Oberservation #1 at Mount Pleasant Story

I arrived at the school for 8:15 and nervously began to look for the main entrance. I had my boyfriend drive me because I heard that you had to parallel park and that made me very anxious.  As I entered the high school, I looked around. The school felt like it was very dreary, but that was due more to the architecture of the building than anything else. I believe that others felt that way because as I continued to walk through the school there were posters every few feet. The posters were colorful and motivational. I felt that they made very good use of the walls by hanging those posters.

After I had signed into the visitor’s log, and was given a visitor’s pass, I was told to go find the math department head. I was very nervous walking through the school since I am young and I felt that people would think I was a student rather than a soon-to-be teacher. Not only that, but the teacher told me to just drop by anytime and she would set me up with someone to observe. I approached the department head and was immediately relieved when she remembered my name from the email I had sent her. She had set me up with an Algebra II class to observe.

I walked into the classroom and as I looked around, I saw many handmade posters. The desks were arranged in rows. Overall, I felt that the classroom was homey, however I noticed that the clock didn’t work. I knew that if I had to be in that classroom all day I would be irritated since I look at the clock every three minutes or so. I decided to take note of the people around me. In total, there were twelve students, as well as the teacher, and myself. I noticed that it was a diverse classroom: about half of the students were African America, while the other half were Caucasian.
     Today, the class was learning about quadratic equations. Yesterday was the first day of their lesson, and five of the twelve students were absent yesterday. I’m not sure if this was the reason, but the entire period was a recap of what they went over yesterday. This caused those students who were here yesterday to be bored since the teacher had to spend most of her time teaching to those students who weren’t there yesterday. I looked at the agenda for today written on the board and noticed that we were supposed to review quadratics, do more quadratic problems, and then focus on real world problems involving quadratics. There was one student in the middle of the classroom who was answering most, if not all of the teacher’s questions throughout the period. However, the rest of the class was not paying attention at all. After printing the notes for those students who weren’t there yesterday, the teacher reviewed what they did in class on the SMART board. I found that this teacher did most, if not all of her teaching while incorporating the SMART board. After she did one example on the board to walk the students through the steps of solving a quadratic equation, the students still didn’t quite get it. She then walked them through another example. She referenced the previous example throughout her second example, which I think helped the students a lot. After she finished guiding the students through those examples, she had the students do two problems on the own. Those who had finished both problems first were able to go write their answers and steps on how they solved the equation on the SMART board. At the end of the period, the teacher reviewed what was for homework (which was actually last night’s homework that nobody did).

     At the end of the period, I found that we had never gotten to the last part of the agenda. We never got to solve any real world problems. The entire period, which was an hour and a half, was spent going over yesterday’s lesson. After the students left, I was able to talk to the teacher for a few minutes. I was told that this algebra class was a very low class and that most of the students had behavioral issues. I found this to be very evident since throughout the period, students were playing games on their phones, playing with a ball, and watching YouTube videos. After leaving the school, and explaining a play-by-play to my boyfriend, I realized how quickly your lessons could change in an instant due to issues like students not doing their homework, or too many absent students. The teacher’s entire lesson was out the window the minute the students walked into the room. I also came to the realization that this doesn’t just hurt your lesson, but it hurts the students who were here yesterday, did do their homework, and those students who had to sit through your lesson all over again. There was no differentiation in the classroom, causing many students to seem as though they have lack of interest. Many students were sitting with their heads down on the desk for whatever reason. Was it because they were bored? Did they have a bad night last night? Did they not sleep well? How can you tell what the issue is if you are too busy trying to teach those students who weren’t here yesterday, those that happened to be participating in class during that period?

     Overall, I learned a lot from watching the Algebra II class. I learned that you can use a SMART board throughout your lesson (which the students enjoy as much as you do because they can write on it). I learned that you should always have a backup plan for your lesson (because your lesson can change in the blink of an eye). And finally, I learned that I can do this: I can be the teacher.  This was a great experience to have and I’m glad that I was able to be a part of it.