Alyssa B - Classroom Observation (OS) #0 - Reading Level 2

Classroom Observation 0

Date: June 30, 2017
Time: 10:50am – 12:30pm
Area: Hecht House, Classroom 311
Teacher: Angel Rios
Class: Reading Level 2

I actually wasn’t supposed to observe on this day; apparently we were only supposed to sign up for the 3^rd-7^th of July, but I signed up for the 30^th of June (since it was listed). I ended up going anyways, and it was such a great experience I feel like I had to make an entry about it!

Anyways.

Professor Rios started off by taking roll by checking boxes on a computer, which was projected onto the screen. Popular modern American music was played throughout class as they worked, besides when they were reading aloud or he was lecturing, and it didn’t seem to apprehend them at all. He addressed all his students by their first name, and is very interactive with the students. He was very upbeat, which in turn makes the students upbeat and want to engage.

              Some notable things I noticed was that he speaks loud and clear, but not in an elitist way. Although he’s still friendly and relatable, he still maintains a role of authority, which I feel like is an important balance. (For example, he made sure a student was working when he saw they weren’t writing.) When the students feel more able to relate to him, it was clear that the affective filter was lowered—probably nonexistent, in this case. He deliberately has the desks moved into a big table so everyone sits in a circle, which seemed to have a great affect on getting everyone involved. Rios does a lot of participation. He moves around a lot, but also sits among the students. He’s an extremely “coach”-like teacher!

              The first activity was a short story where they had to answer questions in a cause-and-effect sort of way, and also to unscramble sentences Rios got the students very involved, such as filling out a crossword puzzle on the board and working in groups. The next of the activities was reading an article aloud, one sentence per student. He also asks individual questions pertaining to the reading material that the student answers aloud.

              The pace is moderate, but he is very attentive to all the students and makes sure each keeps up. Students do a lot of the initiation, such as questions and additional comments on the material. One thing I particularly liked was that he assures that students shouldn’t feel bad about making mistakes.

              For the second half of class, he asked for three volunteers. Nobody had any idea why, but when they volunteered, he had them wrap him up in toilet paper to turn him into a mummy since the next content was about mummies. It was pretty evident why I heard “I love you” and “You’re the best teacher in the world” throughout class, haha. Before reading, Rios asks several questions to delve into the topic, such as, “What is a mummy?” He’ll ask about words from their answers, such as “preserve” and what it means (to keep something in the same form/state, it is a verb, etc) and students build off each other’s answers.

              He also asks general questions, such as, “What is bold text?” It didn’t occur to me that the term was an important thing to learn.

              That day, Rios taught about scanning text. For each paragraph, the students were to scan the text and he would ask, “What is a good question for paragraph one? Two?” etc., so when they would go back and read the text on their own, they could answer those questions.

              After, he has the students read out loud by paragraph and has them answer the questions one by one. He made clear when to be specific (“dead body” vs “dead body that is dried out”). For each paragraph, some vocabulary words were addressed, as well as any words students would have liked to have clarified. Rios used several correction methods, such as clarification requests:

              “…reed…”

              “Excuse me?”

              “Reed.”

              “Excuse me?”

              “Ah, read.” (Past-tense.)

              To finish, he had the students discuss what would be a good summary for the text. Rios walked around and observed, and played music which seemed to actually help the students loosen up and talk more. Before class ended, he asked everyone how to summarize. He went over topic/introductory sentences, how to keep themed sentences separated, and how specific you need to be based on what the teacher wants.

Overall, A+++ learning experience for me!

~Alyssa Beaulieu