Just Dewey It

Field Notes: Spring Break

So these are unofficial field notes – just wanted to share some thoughts. Last week was a great week at my placement and very informative (see recently posted field notes) but this week is Spring Break for my placement so I haven’t been there at all. And two weeks ago I was on Spring Break so I missed going to my placement then. I guess I am saying, I feel anxiety being away from my placement so often in the past three weeks especially when my students are younger and may not remember me in addition to my role in the classroom being different from their regular teachers. I hope this week when I go back things fall in place and I have not been forgotten. (Or that I have forgotten their names – given that I have a terrible memory.)

Bringing this back to education related talk – rather than just feelings – I wonder if this type of break is good for students and teachers? Yes, I think everyone is burnt out and needs a break sometimes, but if I am worried about forgetting things over these two week breaks, couldn’t students also be forgetting things that are relevant to course material? While the break is needed for the body – does the rest also help or hurt the mind? I would argue that the rest/break helps everything but that might just be my own personal experience and maybe the break can be helpful or hurtful depending on age and learning style.

Field Notes:

This past week, a classmate of ours came to visit my placement with me. It was great. I was really stressed about this experience at first, mainly because I felt like I had to ask my placement advisor about this even though I didn’t know her that well, but it turned out very well. It was great to have a fresh and different perspective. Additionally, it helped me feel more confident in my role in the classroom as I was able to talk through he various day-to-day activities as well as introduce students to my guest.

            Beyond the visit, I was able to continue my conversation with my host teacher about the student who has autism (or suspected autism). Her parents found out that she is indeed on the autism spectrum. The teachers asked the parents how the testing went and they responded well. Apparently, they are not being communicative with the teachers about the student’s needs, especially now that they know that she needs specific care in the classroom. The teachers believe this is still due the parents not being able to admit that their child has autism.

Since my field placement school is currently on spring vacation (and for the next week as well), I'm writing about my French teaching assistant work. 

A problem I keep encountering is a disconnect between what the professor (who is my supervisor, the teacher who is in charge of the lesson plans for all the French students at the intermediate level, for which I am a TA) expects students to get out of their TA sessions and what they are ready to do in TA sessions. What I mean by this is: how do you make the most of not being able to control the major lesson plan for students? How do you make their extra (mandatory) sessions meaningful in the context of their class when I don't really know what they are doing in class, and when they are in need of much more review than the professor thinks they are? When we have grammar lessons, (i.e. subjunctive) the professor gives us (the TAs) at least ten activities to do with the students...and when we start the first one, it becomes clear to met that nobody even knows the steps to take to conjugating a verb into the subjunctive. So we go really slowly through the first activity, going through the steps together as a group, and there are nine other activities for the group to do that we haven't gotten to yet.

I suppose the fact that I am attentive to their needs is the answer to these questions. I should really talk to the professor about it...but to be honest, we don't really talk as a group about the TA work we do. Another option could be talking to the other TAs about it to see what they have to say.

On Tuesday, I worked with Erica again on both reading and homework. “Work with me, work with me,” she asked, so I agreed to come upstairs and work with her. After 20 minutes of reading, we switched to work on homework.

Looking back over my notes, I was surprised by the number of distractions we had. While we were reading, a tutor and a student came upstairs and started reading out loud too; another student had a tantrum in the corner and the director, Mariah, and 2 other tutors were talking to him for 5-10 minutes to get him to settle down. Erica was, for the most part, able to stay focused during that time. However, when we were doing homework, she was more prone to distraction – both of her own making, and others.

Erica had one double-sided worksheet of math problems. She wanted to work upstairs instead of downstairs, where students usually do homework – I assumed this was because it was a little quieter and less hectic upstairs. We sat down on a couch, and Erica took out two whiteboards, and put her paper on top of them. She also got a sharpened pencil and a dry-erase marker.

Math Centers (lesson on how to read a clock): The students are broken up into their "center groups" (groups of 5-6 kids). For math, there are three different centers: one group works on math activities on the computer. Another group works at the back table with Ms. B doing activities in the workbook. And the last group works with me on a worksheet and then play games of Concentration, matching up pictures of clock faces with their written out time in numbers. V is completing his worksheet and yells to Ms. Barba "A is making fun of me, saying that I'm going on a date with M." A complains that it's not true and that is was really another classmate, N, who was saying that. Ms. B says that V and A should not sit together and that A needs to keep her comments to herself because she has been getting into a lot of trouble lately with gossipping. Right as Center Time is finishing up, the students are asked to return to their seats in order to move onto Writing. A and N are sitting next to each other when suddenly N yells "Ms. B, A is trying to stab me with her pencil!". A calmly says that that's not true. Ms. B yells "cut it out, A. You've been having a bad time with lying lately and I can tell when you're lying. Show me your hands." A shows her hands to Ms. B and her hands are empty. It's important to note that Ms. B is standing on the other side of the table where A is seated while this is happening. Nothing is physically forceful in the sense that Ms. B is not in physical contact with A. A says "I wasn't poking him" and Ms.

