Kindergarten Observations
February 11, 2014
This is my first day observing a kindergarten class. As I arrived she (referring to the teacher) was working with a group with their handwriting skills. I notice right off the bat that she is correcting the children with a sternness, but not to the point where it is mean. It still sounds nice and seems to be constructive.
I also see that confidence is instilled in the children in everything they do. Whenever they are forming letters, she asks them to circle the one they feel is the best. This gives them a sense of encouragement, that they had one or two that were the best. While she is working with this small group of four or five students, I look around and see that there are other things, or stations, for the rest of the class to be doing to occupy their time. The lessons in themselves are definitely important, but I am getting the feeling that there are more lessons being taught than meets the eye. There seem to be several other life lessons that are being passed to the children without them really realizing it. For example: when playing a game involving flash cards, one student announces that "he won!" but she quickly reassures him that throughout life he will win and lose, but in the end fun is what will count. Math Today they are learning with counting cubes. Aside from the normal math, I notice more life skills being taught. For example: one particular child exclaimed, "I have five cubes!" she then corrected the student by saying, "no we have five cubes. We're a team." Back to the counting cubes, though, they are reviewing addition by combining them. This makes math visual so they can actually see what they're doing. Using a combination of these cubes as well as the actual mathematical symbols provides for a correlation between the two. Once the students are comfortable with adding the cubes, she then uses a problem that introduces birds to be counted and added. This allows for a practical use for what they are learning. Also it gets the kids out of the habit of just using cubes to add. She passes out worksheets that have problems similar to the bird counting one. Those that are having difficulty with number formation receive extra handwriting work for homework. In closing this segment of learning, they went off to a session with the guidance counselor as well as a gym session. So they are not always contained in the classroom. |
February 18, 2014
Today as I arrived they were working on sorting letters and letter sounds with associated animals. (This all occurs as the rest of the class does their centers again).
One thing that she works with the children with that I had not noticed before is she makes games out of learning frequently. For example: with letters and pronunciations she plays a game called "Starvin' Marvin" that whichever cards the kids get right go back into the pouch so he "eats." After the game, she moves on to reading, The books feature words that they are learning. For example: "this" or "a." They also provide words that aren't even key words, but still are there to be learned. I notice that each time a child gets a turn, they receive a microphone. This signifies that the child is speaking and teaches respect for others to the other children. History Much of the history that is being taught is conveyed in the form of story books with many pictures. I also see that many of these lessons involve crafts that they need to build that relate to the lesson. For example: they were learning about Abraham Lincoln so they are building a log cabin from brown construction paper. |
Sixth Grade Observations
February 3, 2015
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March 25, 2015
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As I arrived to the class, the class was taking a quiz. It was a map quiz, as I later discovered, of Europe during World War II. They were going over the basics of who the Allies and Axis powers were.
I learn right off the bat that the methods of the teacher are more than that of a lecture, but rather a series of questions based off of the lesson that the class had went over within the past few days. The lesson of the day is learned from quite a bit of ways. Everything from reading directly from the textbook to acting out small skits are to be found in attempting to understand the topic being taught. There appears to be different ways of teaching based on those who learn from hearing, talking, watching, and even moving. This seems to be done so that the highest number of students possible will come to, not only hear and repeat, but to truly learn and stick with them. There are also various assignments available to supplement what is taught, though I have noticed that very rarely are these assignments given for homework without the chance to work on them in class. A lot of these are artistic ways, such as drawing or telling a story, in which the students can express their knowledge. |
I have seen that, in addition to the various methods of teaching, there are also a lot of unique games that are played. For example, today I walked in to a trivia game of sorts that served as a review day for an upcoming test. There are a series of pictures, flags and historical figures on a PowerPoint that is being shown. Students in the class alternate with four people at the board in order to identify the particular slide via writing, they must not speak. A single student stands with his or her back to the PowerPoint. As a new slide appears, the four at the board must write the answer as fast as possible while the single student waits for a signal from the teacher to turn around. When he or she turns around, they must guess what the slide is audibly. The goal is to finish the answer correctly before anyone else can. The winner is awarded with candy. This game is played for twenty minutes with ten minutes of working on a physical study guide in between sessions.
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High School Observations
October 6, 2015
My first day observing and I notice that the style of teaching is, once again, as with previous observations at other grade levels, is different. It appears to be much more lecture based. Notes are being taken; this is the first I have seen of this while observing. I have also noticed that when they take tests, they do so using a program similar to the SoL test.
Now I am observing the second class, World History rather than U.S. History which was what I started observing with. This class is much less lecture based and more hands on. Activities such as drawing pictures, completing study guides, and other group projects are seen here.
October 13, 2015
With my first teacher that I observe I have noticed that he focuses on making himself open and approachable. He is more relaxed on a personal level with the students both in and out of class. Even so, he maintains a strict classroom while teaching and has earned his students’ respect. My second teacher’s class is much more chaotic, but not necessarily in a bad way. They all speak and in no apparent order. He teaches under the philosophy that says if they, being the students, do not speak then they are not learning.
October 20, 2015
Even though there is much to teach and review, my first teacher is ok to go on side tangents. This is not a terrible habit in and of itself as he remains in control when doing so and keeps focus on the material. He does this very effectively and covers material in a way that allots for times such as these.
October 27th, 2015
In times where note taking is on the heavy side, breaks are allowed to wake people up and give them a chance to catch up to pace.
My first day observing and I notice that the style of teaching is, once again, as with previous observations at other grade levels, is different. It appears to be much more lecture based. Notes are being taken; this is the first I have seen of this while observing. I have also noticed that when they take tests, they do so using a program similar to the SoL test.
Now I am observing the second class, World History rather than U.S. History which was what I started observing with. This class is much less lecture based and more hands on. Activities such as drawing pictures, completing study guides, and other group projects are seen here.
October 13, 2015
With my first teacher that I observe I have noticed that he focuses on making himself open and approachable. He is more relaxed on a personal level with the students both in and out of class. Even so, he maintains a strict classroom while teaching and has earned his students’ respect. My second teacher’s class is much more chaotic, but not necessarily in a bad way. They all speak and in no apparent order. He teaches under the philosophy that says if they, being the students, do not speak then they are not learning.
October 20, 2015
Even though there is much to teach and review, my first teacher is ok to go on side tangents. This is not a terrible habit in and of itself as he remains in control when doing so and keeps focus on the material. He does this very effectively and covers material in a way that allots for times such as these.
October 27th, 2015
In times where note taking is on the heavy side, breaks are allowed to wake people up and give them a chance to catch up to pace.