Field Analysis #3 1

Field Report #3

Madyson E. McGarry

Tarrant County College

EDUC 2301-

Professor Sikes

4/14/24

The School

The school I observed is Bear Creek Elementary school, which is part of the Grapevine

Colleyville school district. I observed Dr. Robbins in Gifted and Talented on March 4th from

1:00pm-3:00pm. Bear Creek services kids from ages 3 to 11. It is a small, one story building that

prioritizes telling students about college and getting them excited about this by hosting pep

rallies where they proudly represent a college (picked by the teacher).

Program Format

The GT program at Bear Creek is a self contained classroom. They service GT students

from kindergarten to fifth grade, kindergarten was just added as of the 2023-2024 school year.

Each grade level is pulled out for their allotted time between two and three times a week and

meets in Dr. Robbins classroom. Dr. Robbins pushes into the classroom by providing online
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games that the students can go and play when they finish their regular class work. These games

include Wordle (geography version), and many different geographical games. She also provides

students with a game packet she calls “Tangy-Tuesday” that contains games such as sudoku for

the students that are due on Fridays.

Lesson or Activities

For this lesson, I observed third grade. They were working on a project in which they

created an object from different miscellaneous objects, given to them by Dr. Robbins. These

objects could be anything, as long as they used all of the materials and it didn’t fall apart. These

materials included one paper cup, two popsicle sticks, some string, and some tape. Most of the

objects, I couldn’t really tell what the students were trying to make, but one student made what

looked like a bat. After they completed their sculptures, they were asked to write an alliteration

poem that starts with the first letter of their object. For example, if the student made a clock, their

alliteration poem must have c’s. One student just joined GT and was allowed to join another

student and help them write the poem. It was interesting to see how the students wrote their

poems. Some students were trying to make up words, and Dr. Robbins would ask them if they

think what they wrote makes sense. The end goal for this project is that they read their poems in

front of the class after practicing their poems.

Instructional Strategies

This project was done on a one to one basis. Dr. Robbins uses Bloom’s Taxonomy by

asking the students questions instead of giving them the answers. One student had a hard time

getting their sculpture to stay together and was about to give up. Dr. Robbins went over and

asked this student what was wrong, and they explained that their sculpture wasn’t staying

together. Dr. Robbins didn’t fix it for them or show them how to do it, but she simply just said
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“have you tried a different way to put it together?” This helped the student look for other

solutions and ultimately, the student was able to fix their sculpture and continue on with the

project. The lessons in GT take a longer time to complete because they do projects and only meet

a couple times a week. This makes them only have time to do a couple projects per semester.

Prior to starting the project they revisited the term alliteration that they had already learned in

their English class. Then they started their projects. Dr. Robbins looks for understanding through

the student’s projects.

Supplemental Information

After talking with Dr. Robbins, in GCISD, the curriculum only recently (as of this year)

has become very restricted. In the past, Dr. Robbins was able to use any resources she found to

create projects, especially because she is not allowed to use the same projects every year. Now,

she has to use specific websites to find projects. She can use some websites that she has used in

the past, but she is waiting on approval from the district. One problem that I see is that some GT

students join in at the end of the school year because they test in January. I think they should wait

to let the new GT students in until the start of the next school year because these students seem

to be thrown in even though they have never been in a GT classroom. Overall, I really loved how

the GT classroom is run and I love the freedom of curriculum and being able to teach what the

students are actually interested in.