Kaleb Kofford

Professor Christensen

Edu 202

Assignment #1 (Observation)

1. First Impressions: When first arriving in the class it feels a bit crowded. There is 34

students in the class and the classroom definitely isn’t big enough to comfortable hold all

of the students. The desks are close together and book bags aren’t under the desk. This in

no way is Ms. Mamo’s fault though, there is just little room in the class and too many

students. Just as a side note, High schoolers are a bit messy. They don’t keep their

working area clean and this leads to further the chaos in the small space in which they

have. The room overall seems disorganized in the way that there doesn’t seem to be a

theme to it. In one corner there is a picture of a baseball player with a quote and in

another there is hanging puzzle arts. At the front of the class there is some small posters

about writing a paper. I would have expected there to be more things related to English,

since that is the subject taught in this room. Also, the American Flag somewhat blocks

the door. As I walk into the door, I almost walk into it, but avoid it by ducking a bit.

2. Make-up of Class: The class is about 75% female and 25% male. There are three African

Americans, 4 Asian Americans, 3 Hispanics/Latinos, and the rest are Caucasian.

3. Posted Rules: There are no posted rules in the classroom. The white board has daily

assignments but is hard to follow. This may be due to me not being in the class regularly.

4. Enforcement: Although there aren’t any posted rules, Ms. Mamo doesn’t seem to

appreciate talking in the class unless they are supposed to be working as a group. There is
 a couple ways she likes to enforce this rule. Usually she will just walk around the room

and that keeps them quiet for the most part. If she is at her desk working, she calls the

students out and threatens to move them to the dean’s office. Another way is that she says

that they won’t be able to listen to their music or that she will give them less time to work

on an assignment.

Assignment #2 (Classroom Layout)

1. Drawing: Will be attached

2. Moving the room: In all honesty I think that Ms. Mamo has done an amazing job with

how she has organized the classroom. There isn’t a large amount of space and she has a

lot of students. I think the one thing that I would change would be to have more of a

theme to the classroom. As I stated before, the walls seem to be thrown together. I would

like there to be things pertaining to the subject in which is being taught, in this case

English.
 Assignment #3 (Instruction)

1. Posted Daily Schedule: It is normally on the Whiteboard and goes something like this;

Standard: R.L 9.1 Important Dates:

Objective: I can use embedded quotes by Vocabulary Quiz #8: March 14/15

choosing the most powerful evidence to use

Mock Trial: March 7/8
in a sentence of my own.
No school March 12th

2. Delivery of Instruction: The instruction is provided in a variety of ways. She seems to

like to do a full class discussion to get the main curriculum out to everyone. Then the

class is split into groups to work on their projects. While the projects are happening, she

walks around asking if any clarifications are needed. Not only does she clarify, but she

offers advice to help the students improve their papers/projects. She cares about her

students and you can tell she wants each of them to succeed in their work. After being in

groups, they go to their own desk and work individually on assignments. This is a time

that she can work with struggling students. She talks about their grades and observes how

the rest of the class is behaving.

3. Teaching Styles: Ms. Mamo has the students d a lot of physical work. I don’t mean

hammers and nails or sweat and blood kind of work, rather she gives them assignments

for them to do in order to understand further the material that they have been taught.
 During my time observing they have learned about Othello and different writing styles

that go along with it. Instead of just presenting a PowerPoint about it or having them only

read the story, they were expected, as a group, to create a short trial/case for one of the

characters and how they were wronged/what crimes were committed. She also had the

students draw their own rendition of a metaphor from the Odyssey. She wanted them to

represent something without using words. I really liked this approach, because it gave the

students a break from the rigorous strain of writing papers and homework. It allowed

them to be creative in a way they normally aren’t able to be.

4. There are four major learning styles in education, and they are; kinesthetic, visual,

auditory, and tactile. Ms. Mamo usually uses the first three. The auditory seems obvious,

since she will stand in front of the class teaching the students about the different subjects

they are going over. Her use of visual tools also stands out as she tends to use a

PowerPoint at the beginning of class and teaches from there. The PowerPoint isn’t the

only visual tool that she uses. There is a more subtle way that the students may be

learning and that is through the posters that are hung up throughout the classroom. It tells

the students about different writing styles they can use in their papers. For some reason I

struggled to see the kinesthetic use, but it was right in front of my eyes. As the students

wrote papers and did quizzes, they were able to physically do the work for themselves.

