February 23, 2007

Today I administered the pre-assessments to the class and then observed for the rest of the period. I administered it twice and was much better the second time about explaining what a pre-assessment was. The teacher wanted me to explain it showing that they were not use to this format in the classroom. Some of the students felt stressed for time and about not knowing the answers. After certain students were finished with their tests, the teacher had them bring her the test to check it over. She only did this with some of the students which I found interesting. She was definitely more curious about certain students. One student in particular that she picked out has some discipline problems, but is also very bright. After she looked it over she made a sign to him to show he was 'sharp as a whip'. The student beamed in reaction to this. She is tough on this individual, but also encourages him more than other students as well. I think the praise has obvious positive effects on this student, but I was nervous that the selecting of certain papers would single students out and make others feel not as important. The teacher does have a very good and respectful relationship with the students where she cares for each one, so I would not be surprised if she did this periodically with every student.
After the administering, she had them study in groups for their own quiz on the Southwest. She talked them through their notes and then had them take a quiz. She keeps the class very informal. The questions were written on the board and they had to write the four states and their capitals and then name two interesting facts about the Hoover Dam, Monument Valley, and Phoenix. I am not sure how these were graded, but I got the feeling that these grades were useful for her decisions, but would not be graded harshly or carry much weight.
She has created a very democratic like classroom where the students feel they can be the teachers as well. After the quiz, she allowed two students to come up and share the geography trivia quiz they had made for the class. Many of the students were very involved, but others drifted off. I like how she enables the students to take over, but should have monitored the class participation and length of the game.

Field Experience 2/2/07

The lesson I observed on Friday, February 2nd was both teacher and student led. For the first part of my observation, the teacher had the students quiz each other on state capitals. Then the teacher went over a worksheet with them for the science lesson on weather and again the students were to work with one another to quiz one another and ask questions. This is a pattern I often observe in this class. The teacher will go over a couple of points with the students and then they are to work in pairs or groups. The advantage of this for this class is that many of the students love this. They get into the idea of being a teacher to one another and stay on task. The problem is that a portion of the class who are less intrinsically motivated do not benefit as much from this exercise. The students are to all have recorded the same notes, but some students do not have the correct notes, imcomplete notes, or just cannot understand their notes. Many of the students expressed private concerns that they had not yet gone over some of the worksheets and did not have a handle on the topic.
I believe that the emphasis in science in this class is on facts and not concepts. The students I was working with had great questions and were eager to fit the pieces together and the worksheets were not satisfying their interest. I am not sure how the material was covered in the first place, but I think that these students would benefit from seeing film clips to explaing the concepts and doing small scale experiements to see the weather patterns.
The teacher talks to these students on their level and uses examples from their lives, but again this only engages about half of the students. I think the self-quizzing is a good idea, but I also think some students may not be ready for the self-quizzing and need more guidance in getting the answers. This class calls for a high level of differentiation and it is important for the students who are capable fo work independently to practice this, but some students require more attention.
In my own classroom, I hope to be able to impart both conceptual and conrete knowledge onto the students. Maybe by focusing on one weather aspect like a high pressure system and low pressure system and making it interactive with meteorogical terms and maps. I would maybe have the students use the symbols on meteorogloy to become their own forecasters. I would also be sure to move into concrete facts for the SOLS and use both teacher directed reviewing and student directed studying.

Teaching Metaphor

I was recently reading The Agony and the Ecstacy, an historical fiction book about Michelangelo's life as a sculptor. The author explains through the eyes of Michelangelo how a good sculptor cannot just begin carving wherever he or she wants to, but has to understand the 'life' of the marble and recognize its uniqueness before responding to it. I believe looking at scuplting in this way explains some of my views on teaching. Note: This metaphor of sculpting does not include such phrases as 'sculpting' and 'molding' the children's minds. Rather I see this relationship as one that requires the sculptor to understand the marble like a teacher must understand their student before deciding what is best for them. We talk in the Ed School a lot about being a reflective and responsive teacher who knows their students and makes decisions based on observations. I believe a sculptor acts in a similar way with its subject.
When sculpting, like teaching,one must recognize the indivuality and uniqueness of a rock. This can be a sinlge student or be compared to a whole class. Then the sculptor must make reflective decisions on where is the best place to start and which tools would best fit the job. As teachers we need to assess prior knowledge to understand a student and make similar decisions of where to start and what 'tools' would be most effective in reaching the goal. A sculptor cannot not start his job without knowing the end product or goal, while we as teachers need to be responsive, we need to have a plan and trajectory of where we are going with the class and student.
There are obviously many ways to look at teaching and not all of them are perfect. The place in this metaphor where I start to disagree is in viewing the act of learning. I do not believe the act of learning is a passive 'molding' act. Rather, I think the student must be active in their learning to make it memorable. That said, I also believe that teachers can make an impact on students and can really make a difference on their attitudes, beliefs and knowledge. We like sculptors should have a plan but be responsive and know our students.