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Sasha Ilic

EDU 203-1001

October 7th, 2020

Dr. Warby

Observation of Mrs. Smith’s First Grade Class

This school year has seen a challenge like we have never experienced before because of

the global pandemic of 2020. This challenge affected every single person on this planet in a

number of different ways, but for those professionals who had to completely rearrange their way

of working, it presented specific challenges and hardships which were very unexpected and

stressful. This pandemic has been especially challenging for our teachers and our school districts

who have to successfully transfer students to online learning with sometimes little preparation or

support. When I was looking forward to these observations last semester, I had no idea that I

would end up conducting them in a virtual setting, and to be honest, I was at first a little

disappointed. However, getting to observe in this unique way really showed me how resilient

teachers and students are. It forced me to have a more keen eye and really focus in on the

students in a way that would have been different in person.

My observation was for Tari Smith’s first grade class at Harriet Treem elementary school

in Las Vegas, Nevada. By viewing the school on Google Maps, I was able to see the exterior of

what the school looked like. Since I grew up in Clark County my entire life, I did notice a

familiarity to the structure of the school. It looks similar to most of the elementary schools in the

valley. The name of the school is painted clearly at the entrance, along with the words, “Home of

The Bears. Leadership Starts Here”. These words painted on the building showcase the school’s
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mission which is “to obtain our goals and become lifelong learners and future leaders of

tomorrow”. I found this to be an amazing mission and goal. I usually see an emphasis on

leadership in middle school and high school, so I appreciate this school encouraging children to

understand they are our future leaders. Leadership skills and mindset can begin at a young age

with the support of school and teachers, and creates a responsibility within the students which I

saw encouraged in this first grade class. The rest of the exterior contains the usual additions to a

school and its functions. There is a parking lot in front of the main entrance, portable classrooms

to the side of the main campus, a big field with a seperate playground for the older students and

for the younger students, and everything is surrounded by a gate for security. Sadly, since the

observations were virtual, I was unable to see the interior of the school and there were not any

photos online.

Mrs. Tari Smith is the first grade teacher I would observe during this assignment. She is a

National Board Certified Teacher and is spoken highly of by the administration she works with.

Tari’s main reason for becoming a teacher was her passion to teach children to read. Her

hometown had a very low literacy rate and she felt that she had something to offer, so she began

as a teacher’s aid. She feels that the best part of being a teacher is the ability to challenge a

student’s thinking as well as to be around the children and interact with them. However, her main

challenge is parental support. She hopes that there will be more buy in from parents in the future

and that they will support the value of education for their children. With virtual classrooms, this

has been especially challenging since students at this age really require their parent’s attention

when it comes to logging in on time, navigating the online classroom, and focusing while

learning at home. Still, Tari makes sure that she maintains a strong connection to parents as much

as she can. With in-person classes, she makes sure to touch base with parents whenever they
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come to pick their kids up from school and she is open and approachable whenever a parent

wants to speak to her. Aside from parent-teacher conferences, parents are allowed, at any time, to

ask Tari questions or talk about the student’s progress. I especially loved hearing this from her

because, as a parent, it is always important to have support from your child’s teacher and not

have any fear or intimidation to approach them with questions or concerns. With virtual learning,

those parents are able to call, email or zoom Tari whenever needed.

The way that Tari normally sets up her classroom for in-person classes is by design and

with intention. When arranging the seating for the children, she provides them an anchored seat

with the freedom to move around. This means every student has their own designated seat but

most of the time students are moving around from activity to activity or sitting in different areas

of the classroom. No matter what is going on through the day, students have a safe and secure

area to go to when needed which belongs to them. This gives them that feeling of security

knowing that they do have a designated area to call their own whenever needed. This is

especially helpful if a child is overstimulated by the activity or the noise level of the classroom.

Seating arrangements can change based on the behavior of the students. If Tari sees that

particular students work well together, and encourage each other in a positive way, she will sit

them together. She will even sit friends together as long as they can pay attention. Sometimes,

students need to be moved away from each other if there is too much of a distraction going on.

Finally, there will be times where a student is seated closer to her, or in her view, in case this

particular student needs more attention or needs to be monitored more closely, or if they have

any special education accommodations from their IEP that require them to be closer to the

teacher.
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Throughout my observations, something which stood out to me was her use of positive

language and positive reinforcements during lessons. Getting a bunch of first graders to mute

themselves and focus in an online environment is not an easy feat. I kept in mind that these

students have only been exposed to Kindergarten at this point, and they are still very new to

school. Therefore, making sure students are focused and retaining the lesson is a challenge which

Tari was able to overcome with positive language and encouragement and by instilling

responsibility within the children. When a student’s attention was starting to drift, or they were

starting to lose attention, instead of saying “hey you need to pay attention!” or “stop doing that!”,

Tari would instead use phrases like, “Hey can you help me with this lesson, Marco?” or “Can

you help me show our friends how to do this part since I know you understand it so well?’.

Automatically, I would see the student whip into attention with a smile. Instead of getting

scolded, they are reminded that their attention can help someone else and that they have a

responsibility to follow rules. They are reminded that they are to be respectful and assist the

teacher.

