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Setting: Elementary School

9/27/17 8:30 am 12:45 pm

The Classical Academy

2nd Grade Homeroom

One Teacher, Approx 35 students

Class consisted approx of 40% male, 60% female. Racial demographic was 70% white, 20%
Hispanic, and 10% other. All spoke English fluently. Reading and writing abilities more or less
homogeneous amongst the class demographic, with five being fairly well advanced above the
rest (as much as three grade levels in advance).Too early to ascertain precise skill in the
sciences. Unknown mathematical skill level, as that days class did not include mathematical
instruction.

8:30 am students split into stations. The writing station has a series of childrens books for
them to flip through, so they can observe sentence structure. They then write their own
stories with the others as a guide.

Another works on reading with a lexia program.

Another reads while listening to a recording of the story to help them associate the words and
the letters.

The teacher herself has a group who reads in turns while she helps them with any words they
have trouble with. If the class is more advanced, she will push them to higher levels of
comprehension, but only after making sure they all have all the basics.

They switch periodically. All students use each station throughout the day. Depending on how
many students there are and how much time there is, there is a fifth station, which has
activities and learning games of various types.

They have three reading specialists. They help the students who are not reading at grade
level. They produce individual, independent lesson plans for the students to help them learn
things they are missing, and both work with them in class and in small workshop meetings,
outside of class.

After the finals switch, she has them stand behind their sear with is tucked in. They then line
up for recess. It is 9:45 am by this point.

At 10 am, they return and do Special Person, aka Interview of a Student. Students ask
questions to the interviewed student, who sits in the teachers chair and answers these
questions. This is to help them get used to both public speaking and asking questions of
future teachers. They are then asked to give words to describe the student, and then they
work together to write a short description of the student. Then they copy the sentence on to
their own papers.
The music teacher comes in. Lessons are independent of the rest of the class. Lessons take
the form of games.

They go to lunch at noon.

After coming back, they finish the special person writing. 12:45 pm my observation time
ends.

For me, the most interesting aspect of this observation period was the cyclical nature of the
first section of the class. It is certainly an efficient use of time and resources. Rather than
sticking to the typical lecture format, the teacher opted for a rotating series of stations. Each
student would spend time at a station, and at the end of the time frame would move onto the
next. The teacher would be instructing at one station the entire time, so by the end of the
session the entire class would have gotten what was very close to one-on-one instruction. At
the same time, even while not being personally instructed by the teacher, they were doing
something productive in terms of education, and the learning assistants would provide
additional aid.

The rotating stations method could be useful for saving time and increasing the quality of
instruction. However, I do not think that it would be useful in its current form for higher
levels of education, largely because it would be very difficult to produce efficacious stations
for the higher level material. On the other time, if I ever become an elementary-level home-
room teacher, I will definitely make use of this format.

I wonder if anyone has actually successfully implemented this strategy for higher level classes?

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Setting: Middle School

9/27/2017 10:45 11:45

Classical Academy Middle School

7th Grade Science

One Teacher, Approx 20 students

Class consisted approx of 40% male, 60% female. Racial demographic was 70% white, 20%
Hispanic, and 10% other. All spoke English fluently. Writing abilities more or less
homogeneous amongst the class demographic.

10:45 am class enters building.

Teacher has population memorized. He counts the class, finds all hands on deck.

Class is extra chatty, but calms down quickly upon shush sound.
Covering electromagnetism.

Has student read off of the slide.

Passes out magnetic files and magnets, so they can see magnetic field lines.

Reads next slide.

Explain what the slide was talking about by pointing to a diagram with a laser pointer.

Watches video on how to turn an iron nail into an electromagnet.

They are tasked with creating an electromagnet according to the instructions.

11:00 am, begins the experiment.

They have questions to answer before starting on a piece of paper. Presumably after as well.

Experimenting with the number of loops to produce fields of varying strength.

11:26 am lab ends. Students begin packing up.

11:29 am teacher explains a question.

11:36 am students return to chairs to complete the lecture.

11:45 am students leave for pizza (apparently)

The teacher seemed to have difficulty throughout the class commanding the attention of the
students. I was informed that the particular batch was much more restless than the others.
However, they all seemed to calm down much more upon the beginning of the lab. It seemed
that they merely needed to be able to work with there hands.

This observation has significantly increased my view on the importance of labs in a science
classroom, in keeping the attention of the students as well as a tool of demonstration.

Could labs be adapted for classes other than science?

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Setting: High School

11/17/17 10:12 11:34

Classical Academy High School

Freshman English

One Teacher, Approx 20 students

Class consisted approx of 40% male, 60% female. Racial demographic was 70% white, 20%
Hispanic, and 10% other. All spoke English fluently. Writing abilities more or less
homogeneous amongst the class demographic.
10:12 am period 1 class ends, period 2 class comes in.

