Teacher's Expectations

This week in field placement, my teacher was absent and therefore I was nervous not knowing who I would be working with for a lesson my mentor teacher and I put together.  I expected the class to be out of control and giving the substitute and myself a difficult time.  Quite the opposite occurred.  The students were more hyper, but the substitute I worked with today was great with her expectations she had for the classroom.  A perfect example of her "auditory" expectations was when the students were lining up to go to the next class.  A handful of students rushed up and lined up by the door, talking loudly and pushing others in order to get to the front of the line.  She boldly said, “back to your seats.”  At first the students were clueless on what was going on, but when she waited they returned to their desk.  Then she asked “if you have a sister line up.” The second time around less students were talking or loud.  But there was still noise, so she said “back to your seats.”  The students returned with a frown to their seats.  With persistence, the teacher asked “I you have a brother line up.”  Very silently the entire class lined up to get ready for the next rotation.  I was impressed with how directive she was with the students and equally as impressed at how they performed the task as she desired without her saying what they needed to do to line up without being asked to return to their desks.  The expectation was demonstrated and not verbalized, yet the students were able to perform what she was wanting.  Some other behaviors I have seen both my mentor and substitute teacher perform are verbal commands, nonverbal commands, written instructions and peer communications from the teacher’s actions. 

Assessment Blog: Christine Jordan

Assessment is constantly taking place in the classroom where I have my field placement.  The teacher is always assessing for understanding through verbal questions, comprehension by testing/quizzing the students and application through the various activities performed by the students.  This is a great way to document the students "adaptive behavior to situations one may face."  When it comes to grading and keeping track of the student’s progress, quizzes or questions with partners are administered daily for the teacher to calculate the areas that need to be touched up on and the areas the students surpassed academically.  My mentor teacher is good about thinking on the spot when necessary and always has a plan B and sometimes C.  Another way assessments are preformed in the class room are by weekly “test for comprehension” quizzes that the students take with their “blind folders” up so no one else can see their work.  Then after the quizzes, the teacher collects them and when she can, she grades them and marks the student’s scores next to their name on a roll-call sheet.  She is then able to assess who needs more one-on-one help from the teacher or a co-teacher.  I was able to help out by taking a few students who performed below par and worked with them on their corrections. I was able to see firsthand how assessments go hand in hand with the progress of the student and their academic growth. 

Planning and Instruction

At the Elementary School in the fourth grade classroom, the teacher already has established a daily planner and shares the day’s agenda with me before the students come into the classroom for the start of the day.  The students are working on their benchmark testing and the day I had my field study, the fourth graders were testing over Social Studies.  This is the only form of "achievement tests" that the students really have, since the class is fourth grade geometry.  The students seems stressed and anxious about this test and when I asked them, they told me that it was the third day in a row that they were taking tests.  Because of the testing that was going on in the entire fourth grade, the teachers had a different instructional plan than the previous week.  During the “conference” time, the teachers talk about the plans for the day and what all they want to try and accomplish, especially since the three fourth grade classes rotate throughout the day.  As the classes begin to rotate, my mentor teacher is a specialist in math and is working on a practice test all three classes have accomplished the prior week.  After giving back the practice tests back, she asked me to take the students who scored below a 60 to a separate room to work on their practice test with them.  I found this to be extremely beneficial for the students and I see who having a co-teaching system can be utilized. I was unable to see differentiated instruction in the classroom, because the student with special needs was taken out of the room for testing. 

Field Placement: Day One-Planning and Instruction

Organization is the key, in my opinion, to obtaining a classroom with well managed students.  Planning and instruction are also very important skills a teacher needs to know when working in a classroom. While talking with my field placement teacher, she mentioned that there is not a wide scope in her class, but she does have a student who barley falls on the Autism spectrum.  Because of this one student, she takes into consideration his personal needs.  I noticed that as a math teacher, she rotates her classroom between three classes.  As the students go through the different stations the teacher would perform a "frequency distribution to form a running data sheet" on who scored what.  It was clear to see that with only 45 minutes they were not going to finish the activity that the teacher had put in place.  A five minute warning was given at the end of the rotation and when the students had to travel to the next room, they had journals that they placed all items not finished and if the work was finished, the students could turn them into a bin.  The teacher announced that the next day would me a mustard and catch-up day. They would “muster the effort to catch-up” on all work that they have not finished.  The overall day consisted of a schedule that worked around the students and allowed for the teacher and myself to give more one-on-one time to the students, especially those who need it.