Classroom Observations/Activity Record Log

Ms. Susanna

I observed a veteran teacher that really knew what she was talking about yet felt very uncomfortable with the whole process. As she led the discussion, I wrote down her statements that we were able to go over in the post-conference. An observation that I came away with is that she was behind in the material for this course. Yet, she was really getting the kids to think critically about the topic. She had them working in groups and once again, I noticed her walking patterns even though that was not something that we had discussed that she wanted me to observe. She had informally mentioned that this was a difficult class and therefore, I shouldn’t expect too much. Well, having that in mind, I observed the discipline as it related to her location, her questioning, and her involving the students. She actually did a good job keeping everyone on task while they worked independently and then when she called them all together as a group, they all listened. Now that isn’t to say that all students were on task all of the time. But, they were not out of hand either. Therefore, when we met in the post-conference, we concluded that perhaps these particular students were better behaved since they were well aware of my presence. I showed her the list of topics that she covered from the county objectives. She was surprised to see she had covered so many of the topics just in that one lesson. Additionally, she was happy to see that she had covered the topics in as much detail as she had.

Observation notes: Students were divided into five small groups. Each student had a copy of the reading. The teacher did not pay attention to off task behavior. Students got back on task when she walked closer to their group. The topics that she covered were listed in the AKS in the county guidelines. She discussed WWI is sufficient detail.

Ms. Kay

During Ms. Kay’s observations, I noticed a number of things that she was doing that made her life a bit more difficult in the classroom. These included the fact that she never called on certain students. Oddly enough, these were the very students I later found out that caused her the most grief. Her method of getting students involved in classroom discussion included the handing out of paper money every time they answered a question. I found it interesting that the very same people were called on and thus got the paper money. I also found that the “lesson” that she and the class was involved in was very boring. So when she wanted me to see if she was including everyone in the lesson, I found that she had her select few that she would call on and then lose the rest of the class. When they noticed that they weren’t the “chosen”, they shut down and either put their head down or huffed and puffed about her ignoring them. I found it hard not to critique the fine points and the lesson itself. Since that is not what I was there to observe. While I found that it all fit together in some small way, the fact that she wanted me to only look at her involving students through questioning and calling on them had me in a quandary concerning the essence of the lesson. In our post-conference, I tried to stay away from the fact that I observed a lesson of checking a homework packet that would have been more effective had she imbedded the worksheets as practice after the lesson as opposed to their answering the worksheet as the lesson. While I told her she would probably have had different results if she had used the worksheets in a different way, we discussed what it was that I observed. I was fascinated to find out that the way that she had structured the lesson by handing out fake money to students as they answered questions on the worksheets was something that she had tweaked from the beginning of the year. The reason this was discussed was because I thought that not only was she distracted from the business of teaching the material on the worksheets, the kids were distracted by who was getting the paper money, what color it was, and who was getting it. I showed her the diagram of where she walked and who she called on to answer the questions, she was surprised to find out that she stayed in the front of the room, did not involve the back corner where she had the most troubled students.   Another trend that emerged from this classroom was that students were paying more attention to who was actively involved during class than she was. They were concerned about who was getting money and who wasn’t. It appeared that those that didn’t have money figured out real quick that they were the “have-nots” and they shut down. This is something the teacher didn’t see until I brought it up in our post-conference.

Observation notes: Teacher was well prepared. She kept track of who acquired “bucks” in her head. The class graded the worksheets by having one student raise their hand and then when they answered correctly, they would earn the “bucks”. Students were quiet and not engaged. Walking patterns by the teacher did not address every student. She had a definite pattern that left students out of the mix.

Mr. Hassan

In this class, I observed a summer school U.S. History class. The most interesting thing about this class was that they were trying so hard to stay awake and pay attention. These kids had already failed the class once before and were in summer school to make up the credit. Students were paying attention because they had a quiz coming up at the end of the hour and they knew they had to pass. This is a bit different from what I had observed during the school year. This class was in the middle of a Civil War lesson and the teacher was lecturing on the war in the east and the war in the west. He spoke very slowly so that the students could take in the cause and effect of the military actions. He asked questions of the students in a broad sweeping fashion. The class answered in unison which was difficult to hear. There were a couple of students that continually answered the questions once the noise died down. The teacher repeated the answer that the students said as he continued the lesson. While this was happening, the other students were not exactly paying close attention to the lesson. He used the white board to illustrate military strategy for specific battles. Meanwhile, while he was talking, he also had written on the board an outline of the major battles for each of the wars that he lectured on. Another method that he used to get the students to understand the logic behind battle strategy was to repeat over and over again what it was that the students needed to remember. At the end of the lesson, the teacher asked if they had any questions and when no one said anything, he told them to take out a piece of paper and then he began the quiz.

Observation notes: Teacher is sitting in a chair in front of the class as the students are sitting in a horseshoe fashion. He lectures from his seat and then stands to illustrate the battles on the board. He asks questions and students answer in unison. He tells them how to remember the names of the battles. He gives stories to help students remember the general’s names. Repeating of names and battles helped students to remember for quiz at the end of the hour.

Mr. Wiley

This 11^th grade Physics summer school class was made up of only 9 students. The interesting thing about this class was that as soon as I entered the room, there was an energy level that was very interesting. Compared to the other summer school class, this teacher had the attention of each student. These students again knew that they had to pass this class since they had failed once already. But that didn’t seem to be an issue here. This teacher had an energy level and was so humorous that it kept the students attention and they were all on task. The class was learning about work, power, and energy. They waited for a student to return from the counseling office and then when he returned, they all picked up a meter stick and a stopwatch. The class walked to the stadium and the teacher began giving directions for the lab. Their job was to get to the top of the section of the stairs that he chose to climb and measure the horsepower the student used to accomplish the task. The teacher recorded the times of the students and once they all finished climbing and timing their climb, they returned to the classroom to work on their analysis. The teacher showed them how to insert their times in the formula and while he went over how to do the calculations, he answered student questions and went from student to student when they needed additional help. Finally, he continued the lesson by telling them what these measurements mean in the real world by explaining work and energy in terms of food and exercise. This was an analogy that the students could understand.  At this point, he continued the lesson by pulling students into the conversation through humor and questioning.

Observation notes: Students went to stadium to do lab on energy and work. Upon coming back to classroom, students and teacher filled in formula to calculate work. Teacher helped each person as they needed it. His humor kept students engaged and interested in the lesson. All students were engaged. Used real life examples to help students understand physic principles.