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Garcia 1 Contextual Factors Various characteristics of the classroom are important for many reasons.

These traits, which can range from the way desks are organized to the different posters that are displayed, can dictate how students will interact with other peers and the teacher over the course of the year. However, teachers are the ones with the ability to play a large role in how these classroom qualities appeal to the students. Due to each teacher differing from another a student may have, the classroom is an important aspect for the teacher to consider when prepping to teach throughout the year. During my initial observations of my clinical classroom, I observed various things about the differing groups of students, such as race or gender, and the characteristics of the classroom and school itself. The school is quite welcoming. With the office situated near the front, students know where they must go if they are lost or arrive late to class. Down the hallway of my class, many assignments are displayed outside a majority of the classrooms. These assignments range from answers to questions, to more artistic style activities, such as drawings. Similar things would be seen in my classroom. The classroom has a designated area, directly to the right as one enters the room, where the students have some of their completed work pinned to the wall. At the back of the room there are various shelves where textbooks, activity books, and silent reading books are held with an elongated desk where several research computers sit. Located near the wall, farthest from the entrance, sits the teachers desk and a window. At the front of the room there are several posters that display the rules of the school and class, a Promethean board. A moveable, two-faced, whiteboard also sits at the front of the room so that the teacher may have standards easily presentable to multiple content areas. When it comes to the students, their desks are situated in a way that fits their age group, middle school 7th and 8th grade, and the room size which were in six small groups of about four or five students that held up to 26 students.

Garcia 2 Before I discuss the general makeup of the students, it is important to note several school and content based topics. First off, this clinical is located at a charter school which contains the ACTS magnet school. This program, which students had to apply to get into and space is limited, focuses on various artistic activities so that the students may hone their abilities both academically and artistically. When it comes to the students, I was quite surprised by their composition. In other classrooms I have been in there were a wide range of various races and ethnicities, but the same could not be said of this one. Due to this, I felt it prudent to observe multiple classrooms to get a clear picture of what one may expect as a teacher in this program. Of the 40 observed students from class sizes of 15 and 25 students, 27 of them were Caucasian, 11 were African-American, and the last 2 were Asian or Hispanics students. So, in comparison to other classes that I have observed, the percentages of the various racial, or ethnic, backgrounds was not as evenly distributed as I have grown accustomed to. This may be due to the program these students are in, which, as previously stated, requires the student and the parents to fill out an application. Due to this program, students also learn in ways that many might be surprised by. Many of the activities are done through active learning, which is a form of teaching that requires to the students to take part in their own education. Along with the occasional lecture to give students the foundation they need to build on, students participate in groups and do a great deal of hands-on activities where they can draw, sing, dance, etc. What they do depends on both the assignment and what they feel they are more proficient at doing. However, when there are lectures given by the teacher, they students are often shown a PowerPoint and take notes using the Cornell note style which they can use to fill out various worksheets from their activity books. There are differences between these two classes even though they are all in the ACTS program. The first class, which holds 15 students, is full of students that need more guidance due to being below-

Garcia 3 average performers on the PASS tests. In this class, it seems like the students are more than capable, but they often do not care to participate or grow visually upset due to, possibly, feeling babied. However, the second class, which holds 25 students, all perform above average in comparison to their peers. Since many of these students are actually excited about the things they do in class, most of the students are quick to want to answer questions or volunteer to show the class what they completed for their assignment. All of the students are extremely welcoming, enjoy having me in the class, and always wish to impress me. This clinical shall prove to be quite different than what I am used to. These students are younger than those in the high school classes I have observed and show more severe highs and lows. However, out of these two classes, I have chosen to teach to the second class. This was done for a few reasons. Firstly, I am going to attempt to incorporate more active learning activities into my lesson plans and believe they would be more accepting of experimental lessons. Next, they are more active in participation and will make it easier for me to lecture, but it will also allow me to gauge their progress more easily. Lastly, the class is larger and will hold closer to the number I will expect to see at the high school level which will force me to be active in governing the class.

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