This week I was able to observe three different teachers on top of my observations with Melissa and Mejia. On Tuesday I observed Katy Maples 9th grade Honors English. She begins the class with a warm-up on Padlet where students must find the parts of speech in an assigned sentence. They walk through the sentence together on the board. She waits for students to raise their hand, but also calls on them if they seem to know the answer. When students get it correct the whole class snaps. She allows for brief discussions after each activity. They watch a video and fill out a worksheet that accompanies the video. After that she introduces them to The Gift of the Magi. She gives some background to assist in the reading and then reads paragraphs out loud the has her student work with her in annotating the paragraphs. They have a worksheet to accompany their reading and eventually work on their own. She communicates well with students and lays out her expectations in a calm but friendly way. Katy is also honest with her students about how it has been difficult to learn names with masks. Since this is an older story, she makes sure to explain words students might not be familiar with and “translates” them into modern vernacular. She provides enough time for students to complete the work in class and encourages some to listen to the story if they are having difficulty focusing on reading. She also allows students to take physical notes instead of on Google and submit those to Google classroom.
I also observed two different Senior Seminar classes, one with Ms. Spivey and one with Mr. Colligan. In Spivey’s class they talked about mental health and Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. This was a very heavy discussion for students and Spivey explained her expectations for the conversation before she started. She reminded students that if they needed to leave the classroom, they are welcome to do so no questions asked. She was very honest and open about the difficulties that people have faced and used real life personal examples when discussing Maslow’s Hierarchy. In Colligan’s class we had a lighter conversation but no less important. They discussed choosing a college major and how the type of job you would like to do in the future plays a role in your choice. Colligan has a good rapport with his students. He is tall so he makes sure to get down on students’ level when talking with them. He often will repeat the question back to students if he does not fully understand the question or it is worded strangely. This gets them to rethink and rephrase the question they are asking. He seems to read the students’ personalities well and responds to each in different ways, sarcastically with some and respectful/straight forward with others. I really enjoyed watching both classes and teaching styles.
Baldwin was out for two days due to illness. During the days she was in class we worked on our annotations of The Hill We Climb and CeESS[1] paragraphs. Students did not seem to use their time wisely while they had a substitute, so she reminded them of classroom expectations and expectations she has for them as 11th graders. I helped students work on their essays and finish their annotations. In 2nd period I was also able to review some of the submitted paragraphs to get an idea of students writing level. Baldwin showed me how she will be grading them and what she is looking for based on the rubric. We discussed how she is realizing she might need to break her rubric down more to help students. While students seem to do well on their writing, there is a confidence that is missing. This could be the personalities of the students or the year of online learning, she is not sure. We also discussed some of the students that are at a lower level where they need to be and how she will provide them with extra support.
[1] Claim, evidence, Explain, Support, Significance
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