The overall theme that I noticed today that was striking to me were my own conceptions of "ability" as it pertains to the classroom. I see ability in the classroom in two ways: the first is the teacher's perception of what the students are capable of and the second is what the students themselves feel that they are capable of. 

I'm confused about how discipline/management of student energy should be happening at my placement. A few weeks ago, Mariah, the programming director, briefly told us that Wordsmiths uses a point system. Today, she handed out printouts to each of the kids when they came in - Erica got 75% positive points yesterday, so the circle showed up 75% green. Another student only had 42% positive points. 

However, to my knowledge, none of the tutors have learned about this system or how to implement it. I didn't even know some of the rules until today (kids aren't allowed to go upstairs without an adult, students have to ask for permission to go outside, we don't use the "shut up" phrase, we don't use cuss words, no food from outside of Wordsmiths - especially candy). 

So I was outside with some of the kids for recess and I saw Bianca was talking with a friend. A few minutes later, I noticed that she was chewing something. Typically, the students are not supposed to have snacks of any kind until after recess when they go back inside (Wordsmiths provides fruit and yogurt). I asked her what she was eating. She said, "Nothing!" and backed away from me. She put one hand behind her back. Erica told her she better finish it quick. 

Today at my school placement in a center city private school second grade classroom, the three second grade classrooms were coming together to celebrate the one hundredth day of school. The teachers collaborated on an activity for the students to group up, supervised by a teacher, and tape off specified "100" measurements on the floor around the school. 

After the teachers discussed which students will work together well, they put students into groups of three to four, and assigned a teacher to each group. I went along with Teacher P (my mentor teacher)'s group.

The activity didn't have much structure other than the directions of the teachers helping the students measure out 100 centimeters, 100 inches, 100 feet, and 100 meters along the carpeted floor of the school hallways. When we began the activity, arguments immediately ensued about who would have which job, who got to hold the meter stick, who got to put the tape on the ground to mark the measurement this time...it was a little chaotic, especially when we started measuring 100 meters. At this point, Teacher P and I decided to divide the group into two groups--two students to put the meter stick along the floor and mark each one with a small piece of tape, two to take the large roll of tape and follow the other groups' measurements--to help everyone stay on task. 

1. and 2.: Collect stories/What happened? – Miranda helped Omar do his math homework

Once again, we had more volunteers than students at tutoring. Mariah – the director of Wordsmiths – asked Miranda and I to work with Omar. He had not been in school that day, so he needed to do both his schoolwork and some homework, which had been compiled into a packet. Since Miranda had worked with him before, I let her lead; so, for the most part, I just watched. Omar said he already knew how to do this, and that they didn’t need to work on it today. Miranda said that he needed to finish as much as possible, since there wouldn’t be tutoring tomorrow or the next day. She repeated that he had to do it today.

Omar started with the first page, which was 3 columns of basic addition (ex: 1 +2 = ?; 3 +7 = ?). For the first few questions on the first column, Omar used one of two strategies: he wrote tally marks for each number and counted up the total (ex: I II = 3; III IIIIIII = 7), or he used his fingers and counted from left to right (ex: 1 finger on one hand next to 2 fingers on the other hand). When the numbers were too big to fit on one hand (ex: 7), he used tallies. Miranda and I both watched him. For some of the equations that Omar was going to use fingers for, Miranda held up her own fingers and told Omar to look up. He counted her fingers and used that number. He said the answer out loud before writing it; when the answer was wrong, Miranda asked, “Are you sure?” or said, “Check that again.”

Here are some ideas that Nicole and I discussed today in class - comment if you want to add/change these goals!

Goals for Field notes /posting:

1. make our notes more accessible - focus on specific moments or interactions, highlight/bold the sections that you want us to focus on
2. respond to at least one person’s notes with a question (or bring a question to class)

Goals for conversations in class:

1. bring advice/suggestions
2. hold people accountable – ask them to explain their statements
3. I (or someone else?) will scan and post my notes from our conversation – this could be a good way to bridge/connect our conversations over time
4. Ask each person, “What are you looking for in your next visit?” - if we don't get to each person in the group, then we can at least go back to this question on Serendip