Field Visit 3

This week I observed behavior management issues in the classroom. This teacher seemed to have a very well-behaved class, with few disruptions and interruptions. When they did occur, she dealt with them quickly and in a way that did not break the flow of instruction.

• One student arrived 8 minutes late to class.
  
• Ms. H: "K, you are way late, we already did mad minute, honey. Go get your math folder and find your seat."
• Another student was playing with a rubber toy during the small group instruction on arrays.
  
• Ms. H: "R, may I have that please, so I know I have your attention?" (then proceeds to take the toy from the student and set it aside on her desk).
• A student who was wandering around before he finished the test.
• Ms. H: "S, do you need something?"
  
• Student: "No..." (returns to seat without additional prompting)
• A student interrupted group instruction.
  
• Ms. H: "I'm talking with Aidan, please don't stick that in front of my face right now."

Throughout all these incidents, the focus remained on the instruction and the task at hand. Although the teacher's responses were very curt and to the point, the students got the message and quickly returned to what they were supposed to be doing without any additional prompting. In general the teacher seemed to have well-established codes of behavior that all the students respect, so there is little need for disciplinary action during class. For minor behavior issues, the teacher would generally respond with a verbal intervention, which immediately solved the issue at hand. There were not any major problems with violence or resistance that were talked about in the Weinstein text, this was overall a very well-behaved and well-mannered group of students. However, we have not been observing for a long enough period of time to notice any chronic problems with specific students, so there may or may not be underlying issues that we are unaware of. I will continue to be aware of behavior management issues as we continue our observation through the rest of the semester.

We had a chance to discuss our lesson plan ideas for the next few weeks; it seems that with the NSRE testing schedule we will have 3 days to go in to teach - November 9, November 13, and November 16. November 9 & November 16 will be language arts lessons on persuasive writing, and November 13 (afternoon) will be a Social Studies geography lesson on regions of Virginia. Next week we will talk more specifically about her lesson objectives, and find ways to integrate the models we learned in class with these particular topics.