Julie H. Rucker
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Learning Through Observation:
Clinical Cycles Written Report
Julie H. Rucker
In partial fulfillment of requirements for
EDUL 6019
The University of Georgia
Spring 2006
The two teachers I chose to observe varied in terms of their teaching concerns. The first teacher, L.R., actually retired three years ago but continues to return to our school to teach each spring semester. She is innovative, but most importantly, she has a love for the students and feels a call to her position. The other observation was of a co-teaching pair from outside of our school. C.P. and C.A. both work for GLRS and were contacted by our school inclusion consultant to come and present a lesson in history and one in language arts using co-teaching models. Both of these ladies were previous classroom teachers who have now moved into positions where they train teachers and provide professional support to teachers and schools in our RESA district.
The Cycle with L.R.
I have been in her classroom one other time several years ago in order to observe a student in her Calculus class and found myself wanted to participate as well. I always remembered my experience from that day and wanted to enter a productive learning environment that I knew I would enjoy. I first approached L.R. via email about observing her classroom and then talked with her in the hall during early morning duty. In fact, our pre-conference occurred in the hallway during duty—not unusual for L.R. who often has students see her at her duty station for tutoring in the early morning.
During our pre-conference, we determined what day would be better for her classroom to have a visitor. Because of a planned quiz, it was determined that I would arrive at 2:10 and stay for 20-25 minutes. She told me her 20, ninth grade Algebra I students would be studying the Pythagorean theorem She also gave me insights into particular students with whom she had some discipline problems because she wanted me to be aware of what to expect from them. I told her that I would bring in a pad to make field notes about what I observed happening in the classroom.
I arrived in her room a few minutes after 2:10 to find that they had not been able to take the quiz because they had several important questions for her at the beginning of class. She informed me that they would be taking the quiz after I finished observing them. A student in class raised his hand for permission to ask me questions about why I was in their room, which I answered. Then we went back to what they were doing: Mrs. Roberts was showing them how to use graphing calculators for evolution and involution. Next she covered an End of Course Test item, which they do each day. She also discussed other strategies they could use when answering problems on the EOCT:
• Get organized
• Use check marks by problems that take time to complete but they understand how to do and use question marks by problems of which they are unsure—skip those problems and return to them after finishing all other problems on the exam
L.R. worked through the sample problem with the students, reminding them that they had covered this type of problem already in class. She had catchy phrases to use when asking students which way they would choose to solve the problem. There were actually three ways they could have chosen—the hardest she called the “stinky poo” way to solving the problem.
She then introduced a new lesson using the essential question, “What did Pythagoras do for me?” She began by giving students background information on the person Pythagoras and gave them other background information they would need to hang their hats on to learn the material. She made present day connections to an incident that happened to Pythagoras when she compared what the Pythagoreans did to save Pythagoras's life when they were attacked by the Romans to what the Secret Service did to Bush and Cheney on 9/11. She also reminded students that they could do an extra credit report due the following week on Pythagoras. I found this to be a sound cross-curricular activity that required students to use research techniques, appropriate citations of sources, as well as learn history.
Our post-conference occurred during morning duty the next morning. We discussed the cross-curricular activity she gave the students. She also expressed that she was inspired by my visit to begin including more classical studies into her classroom because she realized how little background her students had on the influence of ancient Greece and Rome . She had asked her students about three important ancient philosophers whose names began with S-P-A during the math class, and when no one could answer, she called on me. I identified the philosophers, and only a few students had even heard the names before. She feels such a need for her students to be educated, contributing members of society, that she wants to create as part of her curriculum, mini-lessons that would show students the influence of ancient Greece and Rome to our lives today. I shared with her my support of her idea because I know she is concerned about producing well-rounded, educated students. If she can find ways to teach her curriculum and teach across the curriculum, I support her 100%!
I had planned to discuss with her what she thought went well and what she thought could have been improved upon. I also wanted to talk with her about how she assessed her students on the knowledge and skills she presented during the lesson after I left. We did not cover that information because she brought up her new idea and wanted feedback from me on that. For L.R., the fact that I was in her classroom observing gave her the confidence to introduce other subject areas into her math classroom. She thanked me for coming because she felt that by being there and contributing in class, I had helped her see a need for improving her students' education. I of course did not feel that I had that much influence over her decision; instead, I think it was the willingness of a colleague to care enough to come in and offer feedback that was an inspiration for her.
The Cycle with C.P. and C.A.
