Field Journal

I recently completed four weeks of field experience. It's part of the teacher program and state law that prospective teachers spend at least 35 hours observing and participating (interacting, teaching, etc.) in a real life classroom before student teaching. The following is from one of my many field journals I completed and handed in to my professors at the end. . .

The culture at this High School appears very professional. They are considered a high achieving school and want to maintain that image. Because their reputation is good, their code of conduct is set pretty high, creating that professional atmosphere. The teachers do cooperate and the first day in the school I saw teachers cooperating to time their lessons to each other and create a common final assessment. At the same time, I could see that their reputation also puts some pressure on teachers to have their students perform well, creating some competition among teachers. It wasn't much, but there are politics that go on among the faculty and there was some whispering that went on between cooperating teachers.
Teachers here are expected to help a the tutoring center, do cafeteria duty, help with bus duty, and oversee study hall and home rooms. Teachers often have duty together and the conversations during these seems to be somewhat informal and pretty friendly. The faculty room doesn't get used much by teachers and most of them just eat in their classrooms by themselves. The one conversation I heard in the faculty room (I don't think it was even between two teachers) was about a celebrity scandal. Aside from being somewhat crude, it had nothing to do with school and I got the feeling that not much of anything happens in the faculty room.
I asked about support for first year teachers and was told that there is a program for them, but I gathered that it isn't always comprehensive or terribly relevant to the actual needs of new teachers. It meets about once a week at first and then gradually weans new teachers off. They meet and discuss theories of teaching and some procedures, but I was told the the best support comes from finding another teacher who will take you under their wing for a little and tell you about how the school works.
The classroom I was in is mostly project based so the structure was pretty loose. Kids had a lot of in-class work time and were given a lot of freedom about how and they wanted to complete their projects. A lot of the classes were AP classes and this structure seemed to work fairly well for them and some kids made the most of the freedom to go above and beyond. However, for students who weren't highly motivated, it gave them time to procrastinate and socialize. In these cases, the teacher would usually come over to the table to try to get them back on track. Intervention was informal and usually consisted of a quiet comment or simply waiting till the class was quiet enough to continue with the instructions.
The less formal environment led to a lot of interaction between students and the teacher, and I think most students found her to be down to earth. They were pretty comfortable talking with her and viewed her as someone who was enough like them to understand them. Some of the students really liked and respected her for the freedom she gave them, and some didn't. In each class, there were a few students who didn't like her because they wanted more direct instruction than she gave them and felt that she wasn't teaching them enough.
Special education wasn't a big part of the classroom. Four of the six classes were AP classes and there were some gifted students in them. The teacher told me that the biggest difficulty with gifted students was getting them to take risks instead of just worrying about the grade. Since the assessment was project based, the teacher told me she set it up specifically so gifted students could make their projects as complex and thorough as they wanted to.
There were a couple kids in class with IEP's and they had a special ed teacher who would come in during those classes. She would walk around the classroom, checking in on the tables where they were to make sure they were on task. Again, the project-based assessments were naturally scaffolded to allow students to achieve at the level they were comfortable. Other than that, I didn't see a whole lot of accommodations that were made to the classroom. Students with special needs were simply allowed to do projects that were simpler than other students.
The student I shadowed was definitely a case of a smart student who is underachieving. He excels in the classes he likes, but he is doing poorly in all the others. As I watched him, it became apparent to me that one of the biggest reasons for this is his social life. It's not that he was not against or disinterested in learning, but he was more concerned more interested in being cool. He would participate when “forced” to (and I was surprised at how good his answer was when he was specifically asked) but he wouldn't give the answer of his own accord because it is cooler to not participate. If I was going to teach him, I think I would sometimes “force” him to share with the rest of the class – as long as I had checked up on him and knew he had a good answer. It is a way to let him be involved without hurting his social status. Also, I think I would let him work in groups as a reward, but let him know that if he gets off track he will be switched to another group or have to work by himself for a little.
His favorite class was construction and he was anxious for me to see him in this class. As I watched him and the other boys in shop class, it became apparent to me that they all liked working with their hands better than with a pencil and paper. The same went for physics class, although there he was working with a group again and spent part of the time goofing off because it made the others laugh. However, overall he was naturally more excited and eager to learn when there was a hands-on project to do. I think if he was in my class, I would give the option of making something (maybe a monument for a particular event) for one of the assessments. I would also try to bring in tangible artifacts for him and the rest of the class to put their hands on and get them interested.
Unstructured time was not a good thing for this student. There were two classes where the students were expected to work on their own and weren't given specific instructions or in-class-deadlines. This was when he would zone out. It wasn't that he couldn't follow instructions because I observed him following perfectly when there was a teacher stepping the students through a process in Econ, but when the in clas work time was totally self-guided, he didn't seem to know where to start so he just didn't. I think if I was going to used a project based assessment for him and allow in-class work time, I would need to structure the class so they do the project in small steps and need to report to the rest of the class at least once or twice during the day. Being told where to start and just knowing that the teacher is going to call on several random groups to show what they have accomplished that day would do wonders for providing motivation. It would also help students who are falling behind because they can listen to what their classmates have done and imitate it if they are at a loss for ideas or direction.