4.1 4 week middle school observation

 For my four week middle school observation I observed Mrs.Harber, who teaches fourth grade special education. 

For my first time going in to observe her she's going over how to convert yards into feet in the math textbook that the students and her have and asking the students questions to see if the students have been paying attention to her so far. 

Her classroom was really cozy but my favourite part of her classroom was the fact that she had a really comfy couch and lounge chair in the back of the class. Adding a couch and a lounge chair made the classroom feel more homey than the typical classroom, and made it feel like it would be a nice place to calm down and de-escalate. She also had a bunch of posters, but my favorite one was a ninja turtle long division sign. 

I really like how she used the strict but nice approach to teaching and communicating with her students, and how she would actually talk to me and give me pointers. at one point she told me that, "In the teacher world there is a lot of modifying and adjusting." and that made me realize that we can't always be in control, that we just have to modify our approach and adjust to life, inside and outside of school.

For my second observation Mrs.Harber said she had to go to a meeting so I actually ended up observing Mrs.Watson, who I observed before my four week observation began. Mrs.Watson also teaches special education but she teaches fifth grade instead of fourth and we ended up joining the fifth grade English teacher Mrs.Hall's class. Mrs.Hall and Mrs.Watson split the students up into two groups, Mrs.Hall had the independent group while Mrs.Watson had the dependent group. Mrs.Hall went over similes and metaphors and Mrs.Watson helped the dependent group, making sure they understood what was going on as well as making sure they did their work and copied all the notes Mrs.Hall told everyone to write down. Afterwards the students were tasked with splinting off and doing their work by themselves on their computers or read a book. 

I really liked how well Mrs.Watson and Mrs.Hall worked together and how they both always made sure everyone was paying attention and understanding what they are going over by asking questions about the lesson. 

 

For my third observation Mrs.Harber was back. she was pulling three students out at a time in order to gauge the students progress and understanding of the material. One of the students she pulled was tasked with finding the main idea of a passage about penguins. Another student is tasked with reading a series of words out loud then combining them into compound words. 

I like how she encourages her students by telling them that they can read, and to not be nervous because they are doing good. I also like how she speaks softly while doing so and uses positive reinforcement.

3.1 Elementary observations

 Recently in my intro to education class we had the opportunity to observe two elementary classes and see how different teachers teach different grades. 

for my first observation I observed Mrs.Dayberry's 2nd grade class. I really enjoyed how she spoke to her students and used cute little chants. I can't remember what the chants were but I remember they were super catchy and easy to remember and were also super  helpful. I liked how she furthered the students knowledge on their red words which are words that are common words that students need to memorize and are often used in stories. she did this by saying things like "magic E" which is a term used to describe the pattern of a vowel-consonant-e (VCE) syllable, where the "e" is silent but changes the pronunciation of the word. I also loved how she had a little castle-like thing for students to use when she says they can.

for my second observation I observed Mrs.moore's first grade class. I really enjoyed how she stayed calm even when some of the students were acting out and kept losing their things. I also enjoyed how she also taught the students their red words and "magic E's". I also like how down at the elementary the teachers have everything the students might need in their desks and all students need to do to use said things is ask.

my greatest takeaway would be that I definitely want a castle thing in my room, I think its really cute and adds character to the classroom as well as a place for students to chill out when they're allowed and to make sure to have stuff for the students to use as well as extra supplies incase they lose theirs.

all in all I had a really good time and would definitely go down there again.

2.1 Highschool Obsrevations

Introduction

Recently in intro to education we had the opportunity to observe two high school classes and watch how the teachers taught their classes.

High School Observation 1 = Where

My first observation was in Mrs.Bracketts class. Mrs.Brackett teaches 10th grade biology.

I really enjoyed watching how she responded to the students questions and how she interacted with the students in general. I really enjoyed watching the students work on their projects and how they worked with the people in their groups.

High School Observation 2 = Where

For my second observation I went to Mrs.Davis's class. Mrs.Davis teaches 11th grade Algebra 2.

I really enjoyed how she did the work up on the board with her students and how she allowed her students to direct her on what she should do to solve the equation. All the students seemed to be engaged and understood the lesson.

Something You Learned = Greatest Takeaway

My greatest takeaway would be how to talk to students and the best ways to help them.

Conclusion

All in all, I really enjoyed my first two observations and I can't wait to do more.