FIELD OBSERVATIONS/EXPERIENCE
Heather Wright
Polk County Virtual Early College
4 ½ hours
Visit 1:
Ms. Wright’s 9th grade English class began The Princess Bride the first day I was observing and they were not enjoying it at all. This was their first day of discussion for this book and Heather said she was unprepared for class. I got to see the “parking-lot” planning we have mentioned in class and it made me nervous just watching her before class began. But as always, Heather was amazing because she did not show any sign of being unprepared when class began. She started with daybook checks and allowed students to take 15-20 minutes finding entries for their daybook submissions. She outlined the types of entries she wanted on the board and walked around the classroom as students worked on finding their entries. After finding the entries, Heather moved on to a discussion about epics. She asked students if they could define “epic” as a term in literature and then asked them to write down any word they could think of that related to the topic. Next, she moved on to connect epics to oral stories such as the Odyssey. The final discussion concentrated on how The Princess Bride fit into these genres. I did not see any moment of uncertainty on her face or hear it in her voice.
Ms. Wright’s 9th grade English class began The Princess Bride the first day I was observing and they were not enjoying it at all. This was their first day of discussion for this book and Heather said she was unprepared for class. I got to see the “parking-lot” planning we have mentioned in class and it made me nervous just watching her before class began. But as always, Heather was amazing because she did not show any sign of being unprepared when class began. She started with daybook checks and allowed students to take 15-20 minutes finding entries for their daybook submissions. She outlined the types of entries she wanted on the board and walked around the classroom as students worked on finding their entries. After finding the entries, Heather moved on to a discussion about epics. She asked students if they could define “epic” as a term in literature and then asked them to write down any word they could think of that related to the topic. Next, she moved on to connect epics to oral stories such as the Odyssey. The final discussion concentrated on how The Princess Bride fit into these genres. I did not see any moment of uncertainty on her face or hear it in her voice.
Visit 2:
During this visit, I observed Heather’s 10th grade English class. This was not a typical class because there were five students, all female. The topic for the class was William Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew. Considering the students were not excited about the text, all of them read it and answered the questions posed by Heather during the discussion. I like how Heather takes the language of this work to them instead of having them go to it; she used a strategy where she would ask her students to compose Facebook status updates from the perspective of the characters. After discussing the first act of the play, they began watching one movie version. I have worried about watching movies during a class period because I do not want the movie to be meaningless to the students. I have had experiences where a class watches a movie but we do not discuss it or relate it back to the lessons. In those moments I would call this filler or a pointless use of a text. However, Heather would pause the movie and take a minute to discuss the translation of the play to a screen production. The students were analyzing the movie according to their thoughts on the play.
During this visit, I observed Heather’s 10th grade English class. This was not a typical class because there were five students, all female. The topic for the class was William Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew. Considering the students were not excited about the text, all of them read it and answered the questions posed by Heather during the discussion. I like how Heather takes the language of this work to them instead of having them go to it; she used a strategy where she would ask her students to compose Facebook status updates from the perspective of the characters. After discussing the first act of the play, they began watching one movie version. I have worried about watching movies during a class period because I do not want the movie to be meaningless to the students. I have had experiences where a class watches a movie but we do not discuss it or relate it back to the lessons. In those moments I would call this filler or a pointless use of a text. However, Heather would pause the movie and take a minute to discuss the translation of the play to a screen production. The students were analyzing the movie according to their thoughts on the play.
Visit 3:
I again observed Heather’s 9th grade English class and they were continuing their reading of The Princess Bride. Although they said they hated the book, they were still reading and discussing it during class. I remember in my high school classes, my peers would not read the text if they did not like it from the start. I think it shocked me seeing that even though they hated reading this book, they were reading it anyway. They could answer the questions Heather asked in the lesson. This observation made me wonder how I would respond to my students who disliked a text I chose for the class and would not read?
