Cadet Teacher Academy: Job Shadowing #3

JOB SHADOWING ALLOWS CADET TEACHER INTERNS THE OPPORTUNITY TO FURTHER EXPLORE OTHER
GRADES AND SUBJECT AREAS THEY MAY BE INTERESTED IN PURSUING FOR A TEACHING CAREER.
PLEASE DO THE JOB SHADOWING FOR THE TIME NORMALLY REQUIRED WITH YOUR MENTOR TEACHER.
CLEAR THIS WITH YOUR MENTOR TEACHER AND INFORM THE HIGH SCHOOL OFFICE AND CADET
INSTRUCTOR/COORDINATOR OF YOUR CHANGE IN SCHEDULE FOR THAT TIME PERIOD.

PRIOR TO THE JOB SHADOW YOU WILL NEED TO TURN IN AN INTAKE FORM, AND AFTER THE EVENT,
AN ATTENDANCE FORM AND AN EMPLOYER EVALUATION FORM ALONG WITH THE CRITIQUE. ALL
FORMS WILL BE AVAILABLE ON THE CADET G-MAIL SITE. PLEASE RETURN COMPLETED PAPERWORK
TO YOUR (JOB PLACEMENT COORDINATOR) AT THE TECHNOLOGY CENTER.

APPROPRIATE PAPERWORK (JOB SHADOW REQUEST FORM MUST BE TURNED IN

WITH APPROPRIATE SIGNATURES TO MRS. LINDERMAN IN ORDER TO
PARTICIPATE).

The Job Shadow intake form will be used to generate a job

shadow agreement that will need to be signed by a
parent/guardian and the Job Shadow teacher/supervisor.

BE DETAILED IN YOUR OBSERVATION. COMPARE THE CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT,

DIFFERENCES IN THE AGE LEVEL ABILITIES COMPARED WITH YOUR CURRENT PLACEMENT,
WHAT ACTIVITIES YOU OBSERVED THE TEACHER AND STUDENTS DOING, AND YOUR
CONCLUSIONS FROM THE EXPERIENCE. THIS ASSIGNMENT SHOULD BE TYPED AND FOLLOW
THIS EXACT FORMAT.
CADET TEACHER INTERNS NAME: ALEXANDRA PALADI
SCHOOL DISTRICT: GOBLES
JOB SHADOWING OBSERVATION:
DATE

OF JOB

TIME: 12:25

SHADOWING: WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2016

PM-2:59 PM

GRADE LEVEL: 7TH

AND

8TH

SCHOOL BUILDING: GOBLES MIDDLE/HIGH SCHOOL

NAME

OF

TEACHER

YOU ARE

SHADOWING: BECKY DRAYTON

This past Wednesday I visited Mrs. Becky Drayton's middle

school science classroom. I chose to go to her room because I
wanted to compare teaching middle school to high school and
elementary. I also wanted to go to her room because she is a
science teacher and one day in my first grade classroom we did
STEM experiments with sound and I really loved doing the science
experiments, helping them come up with hypotheses, and then
testing those hypotheses. The aww factor when the students
discovered something is amazing. When I was observing I
expected to see a lot of differences between teaching middle
school and elementary, but I was not prepared for their
similarities in learning.
There were many obvious differences and most of them have
to do with the students' ages. The students are at the
adolescence stage of life where they are starting to be more
rebellious and sarcastic, they form cliques, and have a technology
addiction (their phones, iPods). One big thing is that they are not
old enough to do assignments on their own, you have to go
through the worksheet/assignment step-by-step and say in detail
all of the directions. This is a problem because middle schoolers
have lost the beloved fascination of their teacher and don't want
their teachers' to talk and give them instructions. One thing I
noticed during her seventh grade science classroom was that at
the end of the hour when they had free time, only certain
students talked to teach other. In elementary, the students have
best friend groups, but they still talk to pretty much everyone in
the classroom, middle school is where the separation into cliques
happen. The similarities have to do with how they learn. As said
above middle school teachers must be very specific with their
instructions just like elementary. There has to be constant
reminders not to talk and to do their work. This is seen in both
elementary classrooms and high school classrooms.
Mrs. Draytons classroom layout has a typical science
classrooms layout. There are 9 groups of tables, each with 4

seats, which allows for easy conversation and more space when
doing experiments and group projects. At the front of the
classroom is a lab table (for the teacher to demonstrate on), but
she uses it as a desk. Along the side wall there is a row of sinks
and lab space, above and below the sinks are cabinets containing
lab equipment. Around the room there are posters of famous
scientists and important equations. The back wall is covered with
posters of the Periodic Table of Elements that the eighth graders
made. Right by the door she has papers taped on the wall, this is
the no name corner. Instead of tracking down whos paper it is,
she just puts it here and lets the students claim their papers.
She has many procedures that are used in the classroom.
When Mrs. Drayton wants to get her students attention she says
I want to see happy eyes and faces look towards me, she said
this right when her seventh grade class walked in, to get their
attention and start class. When she wants her class to quiet down
she Shhhs the class and uses hand motions to emphasise a
specific section of the class or just in general, her shhh slowly
tapers off towards the end and this quiets the class down quickly.
When she wants attention from certain people she will say their
names, or calls out a specific corner of the room (front table), or
just goes by gender (gentlemen, I dont want to hear you talk
anymore). If a certain student is being too distracting, she will
move them to a different table so they cant talk anymore. In
order for the students to listen to her she has to be
straightforward, this contradicts their rebellious actions because
they know she means business. She has to keep a happy medium
though because if she is stern all the time the students wouldnt
listen, so when she doesnt need to get onto people she will joke
around with the students and if a student is giving her sarcasm
she will be sarcastic back. To turn in homework she has them
make a neat pile on one of the open desks. She does this so that
the students can get some of their energy out and they are
allowed to talk. To pick up new worksheets she does the same
thing. In her eighth grade science class, they were taking a test
and one student asked if she could borrow a writing utensil, Mrs.
Drayton does not lend out these things, so she had to borrow one
from a neighbor. Mrs. Drayton also doesnt care whether students
use pens or pencils on tests and assignments. Another thing that I

noticed when they were taking their test was that students are
allowed to get a new test if they mess up, some teachers dont let
students do this. Mrs. Drayton has a basket of different kinds of
lotions on her desk, the students are allowed to use them, but if
they misuse the lotion she will take the basket away. One of the
seventh graders did misuse the lotion when I was there, at the
end of the hour one of the girls put a bunch of lotion in her hands
and squished it on one of the boys, lotion got everywhere. At the
end of both classes, she makes them fill out agendas. They have
to show her once it is filled out because it is a grade, they have to
do this every day. This is a great procedure because it teaches
these students how to be organized which is a very important skill
for when they get into high school.
I enjoyed observing Mrs. Draytons classroom because she
has a very different teaching style than what I perceive mine to
be. She does great with middle schoolers because she is very
assertive, I am not. I still want to try and use some of her
procedures in my future classroom, but from this observation I
can tell that I do not want to be a middle school teacher, I think
elementary school is where I belong.