Alexxis Agurcia

ECE 251- 1001/Fall

10/05/2014

Observations of a Classroom

School: Walter Jacobson Elementary Telephone: 702-799-4320

Teacher: Ms. Bennet Age/Grade: 1st grade

Teacher Characteristics

1. In general, how unconditional is the teacher in her acceptance of the children's individual

differences? Support with observation.

-The teacher seemed somewhat accepting of her student’s differences. She had 3 children that had

a disabilities and she handled them all kindly yet sternly. One example was of the child Tenaki,

She would randomly get up out of her seat multiple times and wander around the room, using the

excuse : I had to sharpen my pencil and I needed to throw this trash away. Ms. Bennet warned

her that she was not allowed to get up again or she was going to have to move her “color stick”.

Tanaki got up to sharpen her pencil again and Ms. Bennet directed her to move her stick into the

yellow cup (warning cup before red). Later Tanaki raised her hand and told Ms. Bennet that she

needed to sharpen her pencil again, so Ms. Bennet walked over to her own desk, grabbed an

already sharpened pencil and walked it over to Tanaki’s desk and that was the end of that. Ms.

Bennet ignore it at first, then gave a warning when it became a problem, took action when the

problem kept reoccurring (yellow stick), and had a solution ready (already sharpened pencil) for

in case it happened again.

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2. How accepting is the teacher of children who present challenging behaviors? How does

she communicate this acceptance of lack of acceptance to the child? Support with

observation.

-I feel that Ms. Bennet was very accepting of her students with challenging behaviors. One

perfect example would be of her student Matthew. Matthew has ADHD and has trouble focusing

in class. Today she was giving a test on addition and subtracting and each student was called back

to take the test while the other students practiced in pairs with flash cards and counting blocks.

When it was Matthews time to test he was starring off at nothing, not listening to the teacher (

there were some word problems that she had to read out loud) and seemed very distracted by all

the other kids around him. Ms. Bennet then said to him,” Okay buddy, I can see that today isn’t a

good day for you so how about we try this again on Monday? Okay?” and Matthew nodded yes

and went back to his seat. Ms. Bennet then turned to me and explained to me that he was having a

bad week due to his medication and that she didn’t want to have to test him while he was feeling

like this, and she said to me, “ I want all the students to have an equal chance to be able to do

their best”. I think that was an extremely understanding approach to his condition.

3. How consistent in the teacher re: the enforcement of classroom rules? Support with

observation.

Ms. Bennet seemed to be very consistent about her rules. In a classroom of 24 1st graders the

noise level can get very high, so she had a Voice Levels rule. 0 was silent, 1 was Partners, 2 was

Small group, and 3 was whole group. She tended to give the voice level of 1 and 2 throughout the

day, and when it got too noisey too quickly she was say “Okay now we are at a noise level of 0. If

you guys want to be able to work in partners you cannot be getting so loud, maybe in a few

minutes you guys can be back at 1, but until then I want to see you all working on your additions
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quietly.”. There was one student named Kensly who really liked talking a lot, she had to call his

name out a few times and even use the “color stick” warning. At one point she had to say,

“Kensly, when I’m talking you need to be listening, please raise your hand first if you have a

comment, no more shouting out and no more talking to each other while I am talking.”

Another good example that I saw was of the Be Safe and Be Kind to Each other rule. Alexander,

another child with a disability had got into an altercation with another student. Ms. Bennet had

them pulled aside and had the boys each explain what had happened. Alex had pulled the other

child’s backpack strap off which caused the other child to do it back to Alex so Alex responded

by pushing him. Twice Alex tried to walk off while the teachers was talking to the both of them,

but Ms. Bennet made him stay and instructed both of the students to apologize to each other. The

other child apologized to Alex but Alex would not apologize back. Ms. Bennet let the other child

go back to his group work and she kept Alex so she could talk to him. She began saying, “Do you

remember what we talked about last week about you placing your hands on other students? You

have to be nice to everybody so you can make friends Alex.”. I noticed that Alex tended to stay to

himself and didn’t want to work in partners, so I have a feeling that this might be a reoccurring

problem for Alex.

Bonding

1. What kind of bonding rituals does the teacher use? Support with observation.

Every day right before school is over Ms. Bennet has all the kids go over to the reading circle and

she reads them books until the bell. She has the students bring in their own books and the teacher

takes turns reading their book for the week. When Ms. Bennet would pull out one of the student’s

books you would head that child make a sound of excitement. They then get to ask questions
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about the book and share ideas with each other. I also noticed a lot of the books were checked out

from libraries, so that tells me that the parents help their children by taking them to check out

book so they can be read in class.

2. What other ways of bonding does the teacher utilize? Support with observation.

I think the working in partners is a good way for the students to bond with each other. I noticed a

lot of the students had their own little friend they liked to work with (she did partners throughout

the day) and they both go to take turns teaching and learning from each other. At one point I had

a group of kids playing an adding and subtracting game I made up for them. WE had a bag of

counting squares ad flash cards, they each got 3 flash cards and they would each get a turn going

in a circle to put their card down while we had to figure out how to solve the problem with the

squares, whoevers flash card we were working on, that child got to take/ add the squares and I

encouraged them to all count out loud with me. To me that was a great moment of bonding and

learning.

