction the teacher had made an effort to enlist the students’ help in constructing tests and offer more extensive and more regular review sessions. This test will replace their lowest test grades but “I want them to earn it,” she declared. Her plan was to have a Jeopardy-style review game. When doing this in the past, she had always allowed students to self-select teams, which had always resulted in one team being markedly stronger than the other. For this activity, we agreed that the students would be assigned to teams in advance. Their names would be written on the board under the headings “Team 1” and “Team 2”, so students’ places would be apparent from the moment they entered the room. The game is designed with each student taking a “turn” as part of the team, so all students are responsible for answering questions at one point during the activity.
There are two sets of students that are a concern during this activity. The first set does not necessarily need the review, as their knowledge is broad and grades are good. For this set, it is important that the activity sustain their interest. The second set of students is composed of those who struggle on tests. They have the benefit of having old tests that have been reviewed as a class. This activity is an opportunity to gauge whether students have studied. There have been several partial days of preparation, with the expectation that they should be at least familiar with the range of material.
We discussed and designed my role during the observation. I planned to write down each student’s name and notated whether each was able to correctly answer the review questions. The hope is that even those students who have struggled on tests will have retained some knowledge from the previous days of review and will get at least 60% on the cumulative test. Since this is replacing their lowest test grade, it would often serve in the place of a score of 20 or 30.
Before the review session, students were interested in knowing the breadth of material that the test would cover. They asked specifically about different topic areas, such as “does it include arthropods?” They fell quickly into the “team” organization. One student arrived late and he was momentarily confused about where to sit, but other students mentioned to him that he was in “Team B.” As an entire group, students got 65% of questions right on the first attempt. Not all of the “struggling” students had as high a success rate, some only getting a third of the answers correct. Still, there was clear direction within the review setting and regular explanation of the question – it was explained why the correct answers were correct.
In a discussion after the class, the teacher said that she believed that the review went well, even expressing surprise by the students’ focus and interest in the review. She mentioned that she had not conducted a review game for the last several tests, as she thought they were proving unsuccessful in keeping students focused on the material. We agreed that doing different review activities keeps the class “fresh” and that a review game can be valuable if it has not grown tired or predictable in the students’ minds. This finding has implications for organizing instruction in a broad manner, rather than just thinking about this activity in isolation.
Another idea that the teacher has developed from thinking about this review game is that review needs to be a more consistent aspect of instruction. When it occurs for an entire hour, it does not command the attention of students as well as it might if it were integrated into classes for five or ten minutes each day.
The teacher also believes that she will continue to have students compose the bulk of test questions for this class. She mentioned that the process of doing so over the last few tests has improved students’ grades generally, as they have a stake in the material being tested. In addition, students have gained an understanding of the process, as the class has found how to compose pertinent questions and how to phrase them well. Often in the process of brainstorming questions, students would critique some of the proposed questions as being too vague, irrelevant to the lesson, or poorly worded.
This observation was helpful for the teacher as an opportunity to share some thoughts about here work, which she does not often have an opportunity to do. She rarely has the chance to have a colleague collaborate on an instructional task, and she was eager to participate and happy to reflect during the post-conference. The activity could have been even stronger if it were part of a series of cycles, rather than just an individual opportunity.
Observation #2 Notes
The teacher in this observation has been teaching for seven years, at the eighth grade level for the entire time. He has taught the entire range of leveled classes offered at his school from the “lower level” class up to Algebra. His middle school has faced a distinct change in student population over the course of his career. There was a great deal of racial and economic diversity when he arrived at the school, but following a rezoning within his county, the school now has the highest poverty rate of any school in the county and now has a greater black and Hispanic population than in the past.
This teacher was selected for this activity because of the distinction in population and setting from my other clinical cycle, which was in a small non-traditional high school science class. Also, the population of students that he teaches is a group I am working to support through development of a remediation program. Being able to observe the students in a classroom setting allows me to build my knowledge of these students’ needs and the environment they are accustomed to.
