Observation 1:
Cultural Geography. 02/16/2012
Today
was my first day of observation at Marquette Senior High School. I observed Mr. Solinski during his first hour
Cultural Geography class. Class was to
begin at 7:30. I arrived approximately 15 minutes before class was to begin,
allowing ample time to observe the physical environment of the room. The walls
were very busy. In the back of the room
was several race numbers from bicycle and running races that Mr. Solinski had
previously competed in. Above the door was a large fish on a mount; at his desk
was a picture of himself catching that fish. A poster near his desk was of a
Detroit Red Wings player. He had several other decorations which helped define
his personality.
A
few students started to fill in the empty seats of the class before I had the
opportunity to meet Mr. Solinski in person. I didn’t speak to them as we were
on opposite sides of the room, however I overheard a conversation between two
girls.
Girl
1: “Oh my god, I love your shirt” (her t-shirt covered only one shoulder).
Girl
2: “Thanks, I always get in trouble when I wear it”
As
more students began to enter the room, I noticed a seating trend. The boys were
on one side of the room, the girls were on the other. Mr. Solinski entered the
room, and shortly after an introduction, I addressed the seating observation,
asking him if they chose their own seats. He confirmed that they did. These
students were all seniors in high school.
As
my first day observing in a high school class, the scenario with the gender
divided classroom helped me deny my suspicion that I can associate more with the
students in the class than I can the teacher. I spent several hours of
observing classes at Bothwell Middle School last semester, but found the high
school to be an atmosphere I would most like to teach in. One of the main
differences between middle school and high school, which I came to appreciate
during my first observation, was that Mr. Solinski was able to talk to his
students as if they are adults. In the middle school, the teachers seemed to
subconsciously talk down to the students.
A
short quiz was handed out at the end of the class. One student, seated in the
front row, seemed eager to begin the assessment. Mr. Solinski joked with this
student, “Andrew, you look like a dog who is about to be given a treat.”
After
the quiz, the students were to begin silently reading. Some did willingly, most
required some prompting. When the class was quit and reading, three students in
the back row were sleeping. Again, Mr. Solinski had to keep the students on
track. Frequent reminders of what they were to be doing were necessary.
Observation 2:
Sociology. 02/16/2012
I stayed in Mr.
Solinski’s classroom for second period. He warned me that he would not be in
the room. Second hour was Mr. Soinski’s preparation hour. Instead, I stayed in
the room and observed a sociology class lead by a different teacher. When the sociology
teacher strolled in with his mobile classroom (cart with a projector and
laptop), I had the opportunity to chat
with him for a bit before class started. He told me that he is in his second
year teaching, just out of Northern.
We discussed to concept of the “mobile classroom”. It
turns out he has to deliver his lessons in four different rooms in the school.
He confirmed that the situation adds a lot of stress. He needs to be even more organized and
prepared than does a teacher with his own class. Nevertheless, he was appreciative
to have a teaching job in Marquette so soon after receiving his degree.
Mr.
Schaffer lectured from a PowerPoint for about 10 minutes. The PowerPoint
presentation was a call and answer type, where he would ask questions, and the
students would respond. It turned out that the PowerPoint was a review of what
the students read (or didn’t read) as their homework assignment from the night
before. It was evident that only a small portion of the students read the text
from which the information came. Those few students were the ones responding to
Mr. Schaffer’s questions.
After
his lecture, he handed out a reading assignment, giving no directions. It was a
long article which several students neglected to read. The title of the article
is “The Nacirema”, by Horace Minor. The
Nacirema is a fictitious group, but the article closely relates to the American
culture (notice the spelling of American when read in reverse). Horace Minor
demonstrates that attitudes about the body have a pervasive influence in
society.
The
article was difficult to read, and the students did not seem to engage into the
story well. I believe Mr. Schaffer would have found more success if he would
have implemented a before reading strategy to spark the interest of the
students. While they were reading he
pointed out to me that it was Friday and perhaps he shouldn’t have assigned
such a long read for his students.