Schedule & Routines

1. Provide a copy of the classroom schedule. Write an evaluation of the schedule utilizing the

information from the reading and handouts.

-See attached

- I think that compared to the two routine examples given in the reading Ms. Bennet’s was

relatively the same except for the math time. Ms. Bennet has her math time listed during the last

few hours of class. I noticed that a lot of the children had a hard time paying attention because it

was so close to the end of the day. For me math has always been my toughest subject, so I feel
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she should have done the math earlier in the day maybe right after language practice, and then she

could have done the shorter Math Busters review at the end of the day since it was a shorter time

block.

2. Interview the teacher. Ask how they taught the children the various aspects of the

routine such as teacher signals, student signals, responding to fire drills, etc. Refer to

handout Routines in 1st Grade for more complete understanding of the kind of information

you are trying to obtain from the teacher.

- The first Teacher signal I saw Ms. Bennet was the eyes on me signal, she stood at the front of

the room, pointed at the students, then to her eyes and then to her chest, and she did it again and

the students copied except they pointed at her instead of themselves. Most of the student signals

were just the children raising their hand and waving It until they got Ms. Bennett’s attention.

Their Line Up routine was to go in order from their group tables and line up by the door with

their arms crossed and finger above their lips. The Line Leader of the week stayed up in the front

of the line, the Door Holder held the door open for the students as they entered the hallway, and

the Lights person stayed at the end of the line and turned off the lights once everyone was out the

door. They all lined up along the right side of the hallway still with their arms crossed. They were

lining up to go home, so we walked along the wall until we got to the back parent pick up section

and they all had to stay in line on their class circles until their parent arrived and they had to

High-five Ms. Bennet goodbye before they were allowed to leave with the parent.
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3. Write two observations of transitions that occurred. How appropriate were they? In

what ways could they have been improved?

1. Coming back from Art class, the children were told to enter the room silently, sit in their seat,

put art card away, put art away in back pack and stay in their seat. Some students raised their

hands and complained that their hands were sticky from playing with glue. She told them that

they couldn’t all go to the bathroom to wash their hands so she would pass them out hand

wipes after they were all seated. I noticed that she forgot to give the students the hand wipes

so their hands remained sticky. I feel that she could have or should have had them all line up

at the door and walk to the bathroom and have 4 students go into the bathroom each to wash

their hands since there were 4 sinks in each bathroom. Or she could have had the kids walk

directly to the bathroom from Art class to wash hands to save time but the kids all had

artwork in their hands so that could cause a problem.

2. The second transition was into the test that she was giving the children. She told the kids to

get into pairs of two and to work on the worksheet together whiles she tested the kids one by

one in the back. While she was giving the test the students started talking to each other louder

and louder and were all up wandering the room and this was obviously causing a problem for

the testing students. I feel that she should have given the kids all practice worksheets and

should have had them work on it in their desk quietly and by themselves, that way they would

already be in the right state of mind to take a test father then goofing off and playing with

each other right before taking the test.

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ECE 251- 1001/Fall
10/05/2014

3. Rules

1. Write the classroom rules that are posted.

Jacobson School-wide Expectations: Classroom rules Voice Level

-Be safe -Wait your turn 0- Silent

-Be kind to others -Use polite words 1- Partners

-Make good choices -Listen carefully 2- Small Group

-Treat others the way you would -Cooperate with others 3- Whole group/ presentation

like to be treated -Show your appreciation

-Always do your best -Give compliments

2. Describe all the rules you heard verbalized or implied in the classroom which were not

posted, e.g. wash your hands after wiping/blowing your nose; wait until I (teacher) finish

talking before you (child) talk; be interested in the task you are doing; child gets in trouble

for tapping their pencil on their desk

-A couple of times I would hear Ms. Bennet say, “ 1 2 3 eyes on me” and “raise your hand before

speaking out.” Another interesting rule she had was the ‘Close your Eyes’ rule, she would say

“Close your eyes” when it started to get to loud, so the students would all be silent and close their

eyes, then she would say “okay now mouths closed too” and the would have their ” Another

interesting rule she had was the ‘Close your Eyes’ rule, she would say “Close your eyes” when it

started to get to loud, so the students would all be silent and close their eyes, then she would say

“okay now mouths closed too” and the would have their eyes and mouths closed and then she

would say “ okay now open them” and they would sit silently and wait for her to tell them what to
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do next. A few other rules were the stay in your seat rule and the ‘buddies bathroom’ rule, where

if the children had to go to the bathroom they had to take a buddy or they weren’t allowed to go.

3. Using the information from the reading and Handout: Rethinking the Rules you Establish,

evaluate the use of rules in this classroom. Include ways use of rules can be improved.

- I think Ms. Bennet did an okay job in not over using the rules or trying to control every little aspect of

the classroom. The only rules she seemed to continue enforcing was the Voice rule and the Stay in your

seat rule, and those were both necessary for the children to pay attention while she was teaching. One rule

she made during the day was when they were working in partners, there was a group of children who kept

moving closer to these other and she said to them,” Why are you guys so close to each other, I should not

see any pairs sitting right next to each other, spread out.”. I didn’t see the harm in the children working in

groups of 4 while doing the work sheets; they could have all been using the counter squares together. As

long as they were actually working and not talking she should have allowed them to work in fours if they

wanted.
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10/05/2014

Class room schedule attachment