The teacher told me prior to the conference that he was teaching a Pre-Algebra class that was sometimes difficult to handle from a behavioral standpoint. He mentioned that it was late in the first semester, that this is a difficult time to instruct and that some students this year were “difficult.” We agreed that I would observe the class for a 45 minute period (shorter than normal due to standardized tests that would be given early in the day.) The observation would be focused on determining which activities and transitions produced the best and worst attention to task on the part of the students. It is often challenging to maintain students’ attention as a class moves between activities.
The class was reviewing with a Pre-Algebra class for an upcoming cumulative semester test. Students were transitioning from lunch, which they ate in the classroom. As students finished their meals, they threw their waste into a bag in the hall and returned to their seats. When the teacher requested that they get ready for class, students pulled their pencils and notebooks out and were all attentive to him within two minutes of his request.
The activity was introduced as he handed out a review sheet that featured headings for the topic areas that would be reviewed, with charts and “fill in the blank” sentences under each topic heading. On the reverse side of the sheet were practice problems for each topic.
There were eighteen students in the room, evenly divided between males and females, with one white child, two Hispanic children and fifteen black students. The room was divided into four rows, with each row featuring a pair of desks side by side. The heading “Review for Final” was written on the board along with the date and the daily class schedule.
As the teacher provided an introduction to the lesson, he moved through the room. He mentioned that the class would spend more time on the things they had trouble with, and less time on the things that they already did well. There were one or two students who needed a writing utensil, which he provided them during his introductory statements.
After the introduction, the lesson began with discussion of “order of operations.” The concept was reviewed and components were tackled one at a time. Terms were first defined, then described, then students were provided an opportunity to practice six problems that required content knowledge.
When discussing the concepts and reviewing the practice problems, the teacher worked at an overhead projector at the front of the room, providing verbal and visual clues about the concepts being discussed and demonstrating the transitions from one step to another.
When students were working on practice problems, and as he was discussing the cues he had written on the overhead projector, he was circulating throughout the room, making sure that students were doing the correct problems and maintaining pace with the rest of the class.
When the teacher wanted input into the lesson from students, either a vocabulary term or an arithmetic result, he asked the class at large and accepted “call-outs” from the group, rather than having students raise their hands and calling on individual students or having a preset order in which students would answer.
After explaining four major concepts and discussing the intricacies of the problems, the period had come to a close. He explained what would be discussed the next class day and reminded students that the test would be the following Friday.
I kept track of students’ rate of attention to task, noting every three or four minutes how many students were on-task. I made twelve notations in all, and in all but one case, there were at least fourteen of the eighteen students on task. The moments when there were definitions to be written and students were being directly instructed were the most on-task times during the class. Students were slightly less on-task were brief transitions from discussion of one problem to another. The only time when six of eighteen students were off-task was when students had been given about ten minutes to answer a series of problems and number of students had completed the problems while several were still finishing their work.
There were some critical success factors in the attention to task of the class. First, the teacher operates in a low-key manner. His presence is not threatening or intrusive, but he makes plain that there is a task at hand that he needs to lead students through. He also gives clear instructions. Never was there a point that produced confusion for students about what there were to do. He also provided a series of visual cues that allowed students who had gotten lost or needed written directions to fall into place. Finally, he was mobile within the room, indicating to students that he was monitoring individual success, rather than simply one correct answer or response from the group.
During the post-conference, the teacher and I shared our impressions of the lesson. The Teacher believed that expectations and results that were conveyed to the students went largely as planned, though he mentioned that he hoped to get more time into the lesson to actually practice the concepts that were being reviewed. He was also a little surprised that students took so happily to the lesson, as he found it a little rote.
An interesting notion that the teacher thought of was to invert the lesson. He would start the lesson with the practice problems and let them explain what skills and concepts they were using. He thought students would get more understanding out of an activity like this, though it might run the risk of behavior and attention problems if it is not planned well.
