Ashley

Patterson

ECE 251

Powerful Interaction Observation

Group Time Evaluation

1. School: Adelson Educational Campus; telephone number: 702-255-

4500; teacher: Stephanie Castille, age/grade level: three year old

class

2. Beginning: 8:20 and ending: 8:45 of group time.

3. Number of adults: 2; number of children: 10

4. Group time: They began their group time with sharing about what

each child was going to do on their upcoming spring break. Each child

had a chance to speak about what they were looking forward to, a

place they were going to visit or an activity that they would

participate in during spring break. Next they did their calendar time

where they discussed as a group what day of the week it was, what

the date was, what month it was and what year it was. As they talked

about it, the teacher added the appropriate labels to the calendar.

After they finished with the calendar they moved on to a phonics

program that they use called letterland. The students sang along to
 the introductory song and pretended like they were airplanes flying

to letterland. Then they sang along to a song/video about the letter

U, what starts with U and what sound U makes. After their letterland

song/video they had a show and tell where they talked about and

showed an item that they brought from home that started with the

letter U. A few children did not bring an item from home so the

second teacher helped those children find something from around

the classroom that started with the letter U so they could participate

in the show and tell. Each child stood in front of the group and told

everyone what they brought or found. They also walked around to

each classmate and let them inspect the item.

5. How appropriate are these activity(ies)? Explain.

6. How long: The group time was just about 25 minutes long.

Appropriate for the age: According to our handout “Elements of a

Daily Schedule”, the length of this group time was not appropriate

for 3 year olds. The handout states that meeting times for 3 year olds

should be around 10 minutes long.

7. Space: The space used for group time was appropriate because it

was on a large carpet where the children could see everything that
 was happening. The carpet was an oval so it helped the students to

sit in a semi circle and it also allowed them enough space so they

could sit comfortably. They could also see the teacher, the calendar

activity, the letterland video and the show and tell activity very well.

8. Bring the children together: The teacher rang a bell to signal clean

up time from the centers that they were involved in. When

everything was cleaned up she sang a song as the children went over

to the carpet. The song helped them to remember how they should

be sitting on the carpet in order to begin group time.

9. Percentage of the time actively involved vs passively: 60% actively

involved (talking, sharing, singing and dancing) and 40% passively

involved (listening and sitting). According to what we have been

reading, it is more developmentally appropriate to have the children

more actively involved in their learning experiences.

10. Children react: to the children seemed to be used to the manner in

which the group time was organized. They were excited to share

during the beginning and the end. They shouted out answers to the

teacher’s questions. They also enjoyed singing and dancing to the

 letterland song/video. Towards the end, some of the children

became antsy and started talking to each other.

11. Flexibility: The teacher was flexible during this group time on

several occasions. For example, she had the students that didn’t

bring a show and tell from home to find something from the

classroom that they would like to talk about and she kept the

discussion going while the student found something and then gave

them their turn. She was also able to tell when their attention was

waning and wrapped up group time.

12. Individualization: There was one student who was having a hard

time sitting during some of the group time so she allowed him to

stand. She also understood that their attention span was coming to

an end and wrapped up the activity that they were doing to move on

to the next.

13. Gender: Girls inappropriate behaviors: The girls seemed to talk

while the teacher was talking more often. Gender: Boys

inappropriate behaviors: The boys got more antsy and moved around

more than the girls towards the end of the group time.
14. Inappropriate behaviors: some of the girls were chatting while the

teacher was trying to talk during the calendar and it threw off the

flow of the discussion. behavior management techniques: the

teacher reminded everyone about their marble jar and how close

they were to having earned enough marbles to have their classroom

party. This seemed to help them refocus for a few more minutes.

This technique may have been useful for a few minutes however; it

would not have been needed at all had the group time not been so

long.

15. Ended group time: The teacher ended group time with a group

prayer in preparation for their upcoming snack. Then she dismissed

them a few at a time to have them wash their hands and go to their

tables to sit down.

16. Activity followed: Snack followed group time however the teacher

said that they usually have recess after their group time but the day

that I observed, there was a special event that the children would be

participating in and this was the only time they would be able to have

snack. I feel that recess would be a more appropriate activity to

 follow group time, as the children seemed to need some physical

outlet after listening for so long.

EVALUATION (35 pts)

Using your own words, write an overall evaluation of the group time

experience. Support your conclusions with information recorded in the

above observation AND theoretical concepts in course readings to date.

Hint: The following information in the course contains such theoretical

information

• DAP philosophy

• authentic activities

• processes of learning

• appropriate interaction with children

• routines and pace of activity

POWERFUL INTERACTION OBSERVATION

40 points

Observe a powerful interaction between the teacher and one child. To save

yourself time, you may use the same classroom and teacher from the

preceding observation. If such an interaction does not occur in that

classroom, you will need to observe another classroom, ages 3 yrs - 2nd

grade.

Use the following format typing first what is in blue and then writing your

response.

Date: School: Teacher: Age of Child:

Time: Write the beginning and ending time of the observation (i.e.

interaction between

child and teacher)

Setting: Write a brief description of the context in which the interaction

occurred, including the age and gender of child. If you use a different class

than in the preceding observation, be sure to also include a brief

description of the new setting; number of adults present; and the age and

number of children present.

Interaction: Write a detailed objective anecdotal observation of the

interaction between the teacher and the one child. Record everything the

teacher says and does, and everything the child says and does in complete

detail.

PI Behaviors: Using Powerful Interactions by Dombro, Jablon and Stetson,

describe the Powerful Interaction (PI) behaviors you observed the teacher
using. Support each behavior with one example from your observation +

cite the page number in the text where you found each behavior.

Improvement: Describe the specific PI behaviors, which if included, would

have improved this interaction. Cite the page number in the text where you

found each behavior.