1. I am working in a 5th grade classroom.
2. I am observing at Carrie Busie Elementary School
3. The teacher instructs the students basically from the textbook as well as long term projects that he has designed and used for many years. He generally does his instruction to the class as a whole and shies away from group work. He feels that in group situations some students learn nothing more then relying on others and can not do things for themselves. He uses the chalk board primarily to instruct the class. He does no use the over head on a regular basis.
4. In my observation I see the children move about mostly in the morning
when they first arrive in the classroom for the day. They have places
to store their bags and coats in the classroom so the children are busy
in at this time getting their books from the bags to the desks as well
as turning in their papers to the teachers. There is also a lot of
movement because the students have to sign up for lunch for the day and
other class management activities. Once the bell rings the students
stand at their desks and recite the Pledge of Allegiance as a class.
After that they sit in their desks for the remainder of the time that I
am observing.
5. The room is only congested when many of the children are trying
to hang up their coats and gather their books from their bags in the morning.
Besides this time there is little congestion.
6. The children generally only use the area of the room where their desks are. They other areas of the room are used for storing science projects and other presentations that the students have worked on.
7. The decoration in the room is generally designed by another teacher in the school who specializes in Standard Testing. She had made many posters that where displayed throughout the room to help the students keep a clear mind during the testing week. Other decorations include posters that were bought by either the school or the teacher himself.
8. The one change that I would make in the room is how the children are arranged in their desks. There are 24 kids in the room and they are arranged in 8 groups of three desks put together. Each group of three is exclusively girls or boys. I think that this is a good idea because of the age group that they are at. They probably feel more comfortable with other children of their same gender. What bothers me is that the girls sit in the front and the boys sit in the back of the classroom. When it is time to go outside the classroom, the girls leave first and the boys follow. This bothers me because I feel that a teacher should not use gender as a way of discriminating between one student to another.
9. I like the way that the room is arranged in the classroom. There is plenty of room for the children to move about and store long term science projects. The students are also arranged in a way that would make group work easy and possible. There is also plenty of room for classroom maintenance such as folders to turn in their homework or permission ships or what have you.