As of this post, I am a little more than half way through my
observations at PS 48. I have had many interesting experiences in Mrs. Whalen’s
fourth grade class. I am really enjoying my time at PS 48 and have learned a
lot so far.
The fourth
grade class that I am observing in is deep in the throes of test prepping. It
is interesting to watch the teachers in the room scramble to cover all the
material on the standardized test while trying to teach other subjects. Mrs.
Whalen and her student teacher have both explained to me how hard it is to plan
all the lessons of the day while trying to focus so much on the reading and
math material of the standardized tests. They also invited me to watch and help
them prepare the lessons while the students went to gym class. They examined
the math quizzes the students took the day before and decided they could move
onto other material. According to the quizzes given as an assessment, the
students had mastered multiplication and were ready to start division. The next
day during that math class, the students were having trouble grasping their new
math lesson. As a result, during the next planning session I attended, Mrs.
Whalen told me and her student teacher that they were going to have to spend
two periods of Math the next day so that the students would all master the
skills they were having trouble with. Mrs. Whalen’s flexibility impressed me.
Even though she would have to rearrange her day and find different ways to fit
in all of the other lessons, she was dedicated to making sure all of her
students understood division.
Another
thing that impressed me about this classroom was their use of technology. In
the class they had a smart board and a document projector. Many of the
student’s lessons are taught using the smart board and projector. For writing
workshop, reading workshop and math workshop the students sit on the floor. The
teacher then uses the document projector to show the students examples. When
the student teacher was teaching a lesson about essay writing, she projected a
sample essay on the smart board and went over it step by step with the
students. I think that it is helpful for the students to actually see an essay
clearly in front of them then go over the steps. I only have one suggestion for
the use of technology in this classroom. That is using a blog to publish their
work. During one of my observations the students had writing workshop where
they were about to “publish” their essays. They had been working for weeks on
drafting and editing and finally were getting ready to hand in their essays to
Mrs. Whalen. If they actually published their essays I think they would have
more fun writing them and then they could share their essays with each other
online.
Something I
saw at PS48 one day did not impress me however. One morning, the Science
teacher came in for science workshop. She had planned on completing a magnet lab with the
students. It seemed like a fun and interesting lab but the teacher had no
control over the class and it soon became chaotic. Once the materials were
handed out magnets were being stuck to things all over the classroom, ruler
fights erupted, paper clips were all over the floor, and one student thought it
was a good idea to put masking tape in his hair. Even with all this going on,
the science teacher just kept talking over the rowdy students. She kept
threatening them with parent teacher conferences that night and she even said
once “Today is the day I get my revenge”. Needless to say, not much was
accomplished in that science class. They didn’t even review the lab and there
was no assessment to see how much the students had learned. Her direct
instruction was the explanation of the lab in the beginning of class (which the
students didn’t listen to) as well as the directions about each lab experiment.
Indirect instruction was the lab that was accomplished by the students.
All of what I have seen so far has been helpful in aiding my
learning process. I am happy to be in PS48 and overall my experience thus far
is positive.
I wish I could say I am surprised that the science teacher acted like this in front of the students, but I have seen this many times. What do you think are the responsibilities of an administrator in this situation?
ReplyDeleteAlso, do you think the teachers are "Teaching to the test?" Or, are they teaching life skills to the students that will happen to appear on a test?