After
they had been given enough time to read, Mr. Schaffer helped them realize that
the Nacirema culture is the American Culture. From the reaction of the class it
was quite obvious that a large portion of them were not reading at all. I
though the article was very relevant, but was poorly presented.
Observation 3:
U.S. Government. 02/16/2012
Still
in the same seat in the same classroom, I remained present as Mr. Solinski
regained his classroom for the third hour U.S. Government class. I was a bit
nervous as I know my current event local and federal government knowledge is
not up to par. Shortly after class began though, I came to realize that the
class is more based on the history of the U.S. Government, specifics of the
branches of government, and significant legal cases through time.
With
hardly any introduction to the lesson, the students began working on a
worksheet that had been handed out on a previous day. They were talking amongst
themselves but seemed to be working quite dutifully. It wasn’t long before I noticed a pattern;
the students in the back of the class were much more talkative and
significantly less attentive to the assignment. Mr. Solinski frequently
prompted to students in the back of the class to stay on task. They merely
brushed off his request, and each returned to what they had been doing.
Those
in the front of the class were asking questions as they worked through the
assignment. I overheard one student
mention that they hoped to finish the assignment before the class let out so
they wouldn’t have to devote any time over the weekend.
I
found it quite interesting observing the students’ behaviors and listening to
the conversations. The social groups that had formed within the class were very
apparent. There were the jocks, mostly
hockey players. The gothic/punk girls in the back who were off in their own
worlds. There were a small group of boys working together on the assignment,
though hardly collaborating at all. And then there was the super group of
girls, comprising of about one quarter of the class. They worked on the
assignment, but the main conversation within the group was about clothing, hair
and cosmetics. When Mr. Solinski tried to prompt them to stay on task, one of
them usually responded with a complaint of how hard the assignment was. It
usually came off in a flirtatious manner. Mr. Solinski brushed-off complaints
and reiterated his intent.
In
private conversation with me, Mr. Solinski addressed the fact that it was
Friday and the weather had been unseasonably warm. Managing the class was
exceptionally hard under such conditions. Regardless of whether or not the
students took advantage of the class time to work, the assignment was to be
submitted on Monday. That fact seemed to fuel the students who were actually
being productive.
Observation 4:
U.S. Government. 02/16/2012
Directly
after third hour United States Government was another U.S. Government class. It
was interesting to see the same lesson presented again. The lesson however
wasn’t much of one, besides a brief introduction to how he expected the
students to work hard regardless of the fact that it is Friday and regardless
of the fact that the sun is shining. This announcement was not given in the
previous class. It seems that Mr. Solinski decided to try to prevent a wasted
hour of casual conversations by addressing the issue before it arose.
I
took the opportunity to talk to Mr. Solinski about the rules he stresses in his
class. He told me that he doesn’t subscribe to classroom rules. In his own
words he told me that he “prefers class to be less like a dictatorship and more
like a community.” There were however a few rules in his class that the
students were familiar with. They were printed on regular printer paper and
posted on the white board in the front of the class in acronym form.
The
first rule was DBD, or Don’t Be a Douche. In short, DBD was Mr. Solinski’s
classroom requirement that helped prevent bullying and overall ensured that the
students were kind to one another and to the teacher. The other acronym posted
in the front of the room was ELE, or Everyone Loves Everyone. Again, this rule
was established to help express the community feel he was going for, to prevent
bullying, and to remind the students that they are all equals.
There
is a cork board in the back of the classroom with a large header, reading
Working Agreements. During the beginning of a previous semester, Mr. Solinski
had his students draft working agreements. These working agreements, similar in
nature to the two acronyms posted in the front of the class, were all conducive
of a community atmosphere. Mr. Solinski confirmed that a communal class is the
most successful and easiest to manage.
Near
the end of the class period, Mr. Solinski reminded his class that weather
permitting, they will be going outside during the advisory period which
precedes fourth period. He told them
going outside was a compromise. It was a privilege that they had to earn. He was willing to trade allowing them to go
outside, for good behavior. Mr. Solinski then referenced how it was like the
Great Compromise, adding a governmental correlation to the non-government
related reward.
