1

EDUC 280 Journal 1 & 2 Combined

Task 1.  Classroom Management

Question 1 – Do you think your teacher has successfully created a productive learning environment? Why or
why not?
      During my observational hours, I was very lucky because the principal set up a little schedule for me to go
through that allowed me to visit and observe one of every grade, kindergarten through 5th grade, for my 30
hours. The only grade I was not able to see was a 4th grade class. In all the classes that I was able to see, all had a
good environment for their students to learn in.
      However, there was one first grade class that I thought was very well organized for a learning environment.
The teacher had different sections of the class set up. Each section was dedicated to a specific subject. For
example, the carpet was where the students would learn their reading and language, such as sight words,
breaking up words, reading books, storytimes, etc. The back wall had a table set up for some different writing
activities as when as some coloring assignments that they would work on throughout the week. Finally, their
desks were placed at the front of the classroom for science, social studies, and math.
      I asked her why she had the different spots for the different subjects and she said that it helps the
students’ minds transition to a new subject much easier, as well as, it gives them about a minute break
throughout the day which allows better learning. The super cool thing was that all the students knew what was
expected from them, which, I believe, made the class run so much smoother.
 

Question 2 – What techniques does the teacher use to keep students actively involved in academic activities?
      Depending on the subject, the teachers would ask a lot of different questions to the students. One
question I remember the teacher asked was during their writing lesson and the question was, “Is the sentence
on the whiteboard written correctly? Yes or No?” The sentence was “i lik Petting dogs” but the “g” was backward
as well. Many of the students were raising their hands and wanted the teacher to call on them. She then called
on one student at a time until they were all able to fix all of the missing parts: the i needed to be capitalized, lik
 2
was changed to “like”, the “P” in petting was changed to a lower case, they switched the “g” around, and some
students added a period, other added an exclamation mark. It was fun to see how each of her students wanted
to be a part of the lesson. For some of the other teachers, they would have to call on the students who were
“hiding” or were not always focusing and following along. Although, throughout the day, it was easier to involve
all the students when it came to something they all enjoyed like arts, crafts, PE, computer lab, and/or music. For
one 5th grade class I observed, they loved math, because of that, the teacher was actually able to go into a
greater depth with the students which was neat to see.
 

Question 3 – How is your teacher’s “with-it-ness?”  In other words, do they have command of the classroom?
Do they have great systems of classroom management in place?
      So I have two stories, one very good and one to learn from. The first one was a little sad but I was grateful
to see it because that is something I will most likely experience in the future. I went in on a Tuesday and the
teacher was just not ready for the day. She was running around trying to organize some of the worksheets and
books they would be going through that day. The other thing was that I knew one of the students in the
classroom because I used to babysit her. Once the little girl saw me, she had a difficult time focusing the rest of
the day and I did my best to keep her focused on the teacher, not me. At one point, I asked the teacher if it
would be easier for her if I left but she said no. Anyway, because she was not ready for the day and she had me
as a small distraction in the classroom, the students were all wound up. It wasn’t until we started reading some
stories that the students had written themselves, that they were able to calm down and start listening. It was
quite interesting. The teacher definitely had a more stressful day but I did whatever I could be to a “helpful”
instead of “handful”.  Luckily, the rest of the day went by fairly smoothly.
      The second teacher was super fun to watch. Whenever she wanted to move into a different station or
activity or lesson, she would ring a doorbell that she had installed inside her classroom. It was amazing how all
the students knew that when the doorbell would ring, it was time to clean up where they were and move on to
the next station or activity. All of the students would clean up quickly too which was somewhat of a shock to me!
In the future, I will most likely use a doorbell as well because it did work so well.
 3
Question 4 – What types of “punishments” are used in your classroom?
      This one was a little different because, even though each teacher had a handful of challenging students,
there was not a lot of discipline in the class. Two of the teachers, who were a little older than the other teachers
(50s–70s), and would do one of two things. They would either ignore the student who was causing a problem
until it affected the whole class’ learning or they would scold the student in front of the whole class for what
seemed like 5 or more minutes.  It shocked me because I would sit in the back of the class watching the students
drawing, coloring, throwing things, or just getting up and leaving the room to go to the bathroom. It was
completely distracting for me and I would assume most of the other students who actually wanted to learn.
When they would scold the student in front of the class, some of the students would turn around and look at me
like I would stop the teacher or save them. I did not know what to do, so I just wrote in my little journal saying
that it was not professional in my opinion.
      Now, for the younger teachers, (20s-40s) instead of “punishing” the student who was causing a problem,
the teacher would look at another student and say something like, “Chris, I love that you are working so neatly
on your paper. And Aubree, thank you for reading as I asked.” But the teachers would say these praises to bring
the other students’ focus back to what they were working on. Most of the time, the problem students would
stop whatever they were doing and start to listen to what they should have been doing in the first place. If the
student was causing a bigger problem, the teacher would pull the student aside, almost immediately, and talk to
that student individually about how they needed to change their attitude.
 