Tactile was also hard to notice, but she had the students read books and find different

aspects of what they were taught in class.

5. Students Engagement: The students don’t seem extremely engaged when it comes to the

PowerPoints. I think the reason is that they are mostly taught vocabulary words,

meanings, and origins. From my point of view, they don’t seem interested in this part of
 the class and usually zone out by listening to music. Other times they seem really

interested and engaged. They seemed to enjoy talking about their books and the stories

they were reading. They got to create a mock trial for a book they read and they loved

doing that.

6. Isolated students? I didn’t notice any students isolated from the class. I guess there are

students who are shy and avoid others by listening to music and engaging with

classmates.

7. Transitions: As I stated before, Ms. Mamo is very well organized in the way that she runs

her classroom. She goes from whole class to groups to individuals. I think that the

students know the drill and are all willing to follow it. Sometimes she will switch things

up and in order to make sure that the students know how much time they have left on

certain material in which they are working on, she uses a timer on the board. This either

helps the kids get motivated to work hard or they complain, to which Ms. Mamo

responds, “You are running out of time.” I think that this works well with her students,

because they respect her, and she respects them. There is a mutual trust and you can see

that they get along.

8. Attention getters: Ms. Mamo’s class tends to talk a lot and this disrupts the amount of

time she has to teach. The most effective way that she is able to get the class back on task

and working is by telling them that she will give them more homework or an extra

quiz/test. The students will usually get back on task, because they know that she is

actually willing to do as she says.

9. Behavioral Instruction: Ms. Mamo’s class is all over the place sometimes. She has

students randomly yelling out and disrupting everything and other students that won’t
 talk at all. A good half of the students have wireless headphones in which may be

hindering the class, or it might be one of the privileges she gives them in order to have

them work better. When working in groups they don’t stay on task and she often has to

refocus them.

10. Policies and Procedures: During the period of time that I am in observing Ms. Mamo’s

class, there is a program called Palo Verde TV. The students have their school

announcements, do the pledge of allegiance, and have time for silence. I think that it has

good intentions and that they want to do it in a fun way for the students. Overall, I believe

that it takes up too much time and takes away from instruction time. Students sometimes

get riled up and it takes even more time to calm the class down before instruction can

take place.

Assignment #4 (Culture)

Physical Characteristics:

1. Outside of school: The property of the Palo Verde High School is very expansive and open.

There are trees and shrubbery to make the School look clean and organized. The parking lot can

hold at least one-hundred cars. Although there is so many parking spaces, at times it is really hard

to find a spot to park, because there are so many other people there. The sidewalks are clean and I

never saw trash on the ground. The School itself is large and is two stories tall. It looks new and

as if it has been well taken care of. There aren’t many signs pointing to where you should go,

which makes finding the right places to be hard. From the outside the doors that let you into the

school almost look like they are trying to keep kids in and strangers out. There are four double

doors and only one of them is open. The doors are thick and made out of metal, which looks sort

of like a prison. Above the doors is a painting of a Panther, which is the school mascot.
 2. Inside of school: The inside of the school sort of reminds me of a prison. Most everything is

made of concrete and there are metal stairs. There are thick doors and most of them are locked.

Once you get into the main office the whole feeling changes. Pictures of different school events

are hung up on the walls. Cheerleaders, baseball players, and past graduations pictures on the

walls give the students confidence to believe that they can do whatever they desire.

Culture of the school:

1. Mission, Motto, and Mascot: The School’s Mascot is a Panther.

Their Motto: Making your Mark

Mission statement: The mission of Palo Verde High School is to prepare students to realize their

academic, creative, emotional, physical, social, and career potentials as contributing members of

society in a community of mutual respect.

2. Staff: The staff was very friendly to all who came in. When I first went to the school and was

trying to figure out where to go, I asked a faculty member and they lead me to the exact place I

needed to be. The students also seemed to enjoy the office staff and get along with them.

3. Student to student interactions: The students really like to talk no matter where they are

at. The places that they seemed to like to be the most was in the hallways in between

class periods and the lunchroom. I also was able to see students walking to their cars

talking about going to get lunch.