The challenge for many kids is to focus and sit still during a zoom lesson. They are at

home, either in their bedrooms or kitchens, surrounded by distractions. For a 6 year old, this is a

huge struggle no matter how hard they are trying. Between tech issues and distractions in their

environment, the over-stimulation is challenging. For a student with disabilities, or a student who

is ESL, this challenge presents itself even more. Sadly, many of her students with an IEP did not

show up for the Zoom sessions. They would attend their resource rooms sometimes separately.

So, for the small encounters where they do show up, Tari makes sure to slow things down as

much as time will allow. If she sees that the student is not catching on, or is drifting in focus, she

will make sure to acknowledge them and ask questions to the entire class asking if they are
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understanding or need help, which does not single the student out. Mostly, there were children

who were ESL and I focused on observing them and how Tari could ensure they are catching on

while managing the rest of the class.

For those students who were ESL, her biggest focus is on vocabulary. It didn’t matter

whether the lesson was math or science, she made sure that these students were exposed to

understanding vocabulary along the way. If one of the students would speak up and say “I don’t

know what that word means” or “I can’t spell that word”, Tari would stop to explain the

definition of the word and help them spell it out regardless of whether they were doing a lesson

that required spelling. I noticed that these students would often ask to spell something so they

could understand it better. This gave me more insight for ESL students for my own future

classrooms. They can easily learn all these words, but a teacher needs to stop and take the time to

explain it to them. Spelling out the words helps them to pronounce them better.

Since there were few times where students with IEPs would join the class, I focused on

the students who had the same possible behavior patterns in each session and I paid attention to

how Tari interacted with them, and how she ensured they were understanding the material. For

the most part, her class was incredibly well-behaved and all of them were exceptionally bright

and eager to learn. However, there were a few students who struggled in almost every session.

They showed up to the sessions, but their behavior was usually consistent each time. The first

behavior I noticed with these students was the inability to sit still even for a small moment.

These students were either running all over the room, taking the chromebook into various rooms

to sit in front of the TV with, or they were rocking and bouncing constantly in their seat.

Although it seemed distracting for me to watch these kids constantly moving about, Tari did not

acknowledge this behavior as much. She mentioned that sometimes it was best to not
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acknowledge the behavior as it could be they were seeking attention. If they were in the

classroom she would handle it differently. She doesn't like to separate the children and does her

best to accommodate and help them to focus instead. Since time was so limited in virtual

learning, it was sometimes best to not stop the class to acknowledge the behavior. However,

there were times where it didn’t even seem like these children were in school at all as they spent

the entire time running around in pajamas, playing with their toys or watching TV.

Another behavior I noticed was the constant unmuting of the microphone to make noises

into the computer or making faces into the camera. One big rule in the classroom is to keep

oneself muted unless the teacher gives instruction to unmute and answer questions or participate.

This is to show respect to whomever is talking and so others can hear clearly. Even when Tari

made it very clear that it was time to be muted and listen, these particular students would unmute

their mics and scream loudly into them, or make some sort of silly noise and bring their faces

into the camera to contort their faces or stick their tongues out. When this would occur Tari

would stop the lesson and address the student by name. She would tell them they needed to mute

themselves and be respectful. She would remind them that they “were not following the rules”.

Sometimes these students would answer a question here and there, but for the most part they

were not participating. This could either be from the fact that we were in a virtual environment or

because the students had attention issues or learning disabilities. I did notice there was a student

who would behave this way any time we were in a math lesson, yet when we moved on to

reading she was more alert, participating and answering questions. It was obvious that the

student enjoyed reading much more than math and could even be gifted in that subject. Proving

that every child can be gifted in their own way and that it is important, that we as teachers, pay

attention to those students and really nurture the areas where they excel and show interest. These
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students' behaviors in math could cause issues for them in the future, or even extra observation,

however they were able to prove their ability to learn and listen when presented with lessons that

they enjoyed.

In terms of children who were excelling or possibly gifted, these students were consistent

in their behaviors. They answered questions with ease, understood the lessons with little

questions and loved to volunteer to answer any problem presented. Since they are so young, they

may be tested later on. I am not sure if virtual learning interferes with being able to notice if they

are gifted or not.

My biggest take away from my time with this class is that all the students, regardless of

their behaviors, their participation, or their success with lessons, thrived on setting goals, being

responsible and working towards acheivements in the classroom. Tari stressed the importance of

setting up structures for the students with expectations. These responsibilities were snuck into

every interaction and lesson. I could really see the goals of the school within her specific

classroom and these very young students demonstrated that they have the ability to very much

care for themselves, their education and the education of their fellow students. All students,

regardless of disability or ability can set and meet expectations in the classroom. This structure

and respect will follow them into their home lives and daily interactions, and remain with them

into adulthood. I treasured getting to see these future leaders being shaped and molded into

amazing members of society and getting to experience the love of learning and school through

their young eyes. There were many challenges with online learning. For students who are

struggling, or who have a disability, this challenge is even more so. I hope the experience this

year has prepared administration and teachers to be able to deal with similar challenges in the

future and recognize that there does need to be a strong focus on students with disabilities during
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this time as we cannot allow them to fall through the cracks. As teachers, we are defenders and

caretakers of these students and I am happy I was able to fully see that through a teacher who

truly cares for her students and their well-being.