Field Visit #4 - 10/26/06

This morning we went back to our first grade classroom for more general observation. I noticed that the teacher did have to discipline a little bit more than usual today and make more comments to individual students. We noticed that they do have a warning system which is mostly oral, but when a child is not listening and has to have instructions repeated to them a few times, they are warned with "going to their chair." We found out afterwards that the students really do not like being at their desks when their classmates are in a group on the floor, so it is a threat/punishment that seemed to be relatively effective with these students. The student can still see and participate from their desks, but they like to be able to move around. This movement does seem to keep students on track. Today, within calendar time and moving into math, the students had to move to 3 different locations on the floor as they switched gears. This seemed to break things up a little bit and get everyone re-focused. The class went through their normal routine this morning with calendar time and math lessons, moving into word study as we were leaving. It seems that most of their testing is now completed, and things are moving back into their normal schedule. Students were split into pairs today to work on two different activities relating to counting and patterns.
I thought about what I saw and came up with a few questions that I would be curious to explore more with the teacher. I would like to see a new lesson topic introduced to the class to see how the teacher initially begins instruction and explanations. Since we are only in class once per week, we do not really get to see how processes or topics are introduced and how the children react to them. I wonder if the teacher has a certain technique to get the students interested and to teach them the routine for the activity involved with that lesson.
I also wonder how long it took to really get to know the kids well. She knows what their situations are at home, what type of discipline will have the best impact on a student, their religious beliefs, etc. I wonder if this just came out over time, if she sent a questionnaire home, met with parents and past teachers, or a combination of some sort. It will be nice to see this whole process through next fall.
I watched today as children were pulled out of class by other teachers for further instruction, and I do wonder if they miss a lot of important instruction in the class at this time. It seems that the same children leave class every day, but we do not usually see them become reintegrated back into the classroom. There were a couple of students out yesterday when an activity was taught, so the partner of that student taught them what to do with help from the teacher when necessary. I wonder if similar things happen when children return from a pull-out.
The last thing that struck me today was that there is a very big range within the classroom of student development and learning levels. The teacher was binding books the students had made, so we were able to read some of them. She has children who are writing very long, involved stories, and others who are not writing very conventionally yet. I wonder how she deals with this during class. I know that students will sometimes continue working on a project when others move on, but I wonder how instruction and teacher support varies for those students. There is an assistant in our class, which I'm sure helps with this issue, but I also wonder what happens in classes with no assistant.