RUNNING HEAD: Student Observation Davis 1

Dustin Davis

EDU 203

Student Observation

December 10, 2019

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Student Observation

After my 10 hours of field observation I feel like I have learned a lot of new things that

will help me as a teacher. I think it was beneficial in giving me ideas for what it takes to be a

good teacher and gave me some ideas of what I shouldn’t do in order to be an effective teacher. I

haven’t visited an elementary school for quite a while so from the start it was beneficial for me to

see what it looked like again and how it was ran. The school I observed at was also a part of the

Title 1 program, so it was beneficial for me to see how a Title 1 school operates in comparison to

a regular school.

On my first visit I was shocked by the number of students in the class and the room

seemed very crowded. When I was in school, I don’t remember classes ever being that crowded,

so it was interesting for me to see how hard it can be to manage that number of students. Another

thing that was different from when I was in school was the new use of technology in the

classroom. Each student in the class has their own Chromebook laptop that they use throughout

the day and I think that the increased accessibility to things like that can be very beneficial in the

classroom. While observing I noticed a huge gap in the students’ knowledge levels, and it made

me relies how difficult it really is to teach an entire class while trying to stay on the same pace

with each student. Some students found the material extremely easy and didn’t need any help at

all while others didn’t understand at all and fell behind during the lessons. Through observing, I

found that this problem is probably the biggest difficulty as a teacher, and I think it will be hard

to keep material challenging enough for students who excel but also making sure nobody falls

behind.

The first time I initially noticed the huge gap in the student’s abilities was when the

teacher was giving a lecture on equivalent fractions while the students followed along in a
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packet. The student I was observing seemed bored with the lesson and would quickly finish the

entire packet on his own after the first example was given by the teacher. As the teacher worked

through each problem individually with the rest of the class, she would ask questions as the

lesson went on and the student would instantly raise his hand to answer each question to try and

rush through the lesson. He never seemed challenged by any of the material and would just

switch to reading while the rest of the class worked on each problem. The student seemed like he

liked doing math and answering the questions for the class, but it was very easy for him and

didn’t challenge him at all. After the initial example, he didn’t follow along with the teacher at

all except to answer the questions as soon as the rest of the class got to them. After the lesson I

spoke with the teacher and found out that this student was a gate student and excelled in most of

the subjects much quicker than the rest of the class.

The class I observed had two gate students, one ESL student, and a couple students who

were monitored for behavioral issues. During my time observing I saw that the gate students

were pulled from class twice a week for about an hour at a time to go to a separate room and

work with a gate teacher. The students always seemed very excited and eager to go every time.

The ESL student seemed to have a lot of trouble understanding his work during both lecture and

independent work and the teacher said he is yet to get an IEP so there is little they can do to help

him until then. For the students with excessive behavior issues they had a behavior specialist at

the school who came into the classroom and observed specific students occasionally and she

would pull them from the classroom when they were not following the teacher’s instructions.
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