Question 5 – How or where are the rules posted in your classroom? How were they created? By the students
or the teacher?
      Each class has two sets of rules. The rules that all of the students in the school had to follow and the rules
the students would make with their teacher for inside the classroom on the first week of school. The rules that
every student needed to follow were posted either next to the hallway door or on the hallway door itself, that
way, the students knew how they were supposed to act when walking down the hallway. The classroom rules
were either posted on the whiteboard or on the door leading out to recess. Depending on what rule was broken,
 4
the students would actually say something, but if the class was misbehaving, then the teacher would have to
remind the class of the classroom rules.
 
 
 
Task 2.  Curriculum

Question 1 – Give an example of when the teacher used an integrated curriculum across subjects (i.e.
combining science and language arts)
      So many of the teachers would actually combine reading with social studies or reading with science. Each
teacher had mentioned that they simply do not have enough time to teach every subject by itself. So, they
would read a book about what they were going to learn in science later that day. One teacher would choose two
or three different books, some fiction, and some nonfiction, about the animal or category they would be going
over for the week. Another teacher was reading a book with the class that allowed the students to see what it
was like in WWII for a child around their age. Some of the students were quite surprised as to what the
characters in the stories went through.
 

Question 2 – Give an example of when the teacher used a hidden curriculum.

      One of the 1st grade classes I was in combined writing, sight words, and some of the science lessons all into
one. The students were told to write in complete sentences while trying to use the sight words of the week and
the main character had to be about a bat, the animal they were learning about that week. It sounds like a lot but
the students were able to write the sentences about their bat and if they needed the help, the teacher or myself
were there to help them write a sentence together.
 
 5
Question 3 – Does your teacher use differentiated instruction?
      Yes, there was one 5th grade class that was sadly very behind in their learning but, they love their
mathematics lessons and they would jump right into it and pick it up fairly quickly. However, there was one
student who just was not able to focus without getting up and moving or fidgeting with something. For that
student, he was pulled out to the hallway and another teacher’s aid would work with that student individually.
For that student, it meant a lot because he was able to ask more questions and the aid was able to break each
step of the problem out better for him. I, also, pulled a student aside because she was continuously getting stuck
on one small part of the equation and got the problem wrong each time. After watching her write out the whole
problem, we were able to see where she was getting stuck and we were able to fix it. After that, she was getting
all the problems correct. The thing was, the teacher had only explained one way to complete the problem and
she was not able to figure it out that way. Because of that, I showed her a different way to complete the
problem and she liked that way much more.
 

Question 4 – Can you tell what kind of learner the teacher is from his/her instructional preferences?
      In the 5th grade math class, the teacher was definitely an auditory learner/teacher. She would do better at
waking through a problem by talking it out, whereas, it seemed like most of the students were visual learners.
      For the 1st grade class, the teacher was more of a visual and kinesthetic learner/teacher. When the teacher
and her students were working on compound words, they would physically break the words up by clapping or
snapping. They would do something similar when they were sounding words out too.
 

