This week at my field placement I was able to observe a metacognition class.  When I walked in the students were seated at their desks working independently on what seemed like different steps of the same process.  Some were reading through packets of paper, others writing by hand, and still others on their computer.  At the beginning of the year the students learned about different learning styles and figured out which type of learning style they have.  They learned about how their brain works and why one method may work better for them.  As the year progressed they learned about different study skills and techniques and practiced developing these skills in the classroom. 

I was amazed that this school is implementing this type of learning at a sixth grade level.  I think it is an extremely important skill to possess and I am happy that these students are able to have the resources to develop their study techniques.  However, I would argue that the meta-learning process needs to be taken one step further.  I think it is important for students to apply the same methods to talking about the curriculum and where they are in their learning process within their core subject areas.  I hope that I have the opportunity to talk with some of the students in the class to see what they think about this process and their learning.

Nicole Johnson

Field Notes, 2/6/13

Morris Heights Elementary School, 2nd Grade, Ms. B

Social Studies

-       Do: “We will read about places and we will compare and contrast them”

-       Compare and contrast à compare, bring hands in together; contrast, spread them apart

-       Ven diagram

-       Social Studies book p. 90

-       Region

-       Teacher reads, students follow with fingers. Cardinal directions. “Never Eat Soggy Waffles”

-       Where is the equator on the earth? It’s a line that keeps South and North.

-       They cut?! “It’s not really cut but it looks like it splits the globe in half”

-       Venn diagram with Tropical Rain Forest and Mountain Region

-       T is sent to sit at another table because he was hitting his book. He is not allowed to talk or contribute. “Close your book, you’re done”

-       Cold calling

-       “I will not answer If you’re calling out”

• I arrived at 9:00am (earlier than usual) because my lead teacher was running the open house leaving only the aide in the classroom.  I came early to help the aide manage the classroom.
• In the past I have discussed the certain children who regularly display behavioral issues, and who have been labeled “bad apples.”  For them the classroom environment has become somewhat of a biased environment in response to all of their actions. 
  • For example, this morning when I arrived the children were just arriving and the teacher was not in the room because she was meeting with parents during an open house at the school.  The only adults in the room were myself, and the class aide.  Two students who have had behavioral issues in the past repeatedly kept getting reprimanded by the aide, even though they were not being disruptive to any measureable amount.  One student was sent to time out in another room, while another was sent to the counselor for help on the assignment. 
    • I found this to be very interesting.  I felt that I could have handled the two student’s behavior in the class. I felt that their behavior was manageable.

Field Notes 03/05/13

Morning meeting started a little different than usual in class today. I was sitting at the back of the class sorting through student’s reading tests and putting them in piles for each student while teacher B started morning meeting. Usually, Teacher B starts morning meeting by having the students go in a circle and greet each other. Today, however, Teacher B starts by saying “you know, im a little disappointed with you guys right now” and began talking to the students about how they had laughed at a student. Teacher B spoke to the students about had come to her even before the event occurred and had indicated that they were a little insecure that day. Teacher B indicated that while this student may have laughed along with them, it didn’t mean that they weren’t hurting on the inside. At this point, it was unclear to me which student she was specifically talking about since I was facing away from the circle. During class I noticed that one of the students seemed less animated than usual. They were frowning and staring at the desk for the first two periods and were avoiding talking to their peers. It wasn’t until a conversation with Teacher A later that I realized that the student that felt insecure and the student I noticed looked upset were the same person.

I'm confused about how discipline/management of student energy should be happening at my placement. A few weeks ago, Mariah, the programming director, briefly told us that Wordsmiths uses a point system. Today, she handed out printouts to each of the kids when they came in - Erica got 75% positive points yesterday, so the circle showed up 75% green. Another student only had 42% positive points. 

However, to my knowledge, none of the tutors have learned about this system or how to implement it. I didn't even know some of the rules until today (kids aren't allowed to go upstairs without an adult, students have to ask for permission to go outside, we don't use the "shut up" phrase, we don't use cuss words, no food from outside of Wordsmiths - especially candy). 

