Classroom Observation
I officially began my career as a student teacher in Spanish on August 25, 2014 at Memorial High School in Smallville, Ohio. I work under the guidance of Mrs. Santer, my mentor teacher, who has been introducing WMHS students to the wonderful world of languages for over 30 years. This year Mrs. Santer is teaching various levels of Spanish (Advanced Placement, IV, III, and I) as well as French I.
Mrs. Santer’s classroom is just what you would expect a world language classroom to look like: colorful! The walls are covered with the flags of various Spanish-speaking countries, some that she has bought and others that students have made. She has colorful decorations draped along the back wall that might make one think they are walking into a Mexican fiesta. Maps of all of Latin America—South America, Central America, Spain, North America—are displayed as is a world map with the Spanish-speaking regions highlighted in red. She also has memorabilia from various Latin American regions showcased throughout the room—handicrafts, blankets, and wooden instruments.
The students’ desks are arranged in six straight, parallel columns with six desks in each column. This layout is not the most ideal for a world language classroom, but due to the odd, narrow shape of the room and the large amount of desks needed, Mrs. Santer finds it difficult to arrange them any other way. Her desk is situated so that she faces the students when she is seated at it and her back is to the chalkboard. It is in the right hand corner of the room if you were looking from one of th...
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... The students seemed respectful and polite, for the most part, and I am anxious to get to know them and to assume an active role in class. If these had been my classes, I probably would have changed the Spanish I class completely. I would have greeted each student at the door saying, ¿Cómo te llamas? (What is your name?) and when he/she looked at me with a look of confusion explained to them what that meant and what the appropriate response would be, Me llamo (name). (I call myself _____.) I would have had the class practice this by asking each other and then giving the appropriate response. I would then have gone over the class rules and, if there was time, started to teach them the Spanish alphabet. I also would not have spent the whole class going over rules with the Spanish III students but rather would have tried to get them started on an activity.
The book, “My Soul Is Rested” by Howell Raines is a remarkable history of the civil rights movement. It details the story of sacrifice and audacity that led to the changes needed. The book described many immeasurable moments of the leaders that drove the civil rights movement. This book is a wonderful compilation of first-hand accounts of the struggles to desegregate the American South from 1955 through 1968. In the civil rights movement, there are the leaders and followers who became astonishing in the face of chaos and violence. The people who struggled for the movement are as follows: Hosea Williams, Rosa Parks, Ralph Abernathy, and others; both black and white people, who contributed in demonstrations for freedom rides, voter drives, and
The Great Depression often seems very distant to people of the 21st century. This article is a good reminder of potential problems that may reoccur. The article showed in a very literal way the idea that a depression can bring a growing country to its knees. The overall ramifications of the event were never discussed in detail, but the historical significance is that people's lives were put on hold while they tried to struggle through an extremely difficult time.
Thesis Statement- Rosa Parks, through protest and public support, has become the mother of the civil rights changing segregation laws forever.
In America’s early days before the kickoff of industry, there was little need for retirement savings for a few key reasons. First of all, people were dying at a much earlier age; most people didn’t live past 38, whereas in 1900, 60 years of age was common for about 40 percent of the population and 15 percent experienced 80 years of life. Another reason for the irrelevance of social security in the 19th century and earlier was that people were usually living rurally on farms with extended families to take care of them. Furthermore, the Civil War also didn’t allow the government much economic room to consider providing a service such as social security. However, after the Civil War, pensions were a form of social security for civil war veterans that carried into their retirement. Unfortunately these pensions provided support for only a very small portion of the population; not even one percent of Americans received these pensions. Despite a much lower need for social security in the 18th ...
The minimum wage being abolished would greatly benefit the employee. It would give unskilled and unqualified workers, such as teenagers, college students, interns, and part time workers, the opportunity to be hired, with no discrimination or rankin...
On October 16th, 1846 the world of surgery changed forever. Taking place in the Ether Dome at Mass General Hospital was the surgical removal of a tumor in a man’s neck. The surgeon was the world renowned Doctor John Warren. Before Doctor Warren could slice into the man’s neck, William TJ Morten, a dentist, ran into the room. He presented a bag filled with a gas called Ether, and swore that he could erase all of the patient’s pain. He had tested this gas on himself, his dog, and his goldfish. Doctor John Warren gave him permission to try out this relatively untested gas on his patient. For the first time in surgical history, the Ether Dome stayed silent throughout the surgery. No screaming, no flailing, and no burly men needed to hold the patient down (Decoding The Void). Soon Doctors all over the world were using general anesthesia, and history was made.
Notoriously flippant with the press, he hated being pigeon holed. When asked if he thought of himself more as a singer or as a songwriter, he replied, he thought of himself as a “song and dance man”. As the title of “voice of a generation” and “voice of a movement” began being heaped on him, he released Another Side of Bob Dylan with the stated intent of shedding his image as face of the revolution (it didn't work). As much as he disdained idol worship, his praise was deserved and continuous. It's hard to truly measure how many lives Dylan touched, but there is one we all agree he saved.
The first activity was made for the students to decipher what shapes or objects have round edges. The objects included were sphere, cube, rectangular prism, cone, square based pyramid, and cylinder. The students were asked to make two groups of round and not round. The students were allowed to pick up and touch the pieces to get a better understanding of what the objects feel like.
Shea & Bauer Chapter 9 Project # 1 p. 193- Observe a teacher engaging students in several lessons. What behavior influence techniques does he or she seem to use? What are the apparent strengths of these techniques?
There is a bulletin board on which the teachers have displayed all students written work. Displaying students work on a bulletin board sends message that the teachers value student’s work. Displaying student’s work encourages students to learn. It tells them that its ok to be messy and that the mistakes are part of learning. Along on the bulletin board, students’ names are displayed on the classroom door and on other work is displayed on the classroom’ closet doors.
In electing to observe a kindergarten class, I was hoping to see ‘real world’ examples of the social development, personality types and cognitive variation found within the beginning stages of “Middle Childhood” as discussed within our text.
The evaluation form that was used to evaluate a classroom teacher’s performance is a rubric used by the school district (Hillsborough County Public Schools, 2012).
In the classroom I am observing in I have watched how the teacher and the students start and end their day by following different procedures for ex: attendance, portfolios, grades, and class rituals like morning meeting, transitions and end of the day procedures. All of these procedures and rituals contribute to the classroom culture and are parts of instructional practices. So when the students come first in, in the morning they have morning circle where they do attendance, weather, lunch choices, how I feel today chart and much more. Each student has a job during morning circle which rotates every day so not every student has the same job. So attendance is kept and done at morning meeting everyday which is important for the teacher to keep
The school that I visited was new. It was the first year of the school opening. The school board had combined two schools into one, so the students had to adjust to their new environments and new individuals. They seemed to be getting along well with each other. Since the school is new the teacher has to adjust to new problems that araise. Times for the subjects and times for using the computer labs change. So the teacher must always be fixable for anything. In this observation of this classroom I learned about the enjoyment of teaching. How you have to adapt to each of the students.
I attended a second grade class at Smallville Elementary on February 22, 2014; the class began promptly at 0855. There are 26 children in this second grade class. There are 15 male students and 11 female students. The student diversity is 2 Hispanics, 1 African-American, 1 East Indian, and 1 New Zealander (White but with an extreme accent). Three children were left-handed.