Context for Learning

My school is a middle school of 7th and 8th grade. While talking to my Master Teacher, he mentioned that this middle school is feeded by a demographic mix of elementary schools.

I was lucky enough that my placement was with a teacher who taught not only an accelerated English class, but also classes that have students who are struggling with meeting the standards. For the first couple weeks I got to observe both classes and interact with the students during busy time. Each class has about 25 to 30 kids and every desk has a student. This English class is a required for the year, but they do have shifts of content and focus in each semester. Last quarter I was at the school for about four hours a week, and now I have shifted into nine hours plus a bit more with an extra planning period to plan and reflect with my cooperating teacher.

His class is set up differently that the other classes in the building. Walking by the classrooms you see that most of them have individual desks in rows. My placement classroom has large tables that form spacious groups of five or six students. I really like this set up because it lets the student’s engage learning with each other and it fits my teacher’s teaching-style well.

Lately, the students have been working on their skills in essay writing. (Mostly this is due to the MSP test that will be coming up soon.) BUT, they also have been working out of a big blue literature text book that has a collection of stories with review questions and quick-write prompts. The students also have been involved in the AR reading program. Where the students read a book according to a specific level and then take a test online to show their understanding of the book. My placement classroom has three computers specifically for this program, but they are also available for word processing.

My teacher uses his room to the fullest, everyday there is an entry task on the smart board and directions for important tasks for the day on the white board. He also uses his window as a surface to write on and leaves important information up for students to look and recall details of writing.

I really enjoy the students in the two of the seventh grade classes that I am now a part of. They are very engaging with the subject matter and really love to create rather than reproduce required learning. (Some would rather create metaphors that involve inevitable crashing meteors and life of a middle school student than write a persuasive essay on school uniforms.) =) They all show a definite want to do better and show their work off. I loved having the students come up and show me how clever they can be through their poetry. The classes are evenly about 50/50 boys and girls. I am pretty sure that many of the students can speak more than one language, but I am not aware of any of them being involved in ESL programs.