Science and writing in a 4th grade class

Classroom arrangement:
In 4th grade, I think they do Washington state history and geography, and to help with that, she had a section of her wall with a map of WA on it and pictures surrounding the map from different places in WA. Some were geographically unique photos, some were significant history things, and from each photo, she had a piece of yarn that went to the location that photo was from on the map of WA.

She also had North and South written big and posted high on her walls in the room, and when she was passing papers, she would ask students to pass out papers to all the students on the North/South or East/West side of the room. What a great and simple way to help kids with geography and map reading. Talk about ingraining the vocabulary and what it means into their brains.

Cool classroom activity:
The teacher was teaching a writing lesson, and it was about verbs. The learning target, written on the board, was Interesting Verbs, and the point was to get students to use more descriptive verbs. To teach this idea, she used the verb came. Mrs. Smith came into the room was her sentence, and she put came in a "word jail" on the board. She just wrote it/drew it, but she did it with over verbs too, like said and did. To get her students to understand what interesting verbs were, she had them, as a whole group, come up with other verbs to put in the sentence, "Mrs. Smith came into the room." But first, she demonstrated what the sentence meant by coming into the room. As students came up with more interesting verbs, including dashed, stumbled, and others, she would physically dash or stumble or whatever after saying the sentence out loud. The kids were engaged because their teacher looked silly, and they came up with some great interesting verbs.

Classroom management stuff:
The teacher would say, if you can hear me, do a certain action (rub your tummy, pat your head, etc) and she would do a different action than the one she was telling them to do to see if they were really listening. She would say, "If you are listening rub your tummy." And she would pat her head instead of rubbing her tummy.

Another way she tried to get their attention was by saying something that didn't make any sense, like, "You will go get the supplies and put them on my toe," and if kids got up to go get supplies then she knew they were not listening. She also used proximity a lot.

Another thing she was doing which I could not decipher her system, was writing points, not tallies, but numbers, on the board under each table group and they were in different colors so maybe they were color-coded, I don't know. It had something to do with managing behavior and monitoring participation.

During the science lesson, she said at the beginning that if kids are goofing off with supplies, they get one warning, that's it, and then they are a spectator and cannot participate in the science experiment.

Randomly during the middle of the writing lesson, the teacher broke out in song "there's a hole in the bottom of the seat (clap clap) there's a whole in the bottom of the seat (clap clap) there's a hole, there's a hole, there's a hole in the bottom of the seat (clap clap) and then asked students what's on the hole (a log and would sing that), then ask a student what's on the log (and sing that)" and so on and so on. I am guessing it was some sort of break for the students, but I am not sure. The song didn't really make any sense, but the kids really enjoyed it.

During the science experiment, students are assigned one of 4 letters (A,B,C, or D) and each letter student has a certain job that day during the experiment, and these jobs are written on the board and she explained the jobs, and also told the kids not only were they supposed to do their job, but they were also supposed to remind other people to do their jobs too. It's a great simple way to assign jobs, but the jobs in a science experiment are not going to be the same for every experiment, and so it's a glorious way to not waste paper or time reorganizing groups all the time. Kids know their group number and their individual letter (they write it on their science notebooks in case they forget) and teacher does not have to do as much work.

Throughout class, if a student had the same thought as one that spoke out, they waved their hand silently at their side so the teacher could do some formative assessment and get the kids more engaged in direct instruction.


Assessment:
Before the writing lesson, she points out the learning target on the board, and at the end of the writing lesson, she asks each student to give themselves a 1,2, or 3 for where they are on the learning target. A 3 is "I got it, I'm golden, I can do this independently" and a 1 is "I need some time to digest this new idea and I don't quite get it." Great simple way to do some formative assessment about the learning targets.

Observations of a highly capable 2/3 class

Cool classroom activities:
Literature conferences with each grade separately. A very casual and engaging conversation about the book each grade is reading (2 separate books) with some guiding questions and almost 100% participation. Probably is easier to do with a group of kids who all love to read, but still, it was nice to see. The teacher exhibited excitement about the book and what was going on and the questions and so did the students.



Teaching cursive: the kids were working on cursive ts, and in order to help them know the right way to write them, she showed 3 or 4 bad ts on the board and talked to the class about why they were bad. Seemed like it would be pretty effective.


Fixing bad writing habits:
The teacher used the document camera to talk to the students about best way to grip their pencils when they are writing. She did this before the cursive lesson, and she took her time and showed students some common bad handholds and she gave them a good trick to make sure they grip the pencil right every time. She directed the students to pick up the pencil as if they were pinching it between their thumb and their first two fingers like a bird would grip onto something. Then, she had them flip the pencil 180 degrees, and then they all had the correct pencil grip. Hard to explain in words, I can show you if you want.


Corrective statements (part of classroom management):
She used proximity a lot, where you just walk and get close to the kid who is not paying attention. She always used a very calm voice, all the time, in her behavior corrections and her whole group attention getting signals. She said "I'll wait till you're ready," and the kids quieted down on their own.

The Elementary-Secondary Math Disconnect

I observed in two middle school math classes, grade 7, today. Something that I found very interesting is that the focus of the lesson was on remembering/reciting math facts quickly in order to be able to use them to solve arithmetic problems, and it was part of the curriculum, not an add-on.

From my observations in elementary school and from talking to elementary teachers, many curricula used in the elementary grades are based on problem solving and getting excited and engaged about math; sort of like they are trying to convince the students that math really is important, practical, and really fun. Math facts are not part of the curriculum, and in some schools, drill and skill is discouraged.

A professor earlier in the program bluntly told us that most math curricula adopted by school districts for the elementary level do not sufficiently prepare students for middle and high school math or practical life math. He said though there is value in those curricula, it is a teacher's responsibility to make sure students are getting their math facts down as well, because they need to know them. He said there is a place for drill and skill and memorizing multiplication tables and other basic arithmetic, and that teachers are obligated to add that into their math lessons even if they are not part of the district curriculum.

I asked one of the teachers I observed today, "Do most of these kids come into middle school not knowing how to do basic arithmetic?" She said yes, few know their math facts by heart and thus when they arrive at middle school and are supposed to be able to retrieve them fast in order to take the tests, they are shocked and you have to teach the math facts and basic principles of adding/subtracting/multiplying/dividing integers for a few weeks at the beginning.

So, for a few weeks every year at the beginning of the year in 7th grade math, even the challenge (Honors) classes, teachers do integer review. And though I did not observe a 6th grade math class, I am guessing they dedicate an awful lot of time to core arithmetic and math facts, because if they don't, the new middle schoolers can't handle the middle/high school curricula.

There is a place for both problem-solving and arithmetic in math, I think, just like most debates in education. There is a place for both phonics and whole language reading. There is a place for lecture as well as hands-on and cooperative group learning. There is a place for both drill and skill and cool exciting projects. There is a place for both mainstreaming of special ed students and seclusion of special ed students.