School Context: Observing different classrooms

I really enjoyed visiting other classrooms this week because, each teacher I observed did similar but different things than my master teacher. In our class we try to do a class meeting once a week usually on Monday mornings, so student's can share how their weekend was. Student's do this by saying an emotion they had for their weekend and why it was that emotion. We do not go around the circle and say good morning but we make sure every student gets a chance to share how their weekend was.

In a 5th grade class I observed they also do a morning meeting but do it everyday as the start to their school day. Student’s know routine of morning meeting, they come to carpet and get into a circle at a specific time each day. They start off doing a morning greeting activity, this weeks was using paper balls with names, and each student picks a ball with another students name on it. They memorize the students name on the paper ball and put the ball pack. They then say good morning to the person whose name was on the ball they picked.After everyone greets one another, teacher then goes over classroom business (i.e. schedule for the day, any classroom concerns or questions).

After classroom business is through, teacher then has the students who are suppose to share for that day give their one word hints and other students need to ask questions to focus on feelings and thoughts. Students are only allowed to ask 5 questions in order to find out what the student is sharing, 2-3 students share each morning meeting. I really liked this morning meeting because it gave a change for every students to be acknowledged by saying good morning to them and it gives each student a time to share something about themselves. I also love that it is part of the daily routine every day. 

I also observed a 4th grade class and the teacher in that class had a lot of different techniques that she uses then my master teacher. One of them is that she does not have a behavior chart or system because she does not need one with the class she has. I noticed right away how quiet her class was during independent work and transitions. There was no need for a bell or for her to count down, she would just send them on their way and they knew exactly what to do. There was no daily schedule displayed for the students to see when they first came in, instead she displayed their tasks they needed to complete for the morning on the smartboard. All the students knew what to do when they came in and got right down to work. In my class, there is a daily schedule that we change everyday, we also have a behavioral card chart so that when students are off task or not doing what they are suppose to, they need to turn a card. We also use PAT minutes as a way of rewarding our class for on task behavior. I did not see any kind of star chart or PAT time in the 4th grade class. In my class we do need some kind of behavioral system for our students to keep them accountable for their behavior during the day because we do have a few students who need monitoring. 

I also really loved how the 4th grade class had student tasks displayed on the smartboard, so the students knew exactly what they had to do, in our class students have a Must do and May do list during reading/writing time but it would be nice to have something up when they first come in, so they can sit quietly and be reading or working on a challenge math. 

It has been a great experience observing other teachers and I am definitely going to be using a lot of what I have learned in these classes in my own classroom. 

Feedback is so useful and helpful!

I had my first observation last week, I chose to teach a science lesson because it was the next lesson in the unit and I had already taught the previous lesson from the unit. I was extremely nervous to teach this lesson because it involved careful classroom management because there were many components of the lessons and it could get pretty chaotic. I felt the lesson went really well and I was really happy with it, after the lesson my field instructor sat down to give me feedback and tell me what she observed.

Some of her feedback included when asking a question of the students make sure to give wait time so students can process the question and it will allow more students to be able to answer. I decided to make wait time my next goal for the next lesson that I would teach. I taught a math lesson this past week and every time I asked a question I said lets give everyone a chance to think about it, so take some time to think and then raise your hand. This method seemed to work great because I had the same students who would immediately raise their hand after a question is asked but giving other students the time to think, I had more students raise their hand to answer the questions. That feedback from my field instructor was extremely valuable and my cooperating teacher made sure to mention it as something i did very well in my math lesson.

My cooperating teacher is also giving me brief feedback after my lessons and one thing she pointed out was one question that i asked to the students which was "does everyone understand the directions and what they are suppose to do?" This question got no response from the students and after I sent them back to their seats a lot of students had questions and did not understand the assignment. She told me that I should rephrase the question by saying "can someone tell me what the directions are?" "Are there any questions about the what the task or problem is?" "Will someone please repeat the directions and what you are suppose to do?" This feedback was extremely valuable because I was able to make it another goal for myself for the next lesson i taught which is exactly what I did.

I am very happy that we are receiving constructive feedback during our lessons because it gives us so much more insight to how to teach a lesson and how to improve each lesson we teach. I feel so much more confident then I did when I first taught a lesson and I feel that each lesson gets better and better. Having the constructive feedback allows me to reflect on my lesson and how I could do it differently the next time or what I would change. I am extremely grateful for this learning process!