One big frustration with this cycle was the fact that I could never connect with the teachers prior to observing their lesson. I called and left voice mail and a message with a secretary, but the message was not received or communicated prior to their visit. Instead, I went to the assistant principal who has been in communication with these trainers and talked with her for approximately ten minutes about the purpose of their visit, who would be there, whose classroom it would be in, and the nature of the lesson they would teach. The two ladies were to model co-teaching strategies within a real language arts classroom. Three other co-teaching pairs also were to be in the room to observe as well as our inclusion consultant. The ladies were to teach a ninth-grade language arts lesson on vocabulary. I knew that the particular classroom they would visit was a difficult one with at least ten special education students who were mainstreamed. I planned to take field notes during the lesson, which was to take place from 1:40-2:45.
There were a total of seven adults in the classroom for the lesson, including the trainers. Not all co-teachers were able to come because of other school responsibilities. They began by asking students what denotation and connotation meant. Only a few students said they had heard the words before. They projected on the white board a copy of two standards from 9 th grade GPS and identified them as the ones they would use to teach the lesson today. They then gave two essential questions from the standards: “What is a connotation?” and “How do word choices affect meaning?” C.A. wrote the EQs on chart paper and posted them in the classroom as C.P. talked about them to the students.
For an activating strategy, they had a transparency of book covers, all having to do with the word “chicken.” Students were asked to group with a few of their neighbors to decide what “chicken” meant in each picture. Both co-teachers walked around the room asking students the different meanings for “chicken” in each picture. After small groups, they directed students' attention back to the large group and discussed each way “chicken” was used.
For a teaching strategy, they used a graphic organizer to differentiate between denotation and connotation. They also gave students a handout and projected it on an overhead projector. Both teachers walked around the room checking for individual student understanding with the activity. The last activity asked students to define “muscle cars.” Students were very animated and most of the boys yelled out a response. C.A. wrote student responses onto the graphic organizer projected on the white board while C.P. walked around the room.
I found that these teachers only modeled level I co-teaching. They did not divide the students into groups, though they did at one time put two or three neighbors together for the activation strategy. Both teachers were teaching the same thing to the classroom as one group. I also noticed a flaw in their activation strategy (which I shared later in the post-conference). They were talking about connotation with the activation strategy when in actuality, they should have been discussing denotation. While I do not thing that registered with the students, it was still a problem because it could have the potential to confuse students on the two concepts.
Our post-conference included C.A. and C.P., three other teachers, and the inclusion consultant. During the post-conference, they confirmed that they stayed in level-1 co-teaching. They also talked with us about how they could do this easily because they both had the same philosophy. I told them how nice that was but that in our school we had no choice about who our co-teachers were, and then they replied that it was even more important for us to communicate with our assigned co-teacher early on to work out our philosophies about homework, discipline, classroom management, etc. (though I do not personally consider those “philosophies”). They asked who the special education students were in the class, and they were surprised to learn that there were so many in the class. In fact, the consultant pointed out that we had too many in the class; for inclusion to work, we needed to limit the amount of special education students to 5-7 or otherwise we were more or less maintaining a resource class. Of course I pointed out to them that the teachers in our school had no input as to how the classes were set up and that our administration would have to deal with that issue because they were the ones who arranged it.
While they were extremely happy with the way the lesson went, I was not pleased. They did not show any of us a co-teaching model we had not used before. They also let a special education student sleep through the whole class without waking him up; when asked why they didn't address it, they said they thought it may be better for him to sleep. When told that was typical behavior of the student if allowed, they then admitted they probably should have made him participate. I also pointed out my problem with their activation strategy and pointed out why it was addressing denotation and not connotation. The other problem I had with their lesson I did not address—the fact that their second essential question used the word “effect” when it should have read “affect.” I did not feel that I should be that nit-picky, though in the English classroom, that was a huge error.
What I Learned
The main point I learned was that teachers within a school are more open to ideas for improvement when their colleagues come into their classroom rather than outside consultants. I found myself looking forward to being in my colleagues classroom and was not critical of the way she taught her class. Consequently, I fought the feelings of comparisons I made between the way I conduct my co-teaching classroom and the way the visiting teachers conducted on of our co-teaching classrooms. I was skeptical of their abilities when I saw their errors; I did not appreciate their presentation because it did not show me anything new. I found myself being ultra-critical of their performance while I was more interested in supporting and encouraging my math colleague. Perhaps one reason I was critical of the outsiders was that I was told to go and watch them because I needed to see what they could do. I was not asked ahead of time the models my co-teacher and I have already used; if that had happened, perhaps the trainers would have come in with a lesson using a different model. I also learned that the post conference with my colleague was more productive than the one with the outsiders. My math colleague and I already had a sense of what our students needed and could collaborate on ideas that would benefit them while the outsiders just wanted to praise themselves and tell use what we needed to do in our own classrooms.