Observation #4

1) Students will be able to build speaking and listening skills aligned with common core standards and supported by their studies of Night by constructing Holocaust Memorials within groups and present them.

2) Analysis

3) 10 Minute Assessment:

1. Where is Eliezer’s hometown?

               A. Warsaw, Poland

               B. Sighet, Hungary

               C. Budapest, Hungary

               D. Oswiecim, Poland

2. Approximately how many Jews were killed in the Holocaust genocide?

               A. 3 million

               B. 4 million

               C. 5 million

               D. 6 million

3. Why were the people of Europe were bystanders to the horrific acts that were occurring in Germany by the Nazis?

4. Why do you think Elie Wiesel titled the novel “Night” in relation to the Holocaust?

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Professional Conference Response

               I attended the RITELL (Rhode Island Teachers of English Language Learners) Fall Conference on Sheltered Instruction and the Common Core Standards. The main speaker for this conference was Dr. Deborah Short. She is a distinguished author, researcher, and speaker on the topics of Sheltered Instructions and the SIOP Model, which she is the co-developer of. I was a little apprehensive about attending this conference because I assumed that this was going to be all about English Language Learning and little about the techniques that could be used. I soon realized that the techniques were a major portion of the sessions. Dr. Short made it an important point in her presentations to make sure that the teachers present knew how to incorporate the SIOP Model and all of the techniques in their classrooms.

               The main session that started the conference explained the benefits of using the SIOP Model. The model can address the Common Core ELA and Math standards through the use of techniques that support vocabulary development, oral language skills, and content area literacy. I learned that SIOP stands for Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol. This session was filled with good information about how the common core standards can be addressed with using the techniques that are associated with SIOP. Short explained that common core is starting to take ELL into consideration and create the standards for those students. Hopefully that happens and the ELL community is finally recognized.

               The one breakout session that I attended was titled “Getting Started with the SIOP Model”. Dr. Deborah Short was the speaker again for this session. During this session, I learned about what the SIOP model was all about and how it can really help when teaching ELL students content and vocabulary within the classroom. Even though I do not plan on becoming an ELL teacher, the techniques that I learned by listening to this session, will be useful in my future English class. Some of the techniques include having content and language objectives, four corners vocabulary, word sorts, and many more. All of the techniques that Dr. Short presented were about combining language and content in lessons. I really liked this session because for my future English class, there is always going to vocabulary that the students will need to learn and by incorporating it into the lesson and the content, the students will have more opportunity to learn the words.

               I am glad that I attended this conference. It was a good first experience as I start my journey into the teaching community. I learned a lot of new techniques that I can use for teaching vocabulary and also content in the class. Even though the conference was about educating the English language learning students, I believe that all of the same techniques can be applied to the common classroom.

Observation 3

               For classroom management, the third period, 9^th grade, Introduction to Literature class was one that really stood out to me for how the teacher handled herself and the students. As the students entered the room they were loud and crazy. Their task was to get their journals from the bin next to the door before heading to their seats. As they collected their journals and found their seats, the noise level was noticeably lower. After a lot of practice and repetition, the students knew what the teacher expected and quieted down on their own. There was a Do Now writing prompt on the board that the students completed in their journals. By now only the teacher was talking to a few students about what they had missed the previous day. The student’s attention was on completing the Do Now and getting ready for the English class. For the lesson today, the students were going to work on their Holocaust Memorial project that they had started the previous day.

               The teacher had created a rewards system to motivate the students to participate and be leaders within the classroom. She established a raffle where the students could earn tickets that would be entered into the monthly raffle and be drawn from to win a special prize. When I talked to the teacher after the class, she said that this was a very effective reward system because the prizes were actual items that the students wanted. She said that it really got the students motivated to speak up more in the class. At one point during the class period, the students became louder than what was needed. The teacher asked the students to play the quiet game so that she could explain a few more instructions for the project. The students responded to her right away. The respect that the students have for their teacher was clearly seen as they listened to her the first time she asked.

               As for school-wide management, I did notice that if a student was late to school, they wouldn’t let her or her into the building. They must either have a form or have a parent with them. This was effective because it targeted the students who would skip or leave the school grounds so that they couldn’t come back to school for class. This is a good way to manage the use of security. There were also no announcements made over the loud speaker during the class periods. The announcements were made during the transition times in between classes. At the end of the day, I believe it was the Vice Principal that gave a little speech to the whole school as a recap of the day.

               After observing all of this school-wide and classroom management, I believe that it affected the students learning in a positive way. They responded really well to the teacher and her instructions for the day. Due to the student’s response to the teacher, the class time wasn’t affected by the teacher having to spend a lot of time on correcting behavior. Thus, the students had more time to work on their projects. If students listened to their teachers more often, then they would have more time to do the lessons and not feel so rushed. The rewards system that the teacher created also was a major contributor in the students learning. It became a way for the students to be motivated and speak up and share their thoughts on what they were learning.