My First Observation of the semester- Jan 18th

Observations 1/18

Kimberly Brownlee-American Literature

When she started the lesson she stepped back and reminded the students, had the students remind themselves, of the characteristics of romantic writings. Instead of telling the students she asked the students what they were. This takes more time, but in the end it is more effective.

*Having concentrated on British literature in my college studies I did not know that romanticism was the first literary movement in the United States.

Kimberly has implemented a new routine. Across the back wall are milk crates for the students to store their, required, academic binders. As this was a new procedure she allowed the students time to retrieve them. I like the idea of these binders, but I think they are supposed to be kept in the classroom. As the notes are kept in the binder, how are they supposed to study? One student from a later class came in during passing period to get into his binder to get his homework that he left in it. This could cause problems in the future if there is not a set procedure.  

After the students were settled, she read “Thanatopsis” to the class. This was the student’s homework over the long weekend. I do not know what Kimberly did to introduce the poem as homework, but I know that I am not aware of the meaning of the word thanatopsis. There was not a footnote that I could find in the poem or anything in the book mentioning the meaning of the word, which puzzled me. Titles are very important in poems, they can bring new meaning to the poem or steer you in interpreting the poem. While reading the poem Kimberly stopped after the first stanza with a reaction to the text, “man, that’s interesting,” and allowed the students to comment if they chose. After reading the poem she gave the students 4 minutes to write anything they got out of the poem. When giving the direction she is repetive, repeating the “take four minutes,” but she is not annoying. I have a hard time finding that balance. She did not join the students in writing.

*it is highly suggested that you should be an example for the students, writing when they write, reading while they read. I know that there are other things to do with this time, like observe what they students are writing, but with an advanced class especially I would think that it would be easier to do this with an advanced class.

Kimberly had the students share what they wrote with another student close to them, she took this time to speak with a student who did not do the writing about his grade in the class and why he isn’t completing his work.  When the time was up she had the students share their partner’s ideas. When they had shared all they want to she announced that she just wants the students to be able to pull out what makes the poem Romantic and to have a basic understanding of what is going. *It may have been better to mention this before they shared their answers. Looking back it is possible the students may have felt that they didn’t do the assignment correctly. Although if they were told this before, they might not try to the best of their ability- this is a hard decision to make.

Her wrap up was pretty simple, she mentioned that transcendentalism would be the topic for tomorrow and the students needed to put their binders away. There was some extra time so she allowed the student to tell his story, is it possible that making him wait to tell his story could have distracted him the whole class period?

Kimberly Brownlee-CAIIB

2^nd hour-Right of the bat she reminded the students to get their binders.

Set up- looking at nonfiction, the students are going to be writing a research paper soon, they will need to be able to get the important information from nonfiction pieces for their paper. She also mentioned that her parents were one when the bus boycott started. * I think this is helpful, but I doubt that the students were able to connect with this, if she had mentioned that most of their grandparents would have been very young etc. it may have been better.

 She then  directed the students to the notes section of their binder and asked them to take notes on the video. She stated that their goal was to be able to pull main ideas and support out of a video. Very few students actually took notes. It would have been better if she helped them out at the beginning. The video was pretty fast and it was hard to take notes. Also she didn’t ask for them to do anything with the notes. She asked the students to give her something new they learned if they read or followed along. *Maybe Kimberly should have asked what they wrote down, if, as in this case, the students didn’t write down the notes, ask them to come up with topics from the video and then show them the video again so they can take notes on supporting details. I guess I just didn’t see that they focused on the goal, which was to be able to pull main ideas and supporting details out of a video. After she asked for something new, she called on a student two was talking. She asked him what discrimination was. He talked a lot without saying much, but when she went to write on the board he said, “people hatin’ on other people.” We later find out that another student actually gave him this answer. She called on other people, “what else did you learn?” nothing,  “why are they doing this?” nothing, “ What is a boycott?” the students discussed, then she told them they needed to have their books open to page 124, 124. She checked to make sure that each student had their book open to that page, and reminded students who weren’t with her to open to page 124.

She asked the students what they were looking for: main idea and support- once again reminding the students of the goal. I need to work on having a central goal for each class. She then had a student read while having the other students to use the text features or answer questions about the reading. While the students were doing this she wrote notes on the board about the reading, when she was done taking notes she asked the students what kind of notes these were (support) then asked the students to think of a main idea that went with the support.  Next she had a student read, then had two students take notes on the board like she did, then she did it a third time and she read while the students took notes. This third time she asked the two students to come up with a main idea, and then she opened it up to the rest of the class. After some thinking time she had the students share their topic with a neighbor. For homework the students were to  read 5 paragraphs and take notes like they did in class. - I really like this method of teaching how to take notes.

Kimberly now has a hanging folder for extra copies- Her previous method was to write the missing student’s name on the copy and put it in a tray. She would then recycle the extra copies. This is good for students who lose their copies or for if you just forget to write the students name on a copy.

4^th hour- Seems to have a quicker start.

                  This hour she added Main Idea & support to the word wall. She gave a definition for the words then asked a student who wasn’t paying attention to give their own definition of the word.  She had the students draw an image for main idea, but glossed over this step- I like the idea and reasons for drawing pictures for vocab, but I think with some words, main ideas for example, it may be harmful (a waste of time) instead of helpful.

While she was taking notes the first time she told the students to pay attention because they would be doing this too.

Gifted CA

                  She explained the grade for the paper that the students received last semester, then passed back the papers. She talked with each student about his or her papers from the front of the classroom. She wants the students to learn from each other’s mistakes, but I could see some potential problems with doing this. I would never do this with a regular class, nor I’m sure would she.

Kimberly forgot to make the copies for this class, but she was able to look at her calendar and move things around so it wasn’t a problem. One reason she was able to do this is that this class is working on many things at the same time.  I would not have been able to do this last summer- I need to think about the possibility of working on more than one thing at a time. With normal students this could cause them to be confused and mix some things up, but it could also be more engaging because you aren’t spending all of your time on one thing, so if a student really hates Of Mice and Men, for example, they aren’t stuck for weeks working on one thing that they really hate- this student might just write off CA for that whole period.

I need to look into the SIFT method from Grand Canyon University; it looks interesting. This is what the gifted class is using to analyze The Book Thief.