5. classroom organization • Students are placed in groups of 4/5 rather than alone • Students face the front of the classroom • Two whiteboards in the front of the classroom as well as a projector • Television in the front right of the classroom is viewable from all angles
6. Students in the classroom can easily see the material no matter where they are in the classroom. If what the teacher is discussing is too small, she puts it on the projector. Material is easier to learn when everyone is able to see what is going on.
11. The students are given everything they will need for the lesson and asked to glue it into their notebooks. The RAP, WOW, and WIO is all the work they need for the day, and their notebook compiles all of this information learned throughout the year. Ms. Eddy begins the class with the "RAP" and ends it with the "WIO". She goes over the homework answers in the beginning of class, and thoroughly explains the homework instructions at the end of the class. In order to make sure the students are on track, she chooses students whose hands aren't necessarily raised and makes sure to leave time at the end of the class and even during the lesson itself to make time for questions the students may have.
13. positive environment • Students are to raise hands and not talk out of turn • Students turn and talk to each other first when they don't understand • Asked to "bump" another student to read, at random, not just a friend • Friendly competition at the table got the students excited • Students are encouraging to each other - "You can do it Jennifer!"
14. Discipline and misconduct • Teachers take a "point" off when a student isn't behaving well • "If you take it out again, I take it away" • Teacher counts down from 5 when the students are misbehaving • Students are reminded of how they SHOULD be acting, as 6th graders
15. Having observed multiple "levels" of 6th grade learning, the rules of discipline differ from class to class. With the "white team" which is the team of scholars, the only form of discipline I witnessed being used was reminding them that they should be acting like 6th graders. However, with the lower level teams such as the "green team", points had to be taken away, and class time had to be halted in order to reprimand the issue. With enforcing a positive environment, Ms. Eddy places emphasis on building relationships between student-teacher as well as student-student. I witnessed a friendly competition between the students to write down as many facts about Marco Polo as they could. There was no fighting, and at the end when all of the students asked who the winner was, Ms. Eddy replied, "You guys are ALL winners, congrats to all of you!"
17. All of the homework among the different "teams" was the same. On my first day observing, I noticed that use of Bloom's Taxonomy was evident. Their homework was to CREATE an ad for an igloo. Other questions include them reading a passage and being asked to identify a strategy they used while reading. They were then asked to explain how they used this strategy. While some students are in the ESOL program, or are special education students, they are all given the same work and taught the same material, just by different methods.
19. When the students answer a question correctly, or ask a thought-provoked question, Ms. Eddy makes sure to tell them "great job" or "keep it up". She makes sure to not move on, until all questions are answered and everyone is on the same page in order to avoid students feeling embarrassed later on because they're not fully understanding the material. By placing the students in groups, they are able to encourage each other and work towards a common goal. This is successful, because by telling students to keep up their good behavior, and not praising their bad behavior, you are letting them know what it okay in the classroom and what is not.
20. Personal Anecdote: I was sitting in the back of the classroom observing the green team. I asked Mrs. Black if they were all special needs students because they didn't seem any different from other students in the white team. She told me that only 7 of the students in this class were special needs, some of which were things like ADHD and ESOL. She told me that the two smartest kids in the class were an ESOL student and one with special needs. I thought it was odd because they were able to do the higher level work perfectly fine if not better than the other students, and just speaking to them, it wasn't <i>evident</i> that they were special needs students. She told me that their weakness can always be their greatest strength.
