Hello Again!
Well, I'm just out of visit #2 to David Coupland's classroom at Kensington Woods charter school. This visit has been focused on technology - but of course that is mixed with general observation on teaching style, school atmosphere, and student engagement (or lack-thereof). It's impossible for me to separate these things at this point.
From a technology perspective, David does some pretty snazzy stuff and let me have a try at the CPS system for grading homework today. He let me input a couple of questions into the system (which was pretty easy) and showed me how the student scores and be reported (he uses a weekly score) so that they can be recorded into his gradebook. The explanation of correct answers on the overhead machine was more of a challenge to me than the CPS system - but I'm sure that in a daily math class that I'm teaching it would come a bit easier. As I saw before, some students seem to like using the clickers and others think "it's stupid, we're not little kids" - but those students might not like anything David tries...
I visited Shawn's classroom again and she was teaching a lesson using the SmartBoard an the TI-84 calculators. She had a nice intro about an activity on body proportion based on Leonardo DiVinci's work (full height:kneeling height = 3/4) and used the SmartBoard to do an intro using some artwork (Mona Lisa and Human Body sketch). The large scale calculator on the SmartBoard really allows the students to see how to get the statistics and graphs for the activity. I wish I'd paid more attention to how to use the graphing calculator - it might have come in handy during my MTTC test today...
Outside of technology observations, the charter school is an interesting contrast to Wayne Memorial. David has generally smaller class sizes (12-25 kids), but seems to have a less motivated set of students than I have seen at Wayne Memorial. I guess that might be due to the fact that I'm with 11-12th graders and college-bound type kids in my placement with Tom Morgan; David and Shawn have mixed grade levels in their classes (depending on ability), and some kids have been kicked out of public schools for behavior or attendance reasons. Shawn has a more in-control group from what I've seen - but she is also teaching pre-cal vs. algebra & geometry. The small school atmosphere of a charter school hold some appeal to me - but I think that my impression of the public school is better at this moment.
That's all for now - my next visit will be later this month! Stay tuned!
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2 comments:
Lynne, thanks for the detailed accounts of your visits. I find it very interesting to read your perceptions of the differences between your students at WMHS and those in the classes you're observing at Kensington. For one thing, I tend to think that students in an intentional community like a charter school are more likely to be more engaged with their studies. Your observations raise the point that this may not necessarily be the case.
I was particularly intrigued by the way in which the Math teacher used DaVinci's sketches as the centerpiece for her math lesson on proportion. My sense is that you felt that the tech component enhanced the learning experience for the kids, possibly offering them an effective means of accessing the ideas the teacher was trying to illustrate. In response to this and/or in future observations I would love to hear your thoughts about where/how/if the technology seems to enhance student learning, or positively affect classroom environment, the learning space, etc. I'd also be interested, over time, in your ideas about what you might want to take with you from the ideas you're seeing, or how what you see inspires other teaching ideas.
Class size-wise, your field placement isn't the only one. Willow Run, even though it's a struggling public school, is doing pretty well in the class size department (though one could argue that it's because of low enrollment). I actually have around 42 7th grade students. My mentor teacher is half of a two-teacher team, and she teaches English then Social Studies to the same 21 kids 1st and 2nd hour, then sends them across the hall and gets another set of kids, who have just had Math and Science from the same teacher. Motivation is still an issue here as well. Interesting parallels, no?
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