Question 5 – Do you think the teacher adapts the curriculum to the types of learners in the classroom?
      For the most part, I would say yes. I know that when a teacher switched grades, they have to change how
they present their lessons. Or at least they should. In high school, I had one teacher who was strictly an auditory
teacher and it was terrible. Most of my class, including myself, were kinesthetic learners or visual learners.
 6
Because of this, most of our class finished the year with a B- or C’s and D’s. It was because of that teacher that
most of the students at the high school hated science. It was really too bad…
 

Question 6 – Does your teacher like the curriculum he/she is teaching?

      Some of the teachers love the curriculum and others hate it greatly. The ones that do not like it, do not like
it because they are not given as much freedom to teach it in the timeframe they want it to. Or, they preferred
the “old” way and older books that they had used in the past. The teachers that liked the curriculum were newer
to the school and thoughts that it was a good guideline to follow.

Question 7 – What would they like to see added in the future?

      I think that the teachers might like to have more than one or two ways to teach certain material. However,
there are also some teachers that think the opposite. Some of the teachers wish that there were fewer ways to
teach a lesson because it would make the lesson easier to prepare for and less time to organize beforehand.
Also, some of the new lessons are harder for the students to comprehend, especially for the younger students.
 

Task 3.  Technology

Question 1 – What kind of technology was used in the class(es) you observed? Was it effective?
      Most of the teachers were given laptops because the desktop computer they had been using were
breaking faster than they could fix them. Because of this, a lot of the parents wanted to help out so that their
children would have a better environment for learning and it would allow the teachers more freedom in how
they wanted to teach their lessons. Some of the parents even ordered a desk cam that could attach to the laptop
and the protectors in the classrooms. When they have to watch a video on the screen, the teachers have to
 7
connect to their Bluetooth speakers so that the students have volume. I found this to be a little obnoxious but it
did work for the teachers and the students.
      The students also have access to 5 chromo laptops inside the classroom. On the laptops, they are able to
work on math websites and reading websites. The reading website was super cool because the teacher could
assign a book to the students and the students had the option to read it to themselves or read it as an auditory
book. I don’t remember the name of the website otherwise I would put it in here.
 

Question 2 – What type of technology might you use when you start your teaching career?
      In the future, I would love to be able to have a laptop or tablet I could take home with me. I think this
would allow me to plan my lessons better and I would be able to grade the students’ papers or homework
assignments from home and input them in the grade book faster. With the laptop or tablet,  I would be able to
write out different scenarios, math problems, drawings, or upload pictures I would like to use for class, in class
more easily.
 

Question 3 – Do you think it is harder or easier to incorporate technology into your classroom?
      I think the hardest part would have to be that the students will want to learn and be on the computers
more than they want to hear my voice. I would also have to watch the students most carefully to make sure they
are staying focused on the lessons instead of playing games or doing things they know they would not be doing.
It would be my biggest concern with having extra laptops inside the classroom.

 
 8
Task 4.  Diversity

Question 1 – How diverse were your class(es) you observed?

      The school that I was at did not have much diversity. Most of the classrooms had a handful of children from
Asia or Australia or Thailand or Mexico but most of the students actually come from a Dutch background.
Because of this, many of the students and teachers ask questions to gain a better understanding of each culture
inside the classroom.
 

Question 2 – What did your mentor/teacher do (or not do) to create a diverse classroom? 
      Some of the teachers I observed also spoke Spanish. This was neat because one of the teachers had
bilingual poster boards hung up around her classroom and many of the students would try to learn some of the
words in Spanish.
      When I was in grade school, one of my teachers had American Sign Language posters hung up in the
reading corner. I would go over there all the time and work on my alphabet in ASL, which I still use today. My
choir/music teacher, in grade school, would teach us some ASL when we were learning our songs because when
we would put on concerts for our family members, a handful of them was deaf. This allowed them to understand
what the students were saying. It, also, made learning the song so much easier!
      One thing I thought was pretty cool was that the teachers would ask the students questions like, “Is this
similar to what you would have done in your country?” or something like, “do you have the same snacks and
food as we do in America?” The students who did not grow up in America were very nice and patient with each
question that they received.