Observation 5:
Cultural
Geography: 03/15/2012
After a month’s leave from observing Mr. Solinski’s
geography class, I was able to make a second visit to the High School. Today
was a half day, so the class period was cut down to 25 minutes. Half days
present a great challenge to teachers because the students seem to think there
are no expectations from the teachers to be productive.
The
students began to fill into the empty seats, a young girl asked Mr. Solinski,
“What are we doing today?”
Mr.
Solinski responded concisely, “Learning”.
Student:
“Learning what?
Mr.Solinski:
“Cultural Geography”
As soon as the bell rang, Mr. Solinski asked everyone to
take their seats and if there had been any current events anyone wanted to call
attention to. One student mentioned a
headline about Afghanistan, but knew nothing about the story. Mr. Solinski had
the Projector on displaying the image on his computer. He pulled up CNN’s
website and found the related article. He didn’t seem to know about the story,
but read through the first few paragraphs quickly, summarized the article for
the students, and held discussion.
He
then did this with several other stories, some world news, some national, and
some local. He also made it a point to express his disgust with the Detroit Red
Wings current losing streak. It turned out that current events were a popular
topic of Mr. Solinski’s Cultural Geography class. Three to four days a week
class would start in a similar manner. This particular day was followed by a
quiz, which I completed concurrent with the high school students.
Current
Events Quiz #2 as it was titled, covered several topics that had been discussed
both on the day of the quiz, and on days previously in the week. Admittedly, I don’t follow the news close
enough to speak knowledgably about current events, but by paying attention
during that class, and a few educated guesses, I was able to fill in 2/3 of the
blanks correctly.
Mr.
Solinski chose a wide variety of topics from Chinese politics, American
pop-culture and NHL record setting. He
strategically designed the assessment meet the interests of diverse students.
This practice is important to conduct to help students find success.
Observation 6:
United States Government: 03/15/2012
Coming from the Industrial Technology wing on the
opposite side of the high school, I arrived in class before most students.
There was music playing from Mr. Solinski’s computer. I was not able to
identify the artist, but the band surely cane out of the 80’s based on their
traditional punk style. By the time the rest of the students came into class,
the music was turned down significantly to a level which could easily be spoken
over. Still a half day, it was essential that Mr. Solinski use all of the class
time efficiently.
The first announcement that Mr. Solinski made was that
the class would be taking a test on Monday (today was a Thursday). He then
handed back a graded quiz from earlier in the week. As the third quarter
marking period had been wrapping up, he informed the students that the exam on
Monday would be the last one to sway their third quarter grades. The class then
began a review sheet for the exam. The majority of them instinctively
paired/grouped up with their classmates, opened up their books, and began
working on the review.
Most
of the students seemed to understand the importance of doing well on the exam
to follow and dedicated themselves to committing the review sheet to memory, or
recalling it from their memory. Mr. Solinski made himself available to the
students by walking around the class, answering questions, guiding their quest
for knowledge by finding information listed in the book. I found it powerful how Mr. Solinski
neglected to answer questions from the review sheet, but offered to help the
students find the information. He did not allow the students to take advantage
of his knowing the correct answers.
Nearing the end of the class, as not to
interrupt the review sheet the students had been working on, Mr. Solinski
handed out a personalized rundown of where each student stood for the third period.
The one page sheet included the grades of all homework, tests, and quizzes from
the third period, and also which assignments had not been completed. Mr.
Solinski impressed me by throwing a quick math lesson into the end of his
class, helping the students calculate what grade they would need to get on the
exam in order to be bumped up a grade or prevent moving down a grade for the
cumulative quarter grade.
The
Education program at NMU requires students to take a class on how to teach
reading within other content areas. I think it would be great if we were
required to take a course on how to integrate math into lessons from other
content areas as well. Many students do
not see the significance of math, but if teachers can show them, they might
start to get the picture.
Observation 7:
Cultural Geography: 03/16/2012
Today is Friday and the cultural
geography students also have a unit exam on Monday which will be their last
grades of the marking period. The class is conducted similarly to the
government class I observed yesterday. Students worked independently or in
small groups on a review sheet for the exam. This class however was not working
as efficiently as the government class from the previous day.
