Week 2 Field Observation
Jessica Kuiper
Professor Dickenson
11 January 2019
PRE-OBSERVATION
For this
assignment, I had the pleasure of observing Mrs. Kuiper’s 6th grade
class at Pinon Mesa Middle School. Mrs. Kuiper has been a dedicated teacher for
11 years within the Snowline School District. The demographics of this district
fall under in the low income spectrum, and there are several homeless students
within the district. These demographics contribute to the low socio-economical
standing of students, and there are many students on behavioral contracts at
Pinon Mesa. Teaching new material may not always be the main focus in the
class, as offering emotional support/service and creating a positive, safe
learning environment becomes more important. During my observation, I could
clearly see Mrs. Kuiper reassuring students that their best work was
exceptional and continually motivating students to keep trying. Students felt
safe to ask questions, and check their understanding on the assignment, and Mrs.
Kuiper diligently monitored the classroom for safe behavior.
OBSERVATION
On this day, there were 19 students present. There were 7 girls and 12
boys in the class. Students came in, and sat in a seat of their choosing, with
several large tables filling the room.
Mrs. Kuiper
first had students watch a five minute video introducing the topic of the day,
the metric system. When the video finished, Mrs. Kuiper led a discussion
reviewing the material, and connected student’s prior knowledge. Mrs. Kuiper asked
if students knew what centi-, milli-, and deci- meant, and if students had used
a measuring tape before. Mrs. Kuiper explained that for this assignment,
students will go outside, and measure their longest leap. Students gathered in
groups of 3, working together to tape down one measuring tape per group. Each
group then took turns jumping as far as they could, and marked each other’s
jump, with a piece of chalk. After 10 minutes, students were told to record
their longest jump measured. This number was used to complete the first two
sections of the worksheet (the class will finish the worksheet on Monday.) Mrs.
Kuiper walked students through the first two questions of the worksheet,
prompting students to think critically to find their answers. Students raised
hands to share their answers, and discussed how to fix their errors. The two
completed sections of the worksheet were used as exit tickets, so that Mrs.
Kuiper could analysis the comprehension level of the material for each student.
There were
several instances in which Mrs. Kuiper used the highlighted math practices on
our class’s handout. Concepts 7 and 8 were used in this activity: student were
shown that each metric unit can either be divided or multiplied by 10, and were
given an opportunity to independently work. Students were shown metric
structure, and were able to develop shortcuts for the metric system. Concepts 4
and 5 were also used in the lesson: students were given several metric system
guidelines handouts, which aided the students while completing the worksheet,
and engaged prior knowledge in reading the numbers on the measuring tape, as
well as multiplying and dividing numbers. Students analyzed given information
(concept 1) and self-assessed answers to check for understanding. During the
class discussion, concept 3 was present, as students listened to thoughts and
arguments of each other, decided if the answered made sense, and corrected any
errors. Concepts 6 was present in that the metric system was the entirety of
the lesson, giving students the opportunity to use measuring tapes, and record
their results. Lastly, students were asked to consider the metric units used,
and think qualitatively about their answers (concept 2.) Overall, this lesson
plan engaged students in relevant mathematical practices for 6th
grade.
POST OBSERVATION
Mrs. Kuiper’s lesson plan was detailed, organized, and well-thought out.
However, the class was antsy with anticipation in the outside portion of the
activity. As this was Mrs. Kuiper’s first time preparing this activity, she
mentioned in the future, she will have selected students organize the measuring
tapes ahead of time. For the worksheet portion of the activity, students were
confused on where to stop for the day, and subsequently filled the entire
worksheet out without direction. In the future, Mrs. Kuiper would benefit from
displaying the worksheet on the overhead/projector, and working the problems
out together with the students.
Overall, the
instruction and class activity ran smoothly, and there were few kinks that need
to be improved on in the future. The class was well behaved for the post part,
and many students were attentively waiting for instruction. Mrs. Kuiper’s
lesson plan clearly detailed many mathematical practices, and stated the Common
Core Standards that were used for the day. As a future teacher, I feel more
confident in my ability to develop and deliver mathematical lesson plans.
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