PERSONAL REFLECTIONS

Where do I begin, these students were the lowest of the lowest, most needed 10 more questions to pass the TAKS test, a few others need 5 more questions. These students have no motivation towards moving on to the next grade, to even pass the simple 10 question or 5 question quizzes the teacher would give to them. They were bombing their quizzes over material she had just gone over, they were even just as confused while she was lecturing. Schools need change, and fast, scores only keep going lower and lower. School districts need to adopt another teaching method. Students have so much going on in their lives to worry about, and then to add to that academics! It really needs to be and involvement of everyone, teachers, parents, and most importantly students. This teacher was a perfect example in my opinion of a good teacher. Because rather than just giving formulas to students, and giving boring lectures. She would show them cheat and simpler ways of working out the problems. She would break them down to the simplest forms, she was really pushing to at least have some of the students open their eyes and be confident. She would make her students feel she was on their sides, and would say “Yes it’s boring, but it’s not impossible.”

INTERACTIONS WITH TEACHERS AND STUDENTS

Overall the school staff was friendly and welcoming, but being that summer school is just a short period of time, they had too much going on. The teacher I was assigned to though, was very helpful, any questions we had she would answer without any problem. She was very willing to cooperate with us. No interaction with students, though, the teacher was too worried in covering everything that was needed before their last chance in taking the TAKS test. Therefore it kind of felt uncomfortable, to budge in. I just observed from the back row, her methods, techniques and her students’ response. I was very disappointed, that I was not able to get in and help. I could see her frustration; she tried so hard yet saw no results.

TECHNOLOGY INTREGRATION

The teacher was not using much technology, except for her own use for example the ELMO in order for the students to be able to see her examples and following along with ease. The students themselves were not using technology, for enhancing their learning they were basically sitting at their desk and using their own computer, their brain, with pen and paper. Nevertheless the only technology the teacher was using was hard enough for her to handle. I think schools should really think about training their teachers with the new technology they are adopting, before school starts, at least before they start placing the machines inside the campus. As well as, if they are going to integrate new technology they have to program it completely not just some of the pieces. I noticed she had a Smart Board yet it was not in use because it did not have all the proper connections. And even the ELMO the teacher was using, it was borrowed, she mentioned that during the regular year she actually used an overhead. I really do enjoy the blackboard program UTPA uses, and think it’s a great way of communicating with other students as well as the teacher. It’s a little bit of everything its environment friendly; we don’t have to use and waste paper, to turn in assignments. Grades will be posted for students to be able to see right away, very efficient.

INSTRUCTIONAL PLANNING

During the summer the student use a workbook Module 4 Voyager Math Summer Adventure, Expressions & Equations. So basically the teacher said that thats what she was going by, using the book, as well as knowing the TEKS for the 8th grade. All her students had failed the TAKS test therefore she had to once again cover all the objectives to help students for last time, otherwise they would have to repeat the 8th grade. So half of her period she would use the book covering the problems, it was what was needed to complete the summer program, and also the school was testing them to check for improvement, therefore to either promote or retain the students. Then for the second half she would cover the objectives one at a time, and this was helping students refresh their memory on the material covered all year long. She was really worried about her students and really was trying her best to break it down to the simplest forms of solving problems, and you could say cheat techniques to help the students not struggle. Show them that they can do their best, and enforce confidence. Whether the students took it in, she really tried and fought, and kept insisting.

CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT

The teacher had a routine for the 6 days, as the students walked in the teacher would greet her students, as well as ask the ones who were wearing sweaters to place them in a table she had against the wall. While they were coming in she would check them off and as soon as it was time or saw everyone was ready she would send a student with the attendance to the office. There was not much routine in bathroom breaks she would openly allow her students to go at least once per day, which they all wanted to go everyday. As she would lecture, and needed to pass out worksheets she would do once she needed them. But at the beginning of her class she started off with a, what they called a pre-test, in which they would quiz on what they had learned the previous day. There were no rules for display for students to see being that it was summer her classroom was pretty much packed up. But again she had a rule about having their sweaters off during class; I guess she thought it was a distraction if they did. Pretty much their rule was not to miss any more than 2 days of summer because even with the 2 absences they were risking of being dropped from the summer school program. The teacher had a very well classroom management; she had no trouble with her students. For the exception of one student that was always throwing comments here and there that had nothing to do with her lecture. The teacher would ignore it; it would not escalate to any worse. Although I do remember that the students were unmotivated and not participating, and the teacher was quite frustrated, and so she snapped and she threw her marker to the floor, and said, "I give up on you guys, I don't know what to do anymore, you guys are not even trying." And then she got herself together and continued with her lesson. It definitely woke her students up so they got more involved and were doing a little better.

LESSON OBSERVATION

Once all students were seated, and ready for class to start, Mrs. Salinas started with a small review of what they had covered the previous day. And then she gave them sort of a small quiz, after that she did let them know that they'd be covering the next objective. She started off giving examples, and working them along with the students. And then it was very interesting that she pulled out some foldables of 3D shapes in order to have visuals for the students. The students were very engaged in doing the activity, in fact wanted to keep doing more of the shapes after her lesson was done. Using the shapes she was teaching them how and where the surface area was coming from. After a couple of examples, she gave her students examples for them to work alone. Still as a whole group, she would ask students to volunteer and explain how they found their answer. Once the lecture was over, five minutes before class was over she gave them four questions, covering what they had just learned. And in order for them to be able to leave for lunch, they had to have answered all four correctly.

STUDENTS

Mrs. Salinas seems to be pretty much in control of her classroom; students respect her and do not interrupt her while she is lecturing. You can tell she gets upset, when her students are not showing much improvement; they are lacking the most basic skills of math adding, multiplying and so on. Once again there no behavior problems in her class students are quiet and listening to the teacher although they are not really paying attention nor participating. There is one student that loves the attention, and has something to say for the slightest subject. He's always trying to answer, even though he's wrong all the time, he is very hyperactive he's always getting up for his sweater, sharpening his pencil, and trying to go to the restroom every day. You can really see all the students' personality they range from the quietest to the more talkative. As an observer there really are no challenges but I did notice Mrs. Salinas getting frustrated when the students had no idea how to solve anything. Although there were some moments that it just felt like wow, she's finally getting through to them. No matter how annoying this student was he's the one that stood out the most so I won't forget about him. Every once in a while the teacher would notice that her lecture, well was not very entertaining therefore she would joke around with her students. In fact there was a time when one of her students told her she had the hiccups and what the teacher did was slap ber book at her desk attempting to scare her. All eyes were on her, saying miss you scared me, and she asked her student, "Do you have the hiccups?" And her student smiling responded, "no." But after that all her students seemed more awake than they were.