After
several attempts to keep a particular group of students on track in progression
of the review sheet, Mr. Solinski had to intervene and split them up. By this
point, some students had already finished the review sheet and were quietly
working on assignments for other classes or were reading silently. The girls
who had to be split up had only filled in two blanks on a sheet of over 20.
By
sending one girl to work on her review sheet on the other side of the classroom
from where she originated, Mr. Solinski was able to almost entirely solve the
problem with the unproductive girls. He explained quietly to me that she is the
“ring leader” of that group and commonly removing her from the situation is
enough to keep her and the rest of the “slackers” on track.
Nearing
the end of the class, as not to interrupt the review sheet the students had
been working on, Mr. Solinski handed out a personalized rundown of where each
student stood for the third period. The one page sheet included the grades of
all homework, tests, and quizzes from the third period, and also which
assignments had not been completed. Mr. Solinski included a quick math lesson into the end of his
class, helping the students calculate what grade they would need to get on the
exam in order to be bumped up a grade or prevent moving down a grade for the
cumulative quarter grade.
This
class was post ceded by an advisory period, comprising of mostly the same
students that were in the government class just before. The advisory was
structured similarly to study hall. There were few requirements from Mr.
Solinski as the teacher. The students remained quiet. Some read, others had a
snack and others took the time to quietly catch up with their peers and
discuss/make plans for the weekend.
After
about ten minutes of a surprisingly quiet class, Mr. Solinski broke the silence
with casual conversation with the students.
He reminded the students that their good behavior is being noted and,
assuming the cooperative behavior consists, they will be rewarded by spending
time outside during the advisory period.
Observation 8:
Cultural Geography: 03/20/2012
As
the first class of the day, Mr. Solinski is often responsible for delivering
news from the administration to the students. He was given a bulletin to
address. Mr. Solinski discussed with his class of seniors that they were to
pick up their cap and gown sometime later in the week. Also, in correlation of
the unseasonably warm weather, he addressed the issue of appropriate clothing.
Clothing requirements were a non-issue for the boys.
The
girls on the other hand were the source of concern. In reiterating the dress
regulations, Mr. Solinski told his students he would have to crack down if the
rules were being overstepped. He
explained how, as the first hour teacher, he was most responsible to regulate.
If he were to overlook a dress code violation, the second period teacher of
that student would know, and Mr. Solinski would be reprimanded for
negligence.
After
these announcements and a few other of minimal significance, Mr. Solinski
endulged in the daily current events by turning the projector on and scrolling
through the headlines. One thing I noticed, having observed several of his
cultural geography classes at this point, is that he deviates the source of his
news. He has used CNN.com, Fexnews.com, UpperMichiganSource.com, and
miningjournal.net. Doing so is very important, primarily because he is
delivering the perspectives of several different reporters, some more liberal
and others more conservative. Students,
people in general really, are very impressionable when it comes to news. I find
it important to consider the source, and how they may try to give a one side
impression of the truth. News can be misleading.
One
article of today’s local news stories addressed the spring equinox. Though the
news story was quite “fluffy”, Mr. Solinski ran with it by giving a mini lesson
on the Earth’s axis, rotation, and revolution around the sun. His passion for
the job really showed through here. He clearly hadn’t rehearsed the discussion
on how seasons exist, but his strength with the content prevailed. After the
discussions lead from the news, the students were released to begin finalizing
a worksheet which had previously been administered. This took the majority of
the class until the end of the period.
While
the students were working, Mr. Solinski and I had an opportunity to talk. I
mentioned how surprised I was in regards to the productivity of the class. He
was sure to clarify that because it was before 8 a.m., most of the students
were still half asleep. He assured that the same group of students would
require much more attention to manage later in the day.
