Kayla Oliver

Cooperating Teacher: Mrs. Julie Steinberg

1st Grade
January 2017

TWS 1 Contextual Factors

A. Classroom factors
Physical Features
When you walk in to Mrs. Steinbergs class, to your right is the sink and
water fountain area and in the right front corner is Mrs. Steinburgs
desk and work area. To your left is the back wall where all the students
bookbags are placed. Four desktop computers are on this wall, and
numbers 1-10 are along the top of this wall. In the middle of the
classroom are where the students desks are located; there are six
students at 3 tables, and two students at one table. On the left wall is
where the Writers Workshop is located which includes activities for
students that involve ways to spell words, ways to bring life to stories,
and storytelling with a partner. The left front corner is where the
reading center is located with bins and a bookshelf filled with fiction
and nonfiction books, and two bean bags for students to sit and lay on
while reading. On the front wall is the alphabet, the smartboard and
white board, bordered stickers with each number of day of school. The
front wall also includes charts with long and short vowels, the calendar,
a 1-100 number chart, the days of the week, a place value chart with
straws indicating the number of days or school, the date on the board,
the helper of the day, and voice levels. The work stations chart is
located on the front wall as well behind the teachers desks. This chart
is indicated by student pictures; whichever station their picture is
placed in the pockets on the chart is the station that they are to attend
for the day. The wall next to the sink and water fountain has a chart
that indicates how the students get home.
Availability of Technology
In the classroom, there are 4 desktop computers that students can use
for educational purposes, such as when they are in their daily centers.
15 iPads are available and students use these daily as well to play
educational games and watch educational videos. There is a
smartboard at the front of the room used for daily instruction.
Parental Involvement
There is very good parental involvement in this class. Each day, a
folder is sent home with homework that parents are supposed to sign.
 Mrs. Steinberg also keeps a behavioral log for each student and
records their behavior each day. This is sent home for parents to be
signed. Parents write notes for any concerns that they may have and
can call, text, or email Mrs. Steinberg anytime.
School Wide Support System
At Lakeview, there is a guidance counselor, a nurse, janitorial staff, and
case workers.
o Community Support System
PTO sends information home for parents and hosts fundraisers
along with the community to donate money to the school
system. Also, the scholastic book club comes to the school twice
a year for one week.
Classroom Management
Mrs. Steinberg enforces management in her classroom in several ways.
Students have a daily routine in which they are certainly used to and
Mrs. Steinberg expects them to follow this routine each day. She uses
an app on her phone named Class Dojo that keeps a record of each
childs behavior. The childs behavior determines what she records in
the app. If a student is doing well or misbehaving, a noise goes off that
indicates good behavior or poor behavior that quickly grasps the
students attention. If students misbehave, they are to walk 3 laps
around the playground at recess.
o Classroom Rules
Stay Safe
Take Responsibility
Act Respectfully
Grouping
Each student has an assigned seat in the class and are grouped
depending on who works well with who, or their behavior. Also, each
student has a partner assigned to work in their daily stations.
Routine
All 1st grade students are to sit down outside their classrooms once
they arrive to school or after they have eaten breakfast. When the
students come into the classroom, they take out their morning work,
and watch the daily school news to get the day started.
B. Student Characteristics
Gender: Males: 10
Females: 10
Total: 20
Race/Ethnicity

Female Male Total

Black 5 4 9
White 3 3 6
Biracial 1 3 4
Hispanic 1 0 1
Total 10 10 20

Special Needs:
There is 1 student (biracial) who has an IEP which is based on speech
and academics. There are 3 students who is taken out for RTI- Tier 2,
and 1 is monitored. (1 white, 2 black). There is 1 student in the class
(white) who has legal accommodations due to a visual impairment. He
is required to have preferential seating.
Achievement Levels
Low Achieving

Black White Biracial Hispani Total

c
Male 0 1 1 0 2
Female 2 0 0 0 2
Total 2 1 1 0 4

Medium Achieving

Black White Biracial Hispani Total

 c
Male 3 2 0 0 5
Female 1 0 0 0 1
Total 4 1 0 0 6
 High Achieving

Black White Biracial Hispani Total

c
Male 2 2 2 0 6
Female 1 3 0 1 5
Total 3 4 2 1 10

Interests
The students are interested in various activities depending on what
they have access to at home. The girls in the class are more interested
in things such as art, drawing, and painting. The boys are interested in
things such as sports, video games that have to do with cars,
wrestling, sports, etc. Both boys and girls in the class are interested in
the use of technology such as iPads, iPhones, and even the Smartboard
during instructional time.
Learning Styles
Most of these students in Mrs. Steinbergs class are kinesthetic
learners. The students learn better by doing or practicing the activities
rather than just having the content explained to them. They also learn
well with songs to help enhance the learning.
Achievement Developmental Level
MAP Scores

C. Instructional Implications
Being that there are many different classroom factors and student
characteristics, I am very aware of how I plan my lesson with all the different
learning styles going on in the classroom, along with students who come from
different backgrounds and practice different cultures. Having this information
will help in guiding the way I plan and teach my lessons. Each child is
different and each childs learning style is considered as lessons are planned.
Activities that I will include in the lesson are expected to be completed by
each student, but will be completed in different ways by a few students in the
class, depending on their learning styles. Being that these students come
from different backgrounds and practice different cultures, I must make sure
to make the content or material in the lessons very diverse. At ages 6 and 7,
they can recognize how things are left and may even question why
something they may practice at home, or something related to their race or
religion is left out, if so.

From Mrs. Steinbergs instruction and classroom management, I see that the
students catch on quite well to her instruction. Mrs. Steinberg knows her
group very wellshe knows how they learn best, what they like and most
certainly how to keep the students engaged. When I begin my teaching
career I would like to follow Mrs. Steinbergs footsteps and make sure I know
my students, what they like, and how always keep these students engaged
and on the right track.
For those students who need special needs, I must make sure that the
content being taught is simplified and repeated many times while instructing.
For the student who needs accommodations, I must make sure he is always in
his preferential seating. For those students who require reading aloud
administration, I must make sure that they are monitored closely and receive
extra help before during and after the lesson.

This information is important to know as a teacher because in the classroom

there are so many different learning styles, and so many different students
who practice different cultures who come from different backgrounds. If
students are going to progress and succeed in the classroom, there are
implications that must be made for instruction to be effective. Instructing the
classroom takes very much preparation. Being that I have information about
my students learning styles and are familiar with their race/ethnicity and
their cultures will effectively guide my planning and instruction for my
lessons. I will know how to correctly design the pre-assessments, the steps
during the lesson such as questions to assess learning and instructional
strategies, and the post-assessments at the end of a lesson.