I again observed Heather’s 9th grade English class and they were continuing their reading of The Princess Bride. Although they said they hated the book, they were still reading and discussing it during class. I remember in my high school classes, my peers would not read the text if they did not like it from the start. I think it shocked me seeing that even though they hated reading this book, they were reading it anyway. They could answer the questions Heather asked in the lesson. This observation made me wonder how I would respond to my students who disliked a text I chose for the class and would not read?
Dorry Altman
Crest High School
2 ½ hours
Visit 1:
During my first visit to Dorry’s class, I helped her with student conferences for their narrative essays. I loved that she was able to conference with her students but I got to see how limited you are in your time with each student. She gave me a list of seven students and I asked her how much time I should allow for each conference. Dorry responded with ten minutes each and I was disappointed that this was all the time I had to work with each student. It is difficult going from having one hour to work with one student to an hour and ten minutes to work with seven students. Instead of asking the student to read the paper aloud, I had to quickly read through the essays myself. The response was the most difficult part because I saw many areas we could talk about but I had a limited amount of time to give a proper response. I want to conference with my students but I do not want it to be like I described above. In this situation, I see a great opportunity for students to write reflections about their essay and the teacher can respond better to each student.
During my first visit to Dorry’s class, I helped her with student conferences for their narrative essays. I loved that she was able to conference with her students but I got to see how limited you are in your time with each student. She gave me a list of seven students and I asked her how much time I should allow for each conference. Dorry responded with ten minutes each and I was disappointed that this was all the time I had to work with each student. It is difficult going from having one hour to work with one student to an hour and ten minutes to work with seven students. Instead of asking the student to read the paper aloud, I had to quickly read through the essays myself. The response was the most difficult part because I saw many areas we could talk about but I had a limited amount of time to give a proper response. I want to conference with my students but I do not want it to be like I described above. In this situation, I see a great opportunity for students to write reflections about their essay and the teacher can respond better to each student.
Visit 2:
My second visit to Dorry’s class was during her 3rd period. The previous day she started a new unit on poetry. I actually taught on this day and stayed for the remainder of the period to observe. After I taught my lesson, Dorry gave all the students an opportunity to share a poem they found with the class. Surprisingly, most of the students seemed to enjoy poetry and, as with Heather’s class, I was shocked because I never saw that in my high school classes. I think this seems to be a common theme because students are responding to the topic or text differently than I had expected. I assumed that the students would not enjoy discussing poetry but they did and it showed me how wrong I was to make assumptions about the students.
My second visit to Dorry’s class was during her 3rd period. The previous day she started a new unit on poetry. I actually taught on this day and stayed for the remainder of the period to observe. After I taught my lesson, Dorry gave all the students an opportunity to share a poem they found with the class. Surprisingly, most of the students seemed to enjoy poetry and, as with Heather’s class, I was shocked because I never saw that in my high school classes. I think this seems to be a common theme because students are responding to the topic or text differently than I had expected. I assumed that the students would not enjoy discussing poetry but they did and it showed me how wrong I was to make assumptions about the students.
Vanessa Robbins
Crest High School
December 13, 2010
1 ½ hours
Visit 1
I was not sure if I could observe my future cooperating teacher for student teaching, but it was the only opportunity I could find to sit in on a class before our final. My first observation focused on the relationship she has with her students. I can tell she treats each of them as individuals and they do respect her as the teacher. She trusted her students to be in the library without her and finish their stories. Apparently the week before, two of the groups were having major issues. She talked to each group at the beginning of class asking them what they had left to do for their projects, if they were having any other issues, what she could do to help them, and then mentioning possible solutions to the problems. She spoke to each group, asking them these questions trying to find out the stage they are at in the project.
I was not sure if I could observe my future cooperating teacher for student teaching, but it was the only opportunity I could find to sit in on a class before our final. My first observation focused on the relationship she has with her students. I can tell she treats each of them as individuals and they do respect her as the teacher. She trusted her students to be in the library without her and finish their stories. Apparently the week before, two of the groups were having major issues. She talked to each group at the beginning of class asking them what they had left to do for their projects, if they were having any other issues, what she could do to help them, and then mentioning possible solutions to the problems. She spoke to each group, asking them these questions trying to find out the stage they are at in the project.