Mini-Ethnography

• Description of the class

· What subject matter is being taught?

• I did an hour and a half observation spanning writer’s workshop and word studies (we haven’t started social studies in the classroom yet).

· What are the class demographics, including race, ethnicity, and gender?

• There were 21 students in the class, 11 boys and 10 girls. Ethnically, they are a diverse group consisting of 10 African Americans, 1 Middle Eastern student, 5 Caucasian students, and the rest of Latin American descent. 3 of the students are English Language Learners and 1 student is special education.

• School Culture

· How is the school structured?

• The school is Pre-K-5^th grade. Each grade consists of one class. Pre-K-2 is 1 teacher and 3^rd-5^th grade is departmentalized. Each classroom consists of 1 teacher and 1 permanent aid.

· Are students tracked?

· How do the social studies figure into the overall curriculum?

• Social Studies is a secondary thought to my classroom’s curriculum. It is something my teacher would like to include and they even have textbooks; however, it is something she has not yet had time to include in the daily schedule. Every day focuses on reading, writing, and mathematics.

· How long are class periods?

• There are no set class periods, but any given subject tends to be taught for about 45 minutes at a time.

· Are there bells?

• The only bells are the morning bell signaling the start of school and the end of the day bell signaling time to go home.

· What is the racial, ethnic, and socio-economic composition of the students, teachers, and administrators?

· What are the general academic and behavioral expectations for students at this school?

• The daily expectations of the students in my classroom are: be on time, complete all assignments to the best of your ability, be respectful of each other and of the teacher, keep your hands to yourself, respect and listen whoever is speaking.

· How does the school fit into the organization of the school district?

• Charter school

• Classroom arrangement

· How do students group before or after class (assuming they are not allowed to do this during class)?

• The only time they can group themselves is during recess, which usually consists of girls grouping together and boys grouping together.

· How does the teacher group the students?

• The teacher typically groups the students according to ability, this is especially true with reading and with word studies. Literature groups are based on student reading level, and word study groups are based on reading/writing level.

· How does the classroom arrangement affect student learning?

• The arrangement allows students free reign of motion during appropriate times. The tables are fairly close together so students can interact with students from other tables during appropriate times. The carpet provides a nice place for everyone to come together and receive directions.

· How does the classroom arrangement reflect the teacher’s beliefs about what it means to be a teacher and a learner?

• The arrangement seems to reflect a belief that a classroom should be open and welcoming. Students sit together and the adults wander the room assisting individual or groups of students as needed.

• Student behavior

· How do students interact with each other?

• Student interactions vary a great deal. One student, MA, who I have observed several times, is often very proud of his work and wants to share it with everyone. During writers workshop, he will often start talking with his two table mates about what he has written. He also will walk to other tables and talk about his story. He is not self-centered, however, as he seems to always ask everyone else what they are writing about as well.

· How do students interact with the teacher?

• The students have a great deal of respect for the teacher. They always appear to be a little upset with themselves when they seem to have let her down in some way. They often walk up to share their work with her or the other adults of the room.

• Teacher behavior

· How does the teacher interact with the students?

• The teacher is very welcoming. She is often firm, but fair. She asks a lot of her students but very clearly enjoys all of their work.

· How does the teacher engage the content material?

• The content in these areas of observation is very simple. The teacher typically does a read-aloud, asking questions throughout and after to check for student understanding and comprehension. She is very firm about having students raise their hands often saying, “Hold your volcano.” During word studies, students are put into groups based on ability and different adults of the room work with different groups individually guiding them through the activities.

• Pedagogy

· What are the observable goals or objectives of the lesson?

• The goals of the lesson are always made clear to the students at the beginning of the lesson. The teacher explains what the class will be doing and what she helps they will walk away knowing. During writer’s workshop, the goal was for students to continue developing personal stories about themselves.

· What specific teaching/learning methods does the teacher use?

• The teacher utilizes read-alouds and thematic units to help teach students about new things in the classroom and different styles and story elements so they can develop their own stories better.

· What specific teaching/learning methods do the students use?

· How does the teacher transition from one activity to the next?

• The teacher typically will transition from one activity to the next by bringing all of the students back to the carpet. This is signaled by a ringing of a bell and the directive to come to the carpet for new directions.

· How do students interact with the content material?

• When listening to read-alouds, the students are extremely engaged. At the start of the stories, most students are sitting upright focused on the story. Depending on the length of the story, by the end, some are often getting fidgety and restless, but still interested in the outcome of the story. When writing their own stories, they love to share with each other and the adults what they are writing about. During math, the students often play “everyday math” games. They enjoy these games, but quickly get bored with them and want to learn new ones often. They are usually pretty active in their work, but they need to have several small activities planned in advance to keep them focused. This is evidenced by the fact that during writer’s workshop, after about fifteen minutes, students start to get up and walk around to other tables and the teacher has to use the bell to get their attention and redirect their focus.

· What resources are used in the lesson? How are they used?

• There are three adults in the classroom for writer’s workshop who walk around and help the students as needed. Writer’s workshop is preceded by a read-aloud and discussion of literary elements. There are several styles of worksheets with varying numbers of lines and smaller room for pictures. Colored pencils, markers, and crayons are all utilized for the illustrations.

· What/who is the focus of the lesson?

• The focus of the lesson is always the students. Additionally, for writer’s workshop, the focus is on developing more detailed sentences and combining sentences to make coherent stories. When helping students, the adults always ask the students who read them their stories different questions to help get more details out of them such as “how they feel, what they saw, etc” and ask the students to expand on it and write it down.

· What kinds of questions do the teacher and students ask?

• Most of the student questions, in fact, almost all of the student questions during writer’s workshop are about spelling. At this point, we as the adults, help the students phonemically sound out the words and write it down.

• Assessment

· How does the teacher check for student understanding of the material?

• During read-alouds, the teacher checks for understanding through comprehension questions. Additionally, she likes to use thematic units. Currently, we are doing a read-aloud unit on Mo Willems. Everyday she reads a different Mo Willems story and asks the students to recall other Mo Willems stories, how they are similar, how they are different, and what literary elements he uses.

· What does the teacher acknowledge as assessment to the students?

• The teacher has not started true assessment of the students yet. She always collects work and goes over it. She has been building a foundation of knowledge on where the students are at educationally. She introduced yesterday the concept of rubric to the students and informed them that next week she will start grading their work on a four point scale to help push them to do the best they can.

· How does the teacher assess students informally?

• As just mentioned, the teacher assesses the students informally through the collection of all of their work. She uses this work as a basis for understanding student needs and uses it to differentiate instruction and create groups.

· What do the assessments look like?

• The assessments come in the form of worksheets and feedback. The students write their stories on worksheets as well as fill out math worksheets. Everyday the teacher brings the students back to the carpet after writer’s workshop and reads a couple of the students’ work out loud and discusses with the class the work and what was good about it and how the other students can incorporate this kind of practice into their own work. Again, formal assessment has not started in the curriculum yet.