Outside Classsroom Observation

1/26/2010

Due to a snow day for DCPS system I decided to go visit South Middle School in Henderson, Kentucky to complete some outside the classroom observations. I was fortunate enough to be able to observe three different classes (50 minutes apiece). I will note observations from all of them.

Mr. Jerry Grimes & Mrs. Lyndsay Koonce – Language Arts Collaboration
(6th grade)

This Language Arts class was a packed house. In addition to all the students, four adults were present in the class. Mr. Grimes is the lead L.A. teacher and he has assistance from Mrs. Koonce (Special Education), Ms. White (ESL assistant), and one classified employee (EBD assistant). This created quite a dynamic and was a reflection of the diversity this class displayed. What I did notice was that this group of educators had created a system that did not interfere with the learning process. I can definitely see how this many adults could talk over each other and/or become distractions to students if not careful. They did do a good job of making sure only one spoke at a time. Ms. White was outstanding in becoming invisible to a degree. She worked quietly with her three ESL students and did not disturb the flow of the class. The classified EBD assistant did seem to talk more than I would have expected. With two highly qualified teachers in the room I assumed she would have let them handle all the instruction while attending to the one EBD student she accompanied to the room. It was clear that the individuals had all created a roll for themselves as Mrs. Koonce introduced the daily objective; Mr. Grimes started the lesson preview and so on. The students seem to work well with this routine.

Mr. Raley – U.S. History (8th grade)

Mr. Raley is a fifth year teacher and has taught every year in the same subject, a fact that shows in his presentations. I have had the chance to observe Mr. Raley in the past for Method classes and he has always displayed lecturing as strength, this trend continues. For the lesson this day, Mr. Raley had a power point that accompanied his lecture. The ppt. consisted of photographs and guided questions that went along with their prior reading. Although I realize that lecturing is being frowned upon, Mr. Raley shows such expertise in the content that all students stay involved. He truly has so much information to give them (and he is so prepared) that he hardly takes a breath. As a result students are always engaged and today was no different. Today’s topic was the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, and accompanying events. I have noticed that Mr. Raley always has a great deal of information not included in the text and this is a great aspect to his successful lectures since students are interested in the additional facts and the creative examples he uses to assist their comprehension of the events.

Mrs. Callie Carroll – Language Arts (7th grade)

Mrs. Carroll is a veteran teacher who is well known throughout the school as a great planner (bell to bell) and class room manager. Today was the first opportunity I had to observe her. As advertised, Mrs. Carroll was very structured and was on top of everything in her class room. Not only did she have no dead periods with in her lesson plan, she had great transitions keeping students focused on the next task at hand. On this day she had a group activity where students looked through magazine ads focusing on different types of propaganda and persuasive techniques. The groups seemed to work well and she rotated around the room answering questions and prompting them when appropriate. She also used technology (educational cartoon displaying advertisement techniques – Smart Board programming) at the beginning of the class to activate prior knowledge/discussions. I was impressed that a teacher with over two decades of teaching had adjusted her style to include new technology and teaching strategies (more group work).

Mrs. Jarrett – U.S. History (8th grade)

I had also observed Mrs. Jarrett in prior semesters as a requirement for Methods of Social Studies and she was nice enough to let me ask questions about her latest chapter and the assessments and lessons she has used. Of course, she was covering the same content as Mr. Raley and she had just given the summative assessment for the unit (including matching, definition, and an ORQ) and was working on grading the OR’s while we talked. It was another good opportunity to see how a rubric is necessary for grading this type of response fairly and consistently.