Observation
9:
Government: 03/20/2012
As
the students entered the class, they cwere asked to pull out their textbooks,
“We Are the People”, and begin reading. Some of the students seemed to know
where they were expected to begin from, most however brushed off the direction
and engaged in casual conversations. Several minutes after the bell indicating
the start to class rang, the students were very loud, many of them out of their
seats sitting on desks. Mr. Solinski required that they return to their seats
promptly, open up their books to page 537, and read to themselves. Within 30
seconds, the class was returned to silent and the students were either reading,
or pretending to read. There was only one sleeper in the back row.
Mr.
Solinski explained to me that he knew some of the kids were not reading, but
most importantly they were not distracting the students who were reading. While
the students were silent, Mr. Solinski took advantage of the time by preparing
the remainder of the lesson on political ideology. There were several things in
the remainder of the lesson which set me off. I think Mr. Solinski could have
construed a lesson on political ideology in a manner that did not require the
students to disclose their own with the rest of the class.
Mr.
Solinski drew a scale on the board; Strong liberal, weak liberal, moderate,
weak conservative, and strong conservative. The students were to walk up to the
board, grab a marker, and add a tally to the political ideology that they
subscribe to. The class was fairly evenly split, with most of the students
either far left, or far right. There did not seem to be any concern from the
student about publically defining their ideology, but I know it can be a very
sensitive topic of discussion. I personally would not have been comfortable
adding my tally mark to the board. Ones politically ideology should remain
private if they wish it to. Just the same as I would not ask my students who
they voted for, I would not take a poll of their political ideology.
They
were then asked to answer a 21item, yes/no questionnaire in regards to their
opinions on issues such as immigration, abortion, and war. The theory of the
questionnaire is that each yes or no answer is assigned to the views from the
left or from the right. I struggled with the idea of the questionnaire being
very valid. After completing the questionnaire, the students were reassigned
their ideology based on their answers.
They then erased their tally mark on the scale on the board from pre
questionnaire, and moved it. The majority of the students moved their tally
marks closer to moderate, as Mr. Solinski had predicted.
Observation 10:
Cultural Geography: 04/17/2012
Today
was my day to present a lesson to Mr. Solinski’s first period cultural
geography class. Last week, we settled on the topic of my lesson, the one-child
policy in China. I was excited to teach this lesson because I knew there would
be an opportunity for discussion based on the controversial nature of the one-child
policy. I had no text to guide my lesson, so I began by educating myself. I
watched several credible videos that I found on you-tube. While I watched the
videos, I realized that information about the one-child policy was being
presented to me better than I would be able to reinstruct the material to the
students. I found two videos in particular that I thought could be the basis of
my lecture. My lesson was falling into place.
As
I organized myself in the classroom on the day of the lesson, several students
confirmed with me that I will be teaching the day’s lesson. I overheard on
students say, “Cool, I forgot a pencil today, but I’m sure we won’t need one”.
I wanted to reverse that thought process. When the bell rang, I stepped in
front of the class and announced, “The information I will be covering is
significant and will be seen on the next exam”. I have no idea if it will or
not, but from my intro, I was able to get the students to prepare to take
notes.
I
knew I did not want to stand in front of the class and lecture for too long,
but there were several things I wanted to discuss with the class about the
topic. I constructed a PowerPoint of only 5 slides to lead my lecture of
introducing the one-child policy to my students. I started by addressing the
rapid population growth from the 1940s through the 1970s. The key points of my
lecture included What the one-child policy is, Who the one-child
policy pertains to and who is exempt, Where the policy is implemented, Why
the one-child policy was implemented, and How it was enforced. I also took the liberty to
explain the concept of ‘son preference’ which has caused a gender imbalance all
over Asia for several centuries.
After
my brief lecture, I played about 15 minutes of video for the students, which
addressed the effects and controversies of the one-child policy in China. I
suggested that they keep their notebooks out to help them follow along, noting
topics of controversy. I was happy to
note during the video that every students was watching the videos closely.
After
the videos the students were assigned articles with more statistics than the
video provided. The students were to group up, share information from the
articles, and compile a list of pros and cons of the on-child policy. We then
had a class-wide discussion and compiled a master list of pros and cons. I was
very happy with the lesson. Mr. Solinski expressed his feelings about it
similarly.