10:15 am period 2 class begins.

Close read of stage 1 (play)

reading on schoology, (Lucys home for Girls Raised by Wolves, read closely and in depth)

Teachers method is very loose and informal, encourages student participation, casual
method allows humor to work better, which in turn improves memory.

10:20 am role call, call out personal identification with the story (encourages immersion in
the story and thus retention of details). Teacher participates as well

10:25 am Steps for integrating quotations. Learn how to use brackets to clarify the meaning
of the quote. Integrating quotes (using a quote as part of a statement rather than just
attaching it to the end).

10:32 am, begin reading script

explain particular phrasings.

10:41 am answer each question with an integrated quote

10:49 am a few read out loud to the rest of the class if they feel confident.

11:00 am explaining the use of comparison on a story tone to emphasize a point using an
example from the text.

11:03 am research important context details about the text.

11:08 am discuss the text

11:16 am hand out quick-writes to work on individually.

11:34 am class ends

One thing I noticed that really struck me in the class was the teachers extremely laid-back
approach to teaching. I know its not technically and event, but I think it is possibly the most
notable thing during the observation period. The teacher encouraged banter among the
students, but regulated with periodic questions it so that it stayed on course. In this way, the
students would naturally take themselves towards learning more about the subject without
feeling like the content was being shoved down their throats. The entire class had a very
loose, conversational tone to it. When the teacher used humor, it was often to highlight
something about the writing, but just as often they were normal jokes, and usually provoked
a laugh. From my own experience, humor can be used to excellent effect to improve the
memory of the students, and the atmosphere of the class was an extremely positive, active
one. The students seemed to be legitimately interested in learning.

From my observations, it seems that a laid-back approach could be extremely useful in

I wonder if this method will work for more than just English classes, however.
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Setting: Special

9/27/17 8:30 am 12:45 pm

The Classical Academy

2nd Grade Homeroom

One Teacher, Approx 35 students

Class consisted approx of 40% male, 60% female. Racial demographic was 70% white, 20%
Hispanic, and 10% other. All spoke English fluently. Reading and writing abilities more or less
homogeneous amongst the class demographic, with five being fairly well advanced above the
rest (as much as three grade levels in advance).Too early to ascertain precise skill in the
sciences. Unknown mathematical skill level, as that days class did not include mathematical
instruction.

8:30 am students split into stations. The writing station has a series of childrens books for
them to flip through, so they can observe sentence structure. They then write their own
stories with the others as a guide.

Another works on reading with a lexia program.

Another reads while listening to a recording of the story to help them associate the words and
the letters.

The teacher herself has a group who reads in turns while she helps them with any words they
have trouble with. If the class is more advanced, she will push them to higher levels of
comprehension, but only after making sure they all have all the basics.

They switch periodically. All students use each station throughout the day. Depending on how
many students there are and how much time there is, there is a fifth station, which has
activities and learning games of various types.

They have three reading specialists. They help the students who are not reading at grade
level. They produce individual, independent lesson plans for the students to help them learn
things they are missing, and both work with them in class and in small workshop meetings,
outside of class.

After the finals switch, she has them stand behind their sear with is tucked in. They then line
up for recess. It is 9:45 am by this point.

At 10 am, they return and do Special Person, aka Interview of a Student. Students ask
questions to the interviewed student, who sits in the teachers chair and answers these
questions. This is to help them get used to both public speaking and asking questions of
future teachers. They are then asked to give words to describe the student, and then they
work together to write a short description of the student. Then they copy the sentence on to
their own papers.

The music teacher comes in. Lessons are independent of the rest of the class. Lessons take
the form of games.

They go to lunch at noon.

After coming back, they finish the special person writing. 12:45 pm my observation time
ends.

For me, the most interesting aspect of this observation period was the cyclical nature of the
first section of the class. It is certainly an efficient use of time and resources. Rather than
sticking to the typical lecture format, the teacher opted for a rotating series of stations. Each
student would spend time at a station, and at the end of the time frame would move onto the
next. The teacher would be instructing at one station the entire time, so by the end of the
session the entire class would have gotten what was very close to one-on-one instruction. At
the same time, even while not being personally instructed by the teacher, they were doing
something productive in terms of education, and the learning assistants would provide
additional aid.

The rotating stations method could be useful for saving time and increasing the quality of
instruction. However, I do not think that it would be useful in its current form for higher
levels of education, largely because it would be very difficult to produce efficacious stations
for the higher level material. On the other time, if I ever become an elementary-level home-
room teacher, I will definitely make use of this format.

I wonder if anyone has actually successfully implemented this strategy for higher level classes?

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