Hist Cooperating Teacher Gets an A+
February 25, 2009 tg1138block
Describe: The first day that I was able to go with my history cooperating teacher was a day of fresh air. She had all of the students engaged in the lecture, and she appealed to all of the different types of learning styles. Her room was set up in an orderly fashion that made it easy to navigate throughout the entire class. She had a monthly calendar on the chalkboard which outlined the entire month. There were textbooks in the back of the room and there were different kinds of maps up throughout the classroom.I could tell that this teacher had been trained in disciplinary literacy and classroom management.
Analyze: The class started off with a warm-up activity where the students had to go get their notebooks at the front of the room, and they had two minutes to write about what their favorite New Deal Program was. I was surprised to see that most of the kids began right away; however, 2 minutes turned into 7 minutes. Then the teacher introduced the Dust Bowl, and used the image of the raisin box to portray to the students the image of why people wanted to go to California during the Great Depression. I thought that was interesting because she was able to use something from today to help the students understand why people were moving west. Then she played a 7 minute video on the Dust Bowl, and after the movie she talked to the students about the Dust Bowl, and how it affected migration patterns. Next she immediately turned the students lose to work on their ongoing research paper about the Great Depression. All of the students had chosen a book from her library cart full of books to write their paper on the Depression. Some students were writing about FDR while others were writing about MGM. I thought that was interesting because she was able to provide the students with choice to keep them engaged in their papers. She passed out an outline guide for the students, so that they could get started on picking out the main ideas. The students immediately dug their noses into their books and began writing. I felt that the teacher was very effective in promoting disciplinary literacy in the classroom.
Reflection: I can’t say that I would do anything different than what she did. I can only hope that I am as effective as she is in promoting disciplinary literacy in the classroom. I think that the only thing that I would change would be to teach the students how to use more than just one resource to come up with their paper. However, I realize that resources are limited in a high school library, so it is hard for me to fault her for this. I would also try and get the students into the computer lab for at least one class period, so that they could do more extensive research on their topics. I think that she did an outstanding job at promoting disciplinary literacy and that she is a successful teacher.The key to her success was her classroom management skills and the rapport she built with the students. I am going to be able to learn a great deal from her, and I am excited to do so.
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1. jb50block&hellip | February 28, 2009 at 6:39 pm
What a nice description and analysis, Tara! I like all the teacher terms that you’re using, such as warm-up, choice, disciplinary literacy, lecture, etc. This shows me that you’re making connections between what you’re learning in my class (and the reading class) and in your cooperating teacher’s class. Good job!