Field Visit #2

This visit was split between our time in Mr. F.'s classroom and our time in the Quest classroom with Mr. H. They are two very different environments so it's nice to be able to see different teaching styles. A little background info: about half of Mr. F.'s class is pulled out on Thursday mornings for Quest. Last semester we were able to talk in detail with Mr. H. about the Quest selection process. It's a very intense system built around parent/teacher nominations, testing, and conferences. There is a matrix that a child must satisfy in order to be placed in Quest, and it has supposedly become a very political process.

When we arrived in the classroom, Mr. F. was working on the "Mystery Poem" (Shel Silverstein's "Magic Carpet") with all of the students. This is a practice that I would definitely like to incorporate into my future classroom--it gets students to start thinking about poetry and also helps them analyze words and spelling patterns. Basically, Mr. F. writes a poem on butcher paper but draws blanks for most of the words. He gives the students a few letters for each word and they must guess the word based on the context, spelling, and number of letters. I've seen firsthand how excited the students get as they try to guess the word and how determined they are not to let Mr. F. stump them. It's also encouraging to see G., an ELL from Africa, make progress each week as he is able to guess more of words.

After the "Mystery Poem," half of the students leave for Quest. Today, we went with these students and listened as Mr. H. explained the problem solving acronym "SCAMPER:"

Substitute
Combine
Adapt
Magnify/Minify
Put to other uses
Eliminate
Reverse/Rearrange

He also taught the students hand signs to go along with each word to help them remember what the acronym stood for. These memory techniques seem particularly effective because they cater to different learning styles: the acronym helps students recall the first letter of each step while the hand signs get them actively involved in the learning process. After learning these problem solving steps, the students were instructed to make a collage from magazines to be the cover of their novels (a project they have been working on all year). The students were shown several examples and then spent the rest of the time cutting out colors, shapes, and patterns for their cover.

Mr. H. is very enthusiastic about everything that he teaches the students, and his excitement is infectious. For example, to introduce "SCAMPER," Mr. H. said "Today I'm going to show you a really cool tool that will help you solve almost any problem in the world." In addition to his ability to motivate the students, Mr. H. also uses technology creative ways. The students have been learning to use PowerPoint as they create slides that contain the text of their novels. Also, when the students completed their collages, Mr. H. scanned them into the computer so that they could add them to their PowerPoints. At other times, he has used tools such as Google Earth to help students create settings for their novels. Quest is such a creative environment; it's easy to see why the students get so excited on Thursdays. I would like to think about ways that the techniques Mr. H. uses in the Quest classroom could also be used with a regular class.

When we returned to Mr. F.'s class, they were beginning Reading Groups. Mr. F. groups the students according to reading ability and gives them a separate assignment for the day. Usually, two groups will meet with Mr. F. for small group instruction while the rest of the class reads silently, answers comprehension questions, and writes in their journals. Today I read with some of the students and then helped others with their comprehension questions. It's still surprising to me how varied the reading levels are in this class. With the first group of students, I listened to them read a Ronald Dahl chapter book, while the other students struggled to read the questions on their Open Court worksheet. It's frustrating to see some students make such significant progress while others fall further and further behind. Overall, this was a good visit that was much more controlled than our last. We were given more opportunities to work with the students this week which is always interesting.

Field Visit #1

We were finally able to visit our second grade class after several snow days and delayed starts. When we arrived at 9:30 we learned that the school was on a 2 hour delay because of the weather and that the students wouldn't be arriving until 10:00. Fortunately Mr. F. had already arrived (he also didn't get the message about the delay) so we were able to spend some time planning our unit with him. It was a good example of the necessity to adapt and be flexible in teaching as well as the importance of being productive in the time that you have. Mr. F. told us that we would be teaching our unit on ancient Egypt and we discussed times/dates that we could administer a pretest and teach. Although I'm excited about the topic, it's also a little frustrating to have no more direction than that. I want to make sure that we are teaching the students is meaningful (and not repetitive), but it's difficult when we don't have a lot of guidance. This is one of those moments where I appreciate the SOLs. They are so detailed that it gives you a good idea of where to at least start. Ancient Egypt is such a broad topic, but the SOLs really direct your attention and give you an idea about what should be addressed. Once you have that basic framework, it's easier to expand from there and bring in more information.

When the students arrived at 10:00, they were so excited to see us. It was nice to see how much they enjoyed our lessons and how happy they were to have us back. We went to the "Student of the Week" assembly with the rest of the school (a good idea, but it became very repetitive and boring) and then came back to the classroom to participate in Chinese New Year activities. Several parent volunteers came to the class to help them make dumplings and a sort of Chinese hackeysack. I really liked the idea of these activities, but they did not seem very purposeful. I think that it would have helped if the class had at least read a book explaining the Chinese New Year. Many of the students seemed confused about why they were doing these crafts. There is even a Chinese student in the class whose mom was a volunteer; it would have been nice to see her talk a little about her Chinese heritage. These were activities that I would definitely want to include in my future classroom, but I think that it's also important to make them meaningful. There has to be a purpose or a connection, whether it be to social studies, literacy, science, etc., or else the students won't understand the point of what they're doing.

I was also struck by the overall behavior of the class. Mr. F. has told us repeatedly that this class is known for being particularly rowdy, but I also feel as though proper discipline could make a huge difference. When the students came in the classroom this morning, Mr. F. started calling out names asking what students wanted for lunch while the rest of the students ran around the classroom talking loudly to each other. If this were my class, I would require that each student go to their seat and read quietly or work on some sort of warm-up activity. This is just one example of a time when things get pretty chaotic in the classroom, but overall the behavior management just isn't there. Mr. F. seems exhausted from trying to keep everyone under control, and it scares me to think that I could one day have a class like this.