So I was outside with some of the kids for recess and I saw Bianca was talking with a friend. A few minutes later, I noticed that she was chewing something. Typically, the students are not supposed to have snacks of any kind until after recess when they go back inside (Wordsmiths provides fruit and yogurt). I asked her what she was eating. She said, "Nothing!" and backed away from me. She put one hand behind her back. Erica told her she better finish it quick. 

Today at my school placement in a center city private school second grade classroom, the three second grade classrooms were coming together to celebrate the one hundredth day of school. The teachers collaborated on an activity for the students to group up, supervised by a teacher, and tape off specified "100" measurements on the floor around the school. 

After the teachers discussed which students will work together well, they put students into groups of three to four, and assigned a teacher to each group. I went along with Teacher P (my mentor teacher)'s group.

The activity didn't have much structure other than the directions of the teachers helping the students measure out 100 centimeters, 100 inches, 100 feet, and 100 meters along the carpeted floor of the school hallways. When we began the activity, arguments immediately ensued about who would have which job, who got to hold the meter stick, who got to put the tape on the ground to mark the measurement this time...it was a little chaotic, especially when we started measuring 100 meters. At this point, Teacher P and I decided to divide the group into two groups--two students to put the meter stick along the floor and mark each one with a small piece of tape, two to take the large roll of tape and follow the other groups' measurements--to help everyone stay on task. 

1. and 2.: Collect stories/What happened? – Miranda helped Omar do his math homework

Once again, we had more volunteers than students at tutoring. Mariah – the director of Wordsmiths – asked Miranda and I to work with Omar. He had not been in school that day, so he needed to do both his schoolwork and some homework, which had been compiled into a packet. Since Miranda had worked with him before, I let her lead; so, for the most part, I just watched. Omar said he already knew how to do this, and that they didn’t need to work on it today. Miranda said that he needed to finish as much as possible, since there wouldn’t be tutoring tomorrow or the next day. She repeated that he had to do it today.

Omar started with the first page, which was 3 columns of basic addition (ex: 1 +2 = ?; 3 +7 = ?). For the first few questions on the first column, Omar used one of two strategies: he wrote tally marks for each number and counted up the total (ex: I II = 3; III IIIIIII = 7), or he used his fingers and counted from left to right (ex: 1 finger on one hand next to 2 fingers on the other hand). When the numbers were too big to fit on one hand (ex: 7), he used tallies. Miranda and I both watched him. For some of the equations that Omar was going to use fingers for, Miranda held up her own fingers and told Omar to look up. He counted her fingers and used that number. He said the answer out loud before writing it; when the answer was wrong, Miranda asked, “Are you sure?” or said, “Check that again.”

This week was my second visit to my placement, and being slightly more used to the environment, I was able to concentrate more on details than only the bigger picture. This week I had more one on one conversations with the students, and was conscious of keeping up with my observations from last week. I was still not thrilled with the teacher, and continued to struggle with understanding the class environment. At one point, one of the boys called me over to his desk and asked me if I wanted to be a teacher. When I responded yes, he told me to work at a magnet school. This comment caught me off guard, and made me think more about my observations last week concerning the teacher and the way the students responded to her. Before my first day, I looked up information about this school, and noticed that it was a high ranked public school with a good reputation. I was completely caught off guard that this eighth grade boy would warn me against teaching in a school like his. How is a kid supposed to be excited to learn, when he has such an established idea that his school is not suitable?

This post is a bit late, but it is in response to my first day at my placement. This semester, I have been placed at a public school in Center City Philadelphia, which is vastly different than the suburban independent school I attended, and the two previous placements I’ve had which were also both at independent schools. I am currently in a place where I feel as though I am not prepared to pass judgment or provide ample commentary on the school because I am still figuring out what my impressions are, myself. My first impression of the teacher is that she is not overly enthusiastic. She became irritated quickly and did not seem to feel the need for digression in front of her students. A few times she became frustrated and threw up her hands, exclaiming things such as “I just can’t!” or “I’m done!” after which she would return to her desk for a little bit. At one point, another teacher wandered into the class and the woman I am shadowing turned to her, gestured to the class and said to her, “See what I’m talking about?” The oddest part about this to me was that the students seemed completely un-phased by her attitude. In fact, in many cases, it seemed they rather liked her.