This past week I got to attend a high school day with my Freshman. Since I don't have much classroom experience, I was actually excited to go. I had no other real high school experience since my own high school days so I did not know what to expect. Here are my observations:
Bell 1- ROTC - Her teacher is very effective. He connects with the students in a fun, but firm way. Doesn't allow them to mumble - great class!
Bell 2- Upstairs to Science - I took a quiz and got 3 out of 10 correct. Lots of chatter in that class, didn't seem to bother the teacher. One thing I liked that she did was she had all of their names on index cards and called on them at random. She also allowed them to draw a special picture on the back of the card so that they would know split second before they are called so that they could get their answer together.
Bell 3- History- There was a VERY INEFFECTIVE substitute. Literally told the class her name, handed out a work sheet. Within 15 min students were snap chatting. She sat there and did nothing.
Bell 4- Read 180- VERY INEFFECTIVE. Read 180 is for struggling students that may have failed SOL's and it is supposed to act as a remedial course for them. When students get in, they all grab laptops and do e-reading on short stories and take quizzes. The teacher is walking around talking to some students. Very hard to concentrate and read to yourself with background noise. I had to re-read story several times to comprehend.
Bell 5- Math Lab- Teacher has good classroom management- however, she talks really really fast. A lot of confused kids. Most didn't want to ask for help.
Bell 6- Math- I thought it was interesting that although my daughter hates Math, she likes this teacher's style the best. She says that she does the same thing in the same order every class. Because she knows what to expect each day it is very helpful. I also was surprised that my daughter was so organized! Really, I was expecting crumbled papers coming out of the bottom of her book bag! She had one binder with a table of contents and page protectors. Boy, was I wrong!
Bell 7- English- Talked to this teacher at length while students were at lunch. They come in her class for 20 min, go to lunch and then finish the class. I thought that was strange. This teacher was very surprised that anyone wants to become a teacher now. She said she brought home less money today than 10 years ago because of benefit prices increasing drastically. She said also, she has more students than she ever has had- 188! She was very burned out, I felt terrible for her. She said teachers are very pressured to incorporate technology into classroom and then in high school at least they end up on sites not on topic and it's very hard to manage.
Bell 8- Health - Teacher seems effective and respected but we really played a game the whole time.
Overall I know this was just one day in the life but it was eye opening and I can't wait until my next practicum to see more.
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