​

 It was overall a great experience and helped me see hands on teaching. Being on the teacher side now in a room that I was once in as a student was very interesting to me. This observation will help me on my journey to becoming a teacher. 

I observed at Pleasant Ridge Middle School on February 6th, 12th, 13th, 22nd, 26th, and March 1st. I enjoyed observing Mrs. Arroyo’s 6thgrade humanities class. 

            The classroom I observed in was physically pleasing to be in. There were 15 table for students to sit together. There two classrooms formed into one by a moveable wall. The floor is carpet and the walls are a light grey and purple. The temperature in the room was always comfortable. The tables are labeled by numbers connected to paper lanterns hanging from the ceiling. The teacher has a little section in the corner of her room that has cushioned chairs along with a book case. In between the two classrooms is a small wooden shelf with necessities that students may need for class. The teacher has statues and pictures that have to do with the subjects they learn in humanities on top of her cabinets along the wall. Finally, her desk and projection screen are at the front of the room for all the tables to see. On most days the room felt emotionally great. The students would come in and read the board and get out all materials. However, some days Mrs. Arroyo and the co teacher would have to remind the students over and over to get quiet. I noticed when coming back from the snow days it took the students longer to get settled down when coming into the classroom. But overall, the room felt emotionally welcoming and a happy place to be. 

Description of Lesson/Activities 

            I started my observation with students finishing up a research project on February 6th. Mrs. Arroyo had them read a certain page in their textbook and to copy down the map in the textbook into their gold unit books. They had about 30 minutes to complete their map and their finishing touches on their research. The students got right to work, and they stayed on task the whole time. On February 12thMrs. Arroyo spent a majority of the beginning of class saying how important it is to use your planners. The students had a quiz and they didn’t do too good on it. Mrs. Arroyo had a suspicion that they aren’t remembering to study because they aren’t using their planners. Then they did another page in their gold books. They had to read critical thinking questions and break them down by highlighting certain parts. The point of being lectured today was to help students understand that there is a big difference from elementary school to middle school. On February 12ththe students started class by silent reading their historical free read books. Then they used the whole class time to learn about bodies of water in Greece. They read in the text book and copied the maps in their unit gold book. On February 22nd they took a closed note quiz over a map of Greece. After they completed their quizzes, they read their historical free read books. It felt calmer in the classroom, as there wasn’t as much lecturing coming from the teacher. February 26ththe students started class by doing a little assignment on their chrome books to help them get used to using them. After completing the assignment, they did an opinion writing prompt where they had to read it and choose out of the four solutions which one they thought was best for the writing prompt. The teacher then had them stand up and play four corners with them based off their answers, then she chose some of them to share their answers. On March 1stthey had weird schedule due to the school musical. They also had a “ketchup” day because of the snow day. They are to make-up tests, check out a new novel, and complete their monarchy notes. 

Each day the teacher would project on her board what they need to get out when entering the room and what they are doing for the day, as well as put anything they need to write in their planner. Mrs. Arroyo would be reading the textbook out loud to the students, and to make sure they were following along she would stop reading and make the students say out loud the word they were on. To make sure each student could hear her in the whole classroom, she wore a microphone around her neck. When she chose a student to read an answer out loud, she would let the student speak into the microphone. For a more fun way to interact with the students is by passing a ball around with a speaker in it for students to speak into. When the students had “flex” time, she pulled up a google document with all of the homework assignments for 6thgrade for the students to see. She has bins for each of her hours labeled for their work when they had to turn something in. She also uses the grade book to keep record if her students do an assignment or not, to be able to reflect on test scores. Finally, she would have activities for students to do that involve moving around the classroom, rather than sitting at their desk the whole time. 

Students

The days I observed were typical school days, nothing out of the ordinary really happened. I happened to notice that some days students would be staring at me wondering what I was doing. Finally, one day a student was making strange noises while the room was silent, a student looked at me and kind of laughed and it made me smile. 

This has been such a fun experience and I have definitely learned tips that will help me in my teaching career. It is very interesting to me to be on the teacher side now instead of the student side.