4. Organization: The school is a two story building and is very organized. The classrooms

are organized by numbers. Each area is a different hundreds number. The hallways that

my classroom was in was the 200’s and there was about 4 hallways that those were in.

There is also a big court yard for the students to spend time in during their lunch.

5. Traditions and awards: Palo verde is a 5 star school it has a large number of athletic

programs such a football, cross country, lacrosse, wrestling, swimming, and more.
Culture of the Classroom:

1. Teacher expectations: Ms. Mamo states here expectations for the students verbally. She

talks with them and tells them what she wants them to do for assignments. She tends to

warn students of consequences for inappropriate behavior as well verbally. She tells them

that she will add another assignment or that she will break them up from their groups.

2. Student participation: In her class I feel like there is a couple of loud students that do all

of the participating. It isn’t that the other students don’t know what is happening or what

is going on, but that there are students who are so loud and their presence is so

demanding that the quiet students get drowned out.

3. Teacher to student interactions: The teacher used good classroom management strategies

to help students participate in classroom discussions. Ms. Mamo circulcated the room,

called on students by name, and used real world examples to help students make

connections. Ms. Mamo listened to student’s responses and gave good, specific

feedback. The classroom worked well together. There seemed to be an environment of

respect and mutual cooperation.

Assignment #5 (Cooperating Teacher Interview)

1. Reason for becoming a teacher: “I thought I could be a positive influence on those

learning.”

2. Main challenges: “The main challenge I face as a teacher is the class size. All of the

classes have at least 30 students.” She also explained that there are students who like to

talk and disrupt the class.

3. Best part of teaching: Seeing when students have that light bulb click and they understand

what they are being taught. Also, it is great to help students to be able to critically think

and gain experience.

4. Seating arrangements: Whether they have a 504, IEP, and how much the student seems to

need help.

5. Flexible groups: She has the students recruit their own groups. The students get to pick a

category they are best at, writing, speaking, researching, and editing. From these groups

the leaders pick one from each category and they are then a group.

6. Interactions with parents: The only time she interacts with the parents is when there are

concerns with a student.

7. Grading per week: It is about 10-15 hours per week.

8. Preparing lessons: She has to do 1 lesson for every other day and it takes 4 to 5 hours a

week to do this.

9. Maximizing instruction time: Timer, splitting them into groups, doing warm ups, and

vocabulary.

10. Reinforcement: For positive reinforcement she said that she likes to use verbal praise and

for negative reinforcement she has the student sit by themselves to do their work.

11. Specialist teacher involvement: There are no special teachers involved.

12. Measuring tools and how often: They use the NEPF and she is evaluated 1-3 times per

year.

13. Consequences if evaluation is not favorable: Directives

14. Most surprising thing about teaching: The lack of respect from students and other faculty

alike.
 Assignment #6 (Observing a Student)

1. The student I decided to observe was an Asian male named Hirum. He is a quiet student,

but did well during the lesson. The lesson was a vocabulary PowerPoint and he did well

taking notes about each word. When called upon he was able to appropriately answer the

questions. He seemed to do well with the visual teaching. There were a few students who

were disruptive and at times he seemed to want to join in, but controlled himself. I think

as a student he needs more opportunities to speak. I think that he is shy enough where he

doesn’t want to speak up unless called upon. It would be good for him to be able to talk

more.

Assignment #7 (Summary)

1. Over these past few weeks I feel like I have learned a lot. It has been a great experience

observing a teacher who has been teaching for years. Ms. Mamo is seasoned and it has

been a real pleasure being able to work with her. I loved watching the way she interacted

with the students and how there was mutual respect. As we talked towards the end, she

told me that with the students she had to keep them on a short leash at the beginning of

the school year. Overtime and as they grew to know one another, Ms. Mamo allowed the

students different privileges. One of those privileges was being allowed to work with

headphones in. The students are allowed to use their headphones during personal work

time only. During direct instruction, they have to have them out and pay full attention to

the lesson. The reason she told me that she did this was because she wanted to show the

students that she respects them as well and that she wants them to enjoy class. Some

students told her that they learn and work better when having something to listen to. I

understand where some of the students are coming from, because I can work well when I
have background noise to listen to. Overall this was an amazing opportunity to see what

teaching is really like and how to deal with real life issues with students.