Visit Five

During this session at Lakeshore, I was scheduled to visit Mr. U’s class.  However, I was surprised to discover that he isn’t working at the school anymore.  Instead, a permanent substitute,  Mrs. T, has taken over his class.  I was extremely surprised at the progress she had made with the class after being with them for just one week.

As opposed to the disorder that was commonplace in Mr. U’s class, Mrs. T had all the students sitting quietly at their desks, raising their hands for assistance, and completing their worksheets independently.  She had implemented a set of classroom rules and procedures, of which the students were complying with easily.  The structure Mrs. T had created is working well for the students.

For the lesson this visit, Mrs. T coupled reading and math with life skills to create an interactive activity.  She had her students reading a recipe for cupcakes and baking them.  This lesson also required the students to work cooperatively, compromise, and socialize.  It was evident that the students were excited to participate in the lesson and felt comfortable with Mrs. T.

Furthermore, rather than requiring the students to work with first grade level materials, Mrs. T is working on identifying the reading levels of all the students in order to differentiate instruction and utilize age appropriate materials.  Although this may takes some time and preparation, I believe this decision will be successful with her students. 

Overall, I feel that Mrs. T’s presence has had and extremely positive effect on her students.  With the introduction of age appropriate practices and a structured and nurturing learning environment, the students are thriving.  They are eager to learn and participate in all activities, and Mrs. T attempts in involve every student at all times. 

Visit Four

During my fourth visit at Lakeshore Middle School I again observed Mr. U’s class and was surprised to see development in his use of age-appropriate materials and practices.  During my last session in his classroom Mr. U had developed an ineffective station system for his students.  The different tasks he assigned his students included individually reviewing sight words and reading fluency, working at the computers on "spellingcity.com",  and working on spelling, fluency, and writing. I was placed with the students at this station, helping them with any technological issues they faced. At one station Mr. U had three other UNF pre-service teachers using flashcards with the students.  The most shocking component of my last visit was the materials that Mr. U was using.  He was having sixth, seventh and eighth grade students read texts at a first grade level.

However at this visit, Mr. U abandoned this system completely.  He was using direct instruction to teach his students about ecosystems and biomes.  In addition to implementing oral comprehension questioning Mr. U worked with the whole class to complete a Venn diagram comparing and contrasting these two systems.   Overall the students were far more engaged and actively participated in the instruction.  I believe this was because they were learning new information, rather than repeating lessons they had already learned.  The activity also allowed the students to talk about their personal experiences with the plants and animals that were featured in the lesson. 

Overall, I found the learning environment much more conducive to learning.  During my last visit to Mr. U’s class I was disappointed and frustrated that I couldn’t help the students more.  But during this session, I was excited for the students, as they began to enjoy learning.  The use of age appropriate instruction definitely influenced this learning environment.