The first day of my practicum, was by no means what I was expecting at all, which was a great thing! My practicum is taking place at South High School in which I will be in a Freshmen English class. The two classes that I am observing are pretty normal to what you would expect in a freshmen English class, but the second class of the day is somewhat different from the first class, even though they are both freshmen English classes the second class has a large number of IEP students so there is a ESE teacher also in the class room. I met with my teacher about 20 minutes prior to the start of class to go over the lesson plan for the day and if I had any questions for her, which was extremely nice of her to do. Of course I had plenty of questions as did she so twenty minutes went by pretty fast. I learned that there is no attendance policy, students can miss multiple days as long as it is excused by their parents, I also learned that any student can take an honors class; because they have no standards or requirements.
The lesson for the day was sentence structure, identifying the subject and verb in the sentence, identify the complement and the direct object. The teacher informed me in the beginning of class that her students simply did not know these steps/components/ rules in English so she had to stray off course to teach and try and get her students to understand and know this material before moving on. I was pretty shocked that this was what was being taught in class and that 95% of her students did not know these basic steps in grammar.
Close to the end of the class she allowed the students to start their homework, so that if they needed any help or had any questions she would be able to help them, during this time she allowed me to walk about the room and help students. She gave me strict instructions to not give the students the answers, but to try and help them work it out. This proved to be a difficult task because the students were expecting me to give them answers which I did not but they were getting frustrated with me, I did not let it get to me I just tried another approach to the question and hoped it would help them understand or figure out the correct answer on their own.
The class room itself is a smart class room, the teacher uses a smart board and there are multiple computers in the class room too. Because my practicum is on Monday and on this past Monday there was no school due to presidents day I arranged with my teacher an alternative time to come into the class room, so I will be at South tomorrow at seven, which is exciting because the school is on block schedule will be joining them for their literature part of English, which is something I am looking forward to and I will hopefully be able to look at some of their writing. Over all I enjoyed my first experience at South and I am looking forward to what this experience is going to bring me, I know I will be learning a lot!
WOW! A smart classroom in a highschool! That is crazy. I would love to see a smartboard used (even though we have them here in the English department... I have never really observed one that was acutally used!)
ReplyDeleteAlso what exactly is an IEP? And an ESE teacher?
Thanks for sharing! Looking forward to hearing about your practicum experience!
Mandy, It sounds like you had an interesting first day. I posted previously but it was for class and I didn’t know if it would ‘count’ for the ‘blog jam #1’ so I’m posting again (just in case!)
ReplyDeleteSo I have a few questions for you: What is IEP students and ESE teachers? I’m not at all familiar with these terms. Obviously the two classrooms were made up of different students, so I’m wondering if you noticed an academic difference? Did one class understand the grammar lesson more than the other? Also, I’m wondering if your teacher let you know why she was teaching this topic so late in the year? It seems like it might be something that would be taught pretty early in the year? Is this the first time that she has taught it?
I’m pretty shocked too that 95% of the students did not know how to identify the subject and verb in a sentence. Did you see an improvement by the end of lass?
Thanks for sharing and I look forward to hearing more about your experiences.
Hi Katie,
ReplyDeleteAn IEP is an Individualized Education Plan for students with learning disabilities. This plan is reviewed and changed yearly if need be. Every student with a learning disability that is on an IEP has special accommodations in their plan. I know multiple students are allotted more time when taking quizzes and tests. Some students even have the opportunity to take tests in a room alone so they can read out loud. Every plan is tailored to the individual student needs. ESE is Exceptional Student Education; it is a teacher of gifted/talented students. This teacher is placed into the class I am in because of the large amount of student who are on IEP’s this is to help out the Primary teacher so that the students get more attention and help when needed. I don’t believe that it is common to teach this stage of grammar in a high school English class, but I could very well be wrong. They are now finishing up sentences in class, I do not know what they are moving on to but it seems like they have only retained the basics. The class ranges so much in performance level that there are few students who really understand what they are doing but many who do not. It also seems like they honestly don’t care. I do not know if this is because they really don’t care of if it has anything to do with their background. My teacher has been teaching grammar since the start of the school year but she has said that she has had to go back over things. The individual education level of the students in the class is on such a wide range I can see how difficult it is for the teacher to try and help everyone as much as possible and that’s why she opens her lunch period to offer help along with before or after school time and she says that students rarely take advantage of these opportunities.
I had the same questions as Katie concerning what IEP and ESE meant and I was unaware of such programs in high schools. It has been such a shocker to see what large public schools are actually like!
ReplyDeleteYou did mention that there were a lot of students on IEPs and I was wondering how many students are in your class? If it is a large group, how does the teacher maintain organization? Both my practicum classes are large and easily disrupted, however the students really respect the teacher and take direction when needed. What kind of strategies does she use to keep the students focused or on track?
Hope the rest of your practicum goes well!
I believe that there is about 28-30 students in each class. The 3rd period class has the larger amount of of students with an IEP so that's why they have a ESE teacher in there also to provide extra help to the students. I have noticed that the 3rd period ( second class I am in) has an issue with listening, paying attention, and accomplishing assignments. The teacher is firm when giving her lesson, but at the end of the period when they have time to work on the assignment/ homework they seem to not use the time wisely. My teacher opens her lunch hour along with having time before school and after school but she rarely has students use this time. Once I spend more time with her and see her other strategies in handling the class I will be sure to include them in my up coming blogs. Thanks for the questions Fanny Jo! Have a good week!
ReplyDelete