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Report and Interview (1)

What strategies does your cooperating teacher (CT) use to grab and hold students’ attention?

My current placement is with Oakridge Lower Elementary in a transitioning

Kindergarten classroom. Initially, I held some reservations about working with such a young

grade, but I was pleasantly surprised at how enjoyable of an experience it has been thus far. I

have successfully completed 9 hours of observation and am eagerly awaiting more hours with

this class. 

Our typical day starts out with breakfast. In an orderly fashion the students enter the

classroom and then properly stow their belongings. They then are seated at their desks to await

instruction. The class will commence when the cooperating teacher sings a rhyme to get them

started on their breakfast. I am absolutely impressed at the overall behavior exhibited by the

students. When it is time to start the class, the teacher will say “class, class!”. The students then

respond with “yes, yes!”. The cooperating teacher uses a handful of methods to gain the

students’ attention. The primary way to gain the attention is the “class, class” method. I was first

introduced to this method in my observation last semester with Muskegon Public Schools during

their virtual learning. On a side note, this is the first classroom I have been in for an observation,

but my observations are all highly positive. 

Other methods I have witnessed to gain attention are to raise a hand like she has a

question for the class. This method is usually used when it comes to talking about the Calendar,

which occurs daily. When it comes to story time, the teacher will sit quietly in the story area until

the children are silent as well. I think the cooperating teacher does a decent job in gaining and

retaining the students’ attention with these methods. For the most part, the children focus and

interact with the subject being taught. The teacher reads a page of a story and then pauses prior
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to continuing to ask students how they can relate to the story, if possible. The teacher will also

review the activity pages with the students before sending them off to work on the pages at their

desks.  During this, the teacher, her aide, and I will walk around to monitor the activity and to

assist if necessary. 

One area I do observe a challenge in is maintaining attention when the students come

back from their “specials” (gym, art, etc.…). During my first week, the art teacher entered the

room when it was “specials” time. After the art teacher left, the class was unruly and unfocused.

The cooperating teacher attempted a breathing exercise to regain control of the class. That

exercise seemed to help, but there was a noticeable difference when switching classes.

How does your CT help students remember information and turn it into long-term memory?
Do most students engage in learning? What is the evidence?

Repetition and student engagement is important for the students to retain the information

learned. For example, in my class when the students are introduced to a letter from the alphabet,

the theme of the story usually revolves around that letter. In my last class, we learned capital “I”

and lower case “i”. As such, the story that was read to the students involved the vowel “I”. It was

repeated many times throughout the story. The activity then was switched to a canister that

contained objects which started with that letter. Students would be excited to answer when they

were shown an item from the canister. Surprisingly, most of the students know letters. 

One of the drawbacks to this is if the teacher is not able to locate the materials which she

is instructing the class with, the students tend to lose focus. This results in a struggle to regain the

attention of the students. This is most pronounced with the students who have special needs. I

am, however, impressed with the level of inclusion in the classroom. After the lesson is taught,

the teacher will pull out the activity sheets the students need to work on, and she goes over what
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is required. There are tracing activities, coloring activities, and cutting and pasting activities. The

students will then be released to work on the activities. Most of the time the students stick to

their work. When the students finish, they are allowed screen time on their tablet device as a

reward.

The students engage quite often and raise their hands for help when needed. The

engagement in the classroom is as easy as a student excitedly raising his or her hand to answer a

question and lighting up when called on to answer. As I mentioned earlier, the repetition and

student engagement are probably the biggest telltale sign the students are learning the materials.

When the students’ work is checked over, there are only a few who are identified as possibly

requiring additional assistance. If more time is spent working with these students and keeping

them focused on the task at hand, the students have a much higher success rate. Identifying the

best way to keep the students focused is a challenge at times. Some environments appear to be

more conducive to learning than others. For example, many students seem to learn best when

they are seated on the carpet for instruction.

What common misconceptions do the students have related to the subject domain(s)? What
does the CT do to correct the misconceptions?

The most noticeable misunderstanding is confusion on letters that are similar in

appearance. For example, the lower case “l” (L) is the same as the upper case “I” on some letter

cards used in the classroom. The teacher fixed this mistake by making the “I” with three lines. 

Another misconception I notice is that students are quick to answer before understanding the

meaning of the letter shown, or the pronunciation of that letter. In our unit on “I”, one of the

students identified a goat as starting with the letter I. To help correct that, the teacher did some

pronunciation exercises by asking the students to say the word “goat”. She then had the students
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sound out the word. By doing this, she was able to help the students understand that goat does

not start with the letter “I”. 

In the latter part of the day, the learning focused on numbers. The first week covered

numbers 1-10, and the next week covered 11-20. A number line was placed on the board for the

students to follow along with. Most of the students did very well with counting. Much like the

activity sheets the students did with the letters, they had activity sheets for numbers. A few

students surprised me by marking off things as they counted. Now the common misconception I

can see with learning the numbers is the students might miss one and cut and paste the wrong

answer in a spot on their sheet. If this happens, the cooperating teacher will then sit with the

student and count from 1 to the number they need to reach for the correct answer. She will have

the student step up to the number line on the board and count to that number. This helps to

correct the behavior and allows the student to see they need to be more careful in counting.

My final thought on this report is that Kindergarten students have exceptional minds

when it comes to learning. The cooperating teacher does an amazing job, and the students are

excited to see her when they get to class. She has a class schedule on the board and follows it

like it is a well-oiled machine. I also like the fact that the students are excited when I come into

the class as well. I enjoy walking around and assisting the students, as necessary. It has been a

pleasure learning with them and helping them learn along the way.