FieldBlog 2: Heights High School

Question Posed for observation: How does a teacher generate activity and productivity in their classroom?

For our second school visit at Cleveland Heights High School I was supposed to observe Mr. Evans freshman history class. I was unable to do so because his class was taking the new Parks test. Instead of observing his class he took me to another teachers class, Mrs Underwood. Mrs. Underwood taught remedial English to juniors.

Observations:
Class was started with bell work that everybody had to do. The question was, what are the three types of sentences found in a paragraph? After the bell work was completed students were to finish an outline that they had previously started in class. No student was done with the outline yet, but after they finished it they were given a OGT prep prompt to about. Throughout the class the teacher worked individually with the students.

Opinions:
The bell work was a productive way to get class started and to get the students focused. It was a fairly easy question but none of the students knew the answer off of the top of their heads so the teacher allowed them to look it up on their phones. She also allowed the students to use their phones throughout the entire class period. They were a group of kids who did not focus or cooperate very easily so it looked like her allowance of cell phone usage was a way to get on their good side to get their cooperation. During the class period the teacher mostly worked individually with the students to give each of the students the extra help that they needed. The class only had 7 students in it which made it easier for the teacher to do this.