Analyzing My Observation Of Dana Bealing's AP Calculus Class

When I was in the eighth grade, I had two very contrasting instructors. One instructor was remarkably entertaining, but the other instructor was truly ordinary and tedious. The teacher who was engaging taught mathematics, and the stale teacher taught me literature. The both of them taught my two favorite subjects at the time; however, as the school year went on, my interest in literature declined and my interest in mathematics rose to a special high. The literature teacher taught like every traditional teacher. This instructor’s class had the same routine everyday. The class consisted of taking turns reading out loud and at the end of class, the teacher would stand by the door and hand out the homework for that night, which was over what we read in class. No one looked forward to going to that particular class because it was the same lifeless routine everyday; however, my mathematic teacher was an unpredictable person. He transformed work problems into little games. His teaching tactic goes as follows: he would spend the first half of our hour long class lecturing, then he spent the last half of class constructing work problems on the board with random, absurd work problems. If you got a question right, he gave you the option of either shooting a ball of notebook paper into a basket or throw to the same ball of paper at a bullseye target that was poorly drawn on the board. The trick was either you can receive a piece of candy

The language arts lesson began with Ms. House having the students discuss the use of punctuation in a sentence. I liked how she sternly, but calmly was able to redirect students back to their seats when they came up the book. The students knew exactly what she meant and quickly listened to her. I also noticed how the majority of the times she called on a student whether or not they had their hand raised. This is a great practice because it prepares students to always think about the question asked and to have an answer ready. Ms. House had the students transition to the next activity by standing and shaking their arms and legs. I believe this is a great way to quickly give students a break and then redirect them to the next activity.

Additionally, Paula struggles staying focused and on-task during class instruction. Paula frequently gets lost and distracted with the material in front of her, but Paula makes up for it with her dedication to answer the question correctly. Frequently, Paula observes her peers respond during whole class discussions and also answers some of the questions asked during these discussions. The teacher uses these opportunities as a learning opportunity to highlight the correct answer or guide the students into saying the correct answer. It is great that Paula wants to participate in classroom discussions because she remains fully engaged and frequently offered the opportunity to state his own understandings about the concept or skill he is being taught. Drawing on this observation and the use of intervention work, the teacher can plan future opportunities to allow the students to not only communicate their understandings about the content they are being taught, but to also further drive in the content he is being

Journal one of the Westminster College class EDU 562 Field Experience was related to observation and participation with a first grade classroom, on Monday, January 4, 2016. Upon arrival the class teacher provided instructions to assist in the set up of the classroom January calendar, make a graph of the lunch choices, and to pass out morning work for the students to complete as they arrived in the classroom. At 8:30 a.m. the teacher welcomed most of the students with excitement as they entered the room. She informed the students in detail and repeated the routine and morning arrival instructions. Once everyone arrived, the teacher rang a bell which symbolized it

When she got the fighting under control, there were days that she could not command the attention of the room. I think she realized the administration wasn’t going to do anything more than suspend the students, which wasn’t considered a punishment by them, and that she developed her own strategies of classroom management that were ultimately successful.

moments of tension or surprise when students should stop and jot their thoughts, ideas and questions about the text. The

In order to find out how the homeroom teacher Ms. Mendez*, collaborates with parents an interview took place on February 21 after school. The interview has taught me the importance of documentation. When conducting parent teacher conferences or speaking to administration, data needs to be presented in regards to students’ academic progress. Thus, documenting everything the student does will serve as evidence to parents and faculty. Additionally, Mrs. Mendez makes sure to bring grades, test scores, anecdotal notes, and work samples when conferencing with parents and/ or the school administration. Although, the school sends out progress reports every four weeks and report cards every semester, Mrs. Mendez uses ClassDojo for parents to be informed of the class content each week.

During fourth period on Thursday, January 28th I observed Dee Hertzog’s Honors Geometry class. At the beginning of class Dee went around checking to see which students completed their previous night’s homework assignment. While this was going on students were expected to work on the warm-up problems that were projected on the Promethean Board. After Dee was done checking in with each student on the homework assignment she asked two students to work together to put their work and answers to the warm-up problems on the board. This warm-up was then reviewed with the class. While reviewing the warm-up problem, Dee activated prior knowledge by asking the students if they remembered using the Pythagorean Theorem. She asked the students what they

Obstacles can easily change one’s journey in life. I believe I did have to overcome obstacles to succeed in AP Calculus, but they are quite different than those of the characters in the movie. In the movie, basically every character had a large obstacle to stop them from taking the class. For example, Angel was hindered by his activity within a gang. Ana had to deal with her father who wanted her to drop out of school and join the family business. Pancho had to choose between joining the workforce and his possible future as a student. Personally, the obstacles I faced were fundamentally different than those in the movie. For me, I had to overcome obstacles like not understanding the content that we learned in Honors Pre-Calculus the year

Last year as a junior, my AP Calculus class and I received the opportunity to paint a mural on a wall to demonstrate our hard work throughout the year. The one catch, however, was we had to design and paint it all within fifteen days. My class and I were very motivated and began work as soon as possible. We brainstormed ideas for the design of the mural to incorporate as many calculus concepts as possible while also combining it with hidden messages that had special meaning to our class. At the same time, our goal was to make the mural fun and appealing to all by-passers. Now it was time to take our concepts, and begin the process of painting the mural. Initially, we had roughly seventeen students who could paint and help out but that number

In chapter one of the The Calculus Diaries, ‘To Infinity and Beyond’, a handful of great minds’ lives are discussed. Every life story had one thing in common: Calculus. Attempts at understanding this concept came short of spectacular for many of these people. Each one of them had used prior knowledge to create their own understanding of infinitesimal differences. Euclid used his knowledge in geometry to assist him, Eudoxus used approximation to get as close as he could to decipher precise calculations, and crazily enough, Isaac Newton used a casual apple experience.

The following Monday, he handed us two sheets of integral problems. The problems were confusing and complicated at first glance, but to me they were easy to do since I had been reviewing this concept beforehand. After completing the assignment, I looked up from my paper to find that some of my peers were struggling and asking the teacher for help. The others were still working on the assignment.

This writer observed a yearbook class at a KUSD high school; the class consisted of junior and senior students. This observer arrived at 11 o’clock to discuss the daily lesson plan with the cooperating teacher before the first class started. The teacher carefully wrote out the class goals and imminent deadlines prominently on the whiteboard. She stated that the key to a successful class is to clearly explain the expectations at the beginning of the class period. Students began to arrive at the half hour mark; the teacher greeted each student individually as they entered the classroom, making conversation as she waited for a majority of the class to be present. Once all of the students were stationed at their computers, the teacher demanded silence, and called their attention to the board. The teacher went over her expectations for what

Students requiring assistance in a specific area are removed from class during the lesson’s time slot as an attempt to assist and improve a student’s understanding of said lesson.

My practicum took place on September 7,2016 from nine thirty to ten thirty. The practicum took place at Impact Early College High School in Baytown. The class I observed was Ms. Nguyen’s class of juniors and seniors that contained twenty students, seven boys and thirteen girls. The class appeared to be alert and ready to learn. Since this was their second period class they already had enough time to shake off their fatigue. The subject was Pre-Calculous and the topic was operations of functions. Students entered the classroom in a calm manner and socialized until it was time to start class. The teacher instructed the students to take their seats and take five minutes to write their assignments into their academic calendar. The teacher went