The teacher believed that the experience was a valuable one, as he appreciates a fresh pair of eyes in the classroom. He mentioned that it is hard to have an objective sense about the classroom while being worried about answering questions and thinking about what to say next. He also mentioned that, having someone to discuss how the lessons go and ideas about future lessons really “stimulates…thinking.”
Observation #3 Notes
Here, I observed a ninety minute 10th grade literature class which featured these two teachers who had worked together in this capacity for six years. Prior to viewing the class, I interviewed each teacher
The class was taught in 1950s era building with
good natural light and plenty of space in the classroom for easy movement, with
students situated in a horseshoe shaped seating arrangement, with no student
more than three seats “deep.” There were
twenty students in the classroom, half of them identified exceptional needs,
though two of these students were not in this literature class as a component
of their IEPs.
There was one student who had a full time aid assisting him.
The lesson involved introduction of a new book: Forged by Fire by Sharon M. Draper. The class began with a few minutes of
rumbling as students settled in and continued the conversations they had begun
in the hall. By five minutes into the
period, the regular-ed teacher began a conversation related to a topic related
to the book: “What makes a good parent?”
After about five minutes of discussion, students were directed to
complete a journal entry on this topic (which was also written on the board
before they entered class). During the
discussion and journaling, the special-ed teacher monitored student progress
and behavior. About ten minutes later a
student distributed copies of the book, as the special-ed teacher asked
students to recall what they knew about the main character, who had been
featured in another book that was read earlier in the semester. The regular ed teacher began reading, and
after a paragraph stopped to ask a question about the behavior of one of the
characters for students to write about in their journals. After about three minutes of time write, the
regular-ed teacher led a discussion of the topic. This pattern of reading a passage, writing a
short response, then following with a discussion was one that continued
throughout the class. Each teacher took
turns contributing to the discussion and responding to students’ comments. However, the regular-ed teacher was
consistently the one that prompted the journal/discussion questions.
Observation #4
This
observation took place in a seventh-grade social studies class. Students were doing research on the social
separations that exist in many parts of
Reflections
The first observation, of the Entomology class, allowed me to see what a colleague is doing, which is an experience I do not have frequent enough opportunity to take part in. Her use of student-constructed tests one that I could imagine using myself and sharing with other teachers. As this was a person I work with on a daily basis, any opportunity we have to share information and instructional strategies can work to the benefit of the students’ we have in common and to the overall school atmosphere. My feeling is that teachers do not have regular enough opportunity to really delve into instructional methods in their time together, and the clinical cycle provided a good opportunity for this interchange.
The second observation, in the math class, was a wonderful chance to see a younger student than I work with, and in a different subject area. As I work with students, I find it valuable to have a sense of what has been taught in classes they have had before they encounter me. In addition, I like to be able to reference different disciplines outside of the social studies curriculum that I work with daily. Finally, it is appealing to me to see how deftly the teacher transitioned from one activity to another; particularly helpful was “laying out” the lesson for the students in advance. This is a tactic I might do without thinking about, and the clarity of this approach reinforced the importance of a stated plan.
The third observation left me with the impression that the
regular-ed teacher was primarily responsible for selecting materials and
creating assignments, and that the special-ed teacher was engaged in the
material, but did not have as much of a role in the curriculum. The special-ed teacher was more involved in
behavior management, providing suggestions for students and prompting some to
return to task when they had drifted into other activities. There were a couple of minutes following the
class during which the two discussed the kind of activities that would
accompany the next section of the book, and both offered some suggestions. Based on literature on collaboration, one
suggestion would be for a time to be set aside during which the two
collaborators could more easily plan activities in advance, rather than having
to work on the go, without much time for deliberation, discussion or
reflection.
The fourth observation, of the social studies class, was a chance to see a teacher experiment with technology and a creative outlet for the students, and to see all succeed. It made me want to do more project-based work with my own classes, and to create some real products that students could use in their own lives. So often, we have thought of k-12 education as being a series of practice exercises, disconnected from the realities of their day-to-day existence. This observation was a valuable opportunity to see that this does not have to be the case.