Site Reflection

March 1st, 2016

Carson Van Iderstine

I found the site visit to be very informative and though provoking. It was good to
observe a 7th grade class, as in my opinion, it highlights the students progression
from elementary to middle school. Compared to my 5th grade classroom the
students were much better behaved, on task, and independent. I believe that this
stems from two main differences between the classes. 1: The students are older,
and thus more mature. 2:Streamlining has begun, and the students with
considerable learning difficulties and disabilities have been separated into a
different class to be taught knowledge and employability skills (which creates
interesting implications is it really better to separate these students from their
classmates, as they will likely receive less socialization, and are segregated from
the rest of the class).
The increased ability of the students in my opinion allows middle and high school
teachers to employ different methods to teach and maintain an effective learning
environment that would not be possible with elementary students. Examples of this
would be when the teacher separated the class into groups (which he selected) and
allowed them to move freely around the classroom and the hallway to do their work.
Even though the teacher selected the groups I was very impressed that the groups
of students were able to remain focused on their assignments; had my TA and I
attempted this with our classroom it would result in chaos. I believe that this
demonstrates just how crucial the development that occurs between 5 th and 7th
grade is. The teacher also relied on book reading and popcorning his students.
Popcorning is when you are reading, and you randomly select a student of the
class, and expect them to continue reading where you left off seamlessly. I believe
that this is effective because it keeps students alert and following along as they
know that they face minor social embarrassment should they not be ready to
continue reading. This could be utilized to some effect in my classroom, as while
some of the students would be capable of contributing in this manner the majority
lacks the mental and social capacity for popcorning. Mentally, many of the
students have not yet developed the reading skills to follow along, and socially,
many of the students are both too easily distracted and discouraged by the social
aspect of the punishment for failure.
I find the use of these activities to be very interesting as they effectively and
concisely show the differences between a 5 th and 7th grade classroom, as well as
providing further information and reference points regarding the development of
children at different ages.