I have been observing in the Southside Middle School in Ms. Sweats's 4th Grade Math Class. On the first day of being a student intern in the Middle School, the first thing I noticed was a sense difference. The smell of the middle school is exactly what you would imagine. The bathrooms are tiny, the students are wilder, and the teachers have more patience. Ms. Sweat's classroom is very welcoming and homey. As you walk in the lights are dim and there is soft lights hung around the room. Attached to the ceiling is smiley faces and on the walls in there are so many great affirmations for the students to look at for beautiful reminders. One of the posters I like that she has hung up would be the, Undo, Copy, Redo, Paste posters. These posters show and tell the students how to copy and paste, ect.
3/13- Day 1: As my peers and I walked down the hallways we found all of our teachers in one room. We sat down and started to fill out our papers. Around 8:50am, the noise of 4th graders filled the hallways. Running and screaming was all to be heard. Ms. Sweat and the other teachers just knew, what a day it was going to be. Ms. Sweat guided me to her class and got me a table in her classroom. The very first thing Ms. Sweat says to her students is, "Get out your bellwork, and begin working". Usually students will be wandering around the classroom, sharpening their pencils, asking questions, or getting their binder out. Anything but doing their bellwork. On this day, the students were learning rounding. They had to round to the nearest tenth on their bellwork for the day. Another question on their bellwork was division. Around 9:10 on this day, Ms. Sweat began to go over the bellwork with the students. I love her method with this, she allows her students to blurt out the steps to each problem. The students seems to enjoy this. During her first class, I really enjoyed watching a little girl work, she was a quick learner, doer, and helper. She would ask her questions, finish her work and then offer to help someone she knows is struggling. One thing I did notice was one girl in this class wore headphones the entire time. On this day I also learned about the Middle School's award system, which is DOJO. DOJO is a computer based system that allows students to earn points, they can also have points taken away. At the end of the nine weeks, if the students have so many points they get what they call a "DOJO Recess", this is basically just an extra recess. As the second class walked in they were more quiet on this day than the first class. They got their bell work out and began working with no distractions. As Ms. Sweat began to go over bell work the clock struck 10:50am. The summary of the clinical activity would be the dividing and rounding. During bell work the students were allowed to use the restroom, sharpen pencils, talk quietly, and read a book when they finished.
3/25-Day 2: During the second day of being in Ms. Sweat's class I observed the whiteboard being used for bell work. I also noticed that the workbooks they use for their lesson are I-Ready notebooks. Ms. Sweat handed out the bell work.
One thing I liked about about the whole class on this day was all of the students was engaged. For example, during the lesson a student was thinking outside of the box and said, "A dollar bill is a rectangle." Ms. Sweat acknowledged this students for thinking outside of the box. Another example of the whole class being engaged on this day is, their was a whole class discussion over segments. Ms. Sweat allowed all students to communicate to one another about the topic.
One thing I observed and likes about Ms. Sweat today was that she was allowing all of her students to share their thoughts. Some days teachers tend to shut off students thoughts when they could be valid. Another thing I noticed today was that Ms. Sweat was giving out snacks to everyone who needed. She shared hers with the students who didn't bring snack.
No comments:
Post a Comment