February 19, 2017 - 14:19
I have been to my field placement at a science and inquiry based magnet school two times so far. The atmosphere is fairly relaxed and the student body is quite diverse and composed mostly of students of color. I was surprised to see that many students walked into class with earbuds in and phones and laptops out. Most of the students kept these items out throughout the class and some didn’t take off their earbuds even after class had begun. The first class was Anatomy and the second was Bio-Chemistry. Given that I am more of a social science person, I was a bit out of my element and was relying on my memory of these subjects from high school. I was able to help a student with her worksheet, but had to take the time to read over and think about the materials myself before I could confidently help the student. Miss A. had recently been out of the country for family reasons, so she was giving the course introduction on my first day at the placement. She spoke about grading, late work policy, technology use, and learning goals. The tone of the introduction was in some ways casual and sometimes funny, but also somewhat stern, especially when she talked about expectations for the students.
All of the classes I have seen so far at my placement have included a fair amount of time allotted for students to work independently on their assignments. During this time, some students worked, but others were on their phones or doing other things on their laptops or talking to friends. I talked to Miss A. about this and she told me that they do get distracted sometimes, but they know that they have to finish their work so they are motivated enough to do it on their own when they are given time. She also told me that the students learn better when they have to think about things and do research on their own, as opposed to being spoon-fed information that they may not actually pay attention to. I am curious about this teaching style because some elements of it sound really great, like allowing students to figure things out for themselves and lead their own learning, but it also allows some students to waste a lot of class time.