SED 406 Observation #3

SED 406 Observation 3

 

            This observation was done in the same self-contained social studies class as the earlier observations, but this was a class of juniors.  The observation was for the purpose of observing classroom management.

            As the students entered the room the teacher was in the center of the desks.  They are arranged in a semi-circle with the classroom computer and projector at the center in the front of the semi-circle.  The students on the way in would take the “do now” sheets that were located on a desk near the door of the classroom.  She has an established routine for this as she later explained the students in this type of class like the routine.  There are no assigned seats but the students go right to the desk they have chosen where most of them read the “do now” that is on the board and start to fill out the “do now” sheets.  As this is taking place the teacher starts attendance for the students that have come in before the bell as rung.  As more students enter they automatically pick up the “do now” sheets find their seat and again most of them start working right away on them.  The teacher takes the last of the attendance after the bell has run.  All during this time she is watching the students and reminding the students that should be working on the “do now” sheets as they will be discussing them shortly.  While they are finishing the sheets the teacher goes to the computer and starts to set up for the CNN student news video.  She tells the students that they have two minutes to finish the “do now” as she finishes the technology set-up.  When the two minutes were up, the teacher begins to go over the “do-now” with the students.  The discussion goes smoothly until one student pulls out his cell phone.  The teacher stopped the lesson when she saw this and addresses the student directly with “what is the rule for cell phones in this class?”  He responds with the answer that goes along with the classroom rule that is posted in the front of the room.  He puts the phone away and the lesson continued until the bell rang for lunch, this was a split lunch period.  They students hand in the “do now” sheets and exit the room for lunch.  This all goes smoothly.  Again the teacher set up a routine.
            As they come back from lunch one new student joins as he was in guidance for the first part of the class.  The assistant in the room helps him get caught up as the teacher checks the attendance again and starts the CNN news.  She reminds them before the video starts that they have to pick two stories from the CNN news that they find interesting and why and that they will discuss after class and then they would move onto the writing exercise on immigration after the CNN discussion.  The teachers goes to the back of the semi-circle to make sure the students are watching and taking some notes.  At the end of the video the teacher gave the students some more time to write on two of the stories that they saw.  She asks a few of them what they wrote about and then has the students bring them up to the desk and then to go get their binders from the cabinet to go over the immigration lesson.  It looks like they have been doing this exercise for a couple of classes.  It gets a little hectic as some of the students do go right to the cabinet.  Some stop to talk to another student, some go back to their seat only to have to get up again.  It take a little longer than expected but the class gets settled down and they start the writing exercise.  At this point the student that brought out the cell phone did it again.  The teacher again reminded him of the rule but this time he started to argue back.  The teacher kept her voice normal and went through their first step of de-escalation while at the same time told her other students to keep working on the assigned work.  It still did not lesson the situation.  After the third step of de-escalation did not work she had the assistant call down to a discipline expert.  She continued to teach the class until the discipline expert came to the class to talk to the student.  He eventually had to be taken out of the class.  During this the other students stayed on their assigned work as the teacher handled the situation.  The rest of the class proceeded with no further interruptions.  The teacher walked around to check on their individual progress and giving praise.  Heard her say “great job”, “that’s a great opening” and saw more than one pat on the back.  With about five minutes left in the class she asked her students to finish the work they were on and to put the binders back in the cabinet, which went off smoothly.  When they were seated she went over what was going to happen in the next class and if there were any questions.  The bell than rang and the kids left the room in order.
            I think the classroom was managed very well.  Time was used effectively.  Even with the split lunch and the disruption caused by the incident with the cell phone the teacher was able to get her plan in and continue the lesson.  She has an established routine for this class that she started at the beginning of the year and the students know what to do even in the event of a disruption.  I think this just helps the students in their leaning.  She established a pattern and a set of behaviors that she expects, she told the students and you can tell they have been practiced.  The students, I think, felt comfortable even with the disruption and I saw that they were able to continue their work even as it was going on.  The teacher was very effective of keeping her students on task and was able to help them through the exercise.  All in all it was a very well run class which I believe will just make it easier for the students to learn.