Jace Flores Student Teacher Blog

Category: Learning Environment

Three Observations

Observation 1: Community Building

I will keep stressing this one, but the community that has been built in Brian’s class has been a triumph I think. While it has not made productivity, focus or classroom management perfect, it has been very helpful with these. The sort of personal bonds had make directions or instructions more friendly if that makes sense. I think it is particularly noticeable when we have weekly meetings with the other 10th grade students and hear what other kids are up to the teachers deem worth bringing up. A lot of the students brought up have been pretty good/cooperate in our classes despite struggling in the other classes, which I think in large part is from the community building that was established. You can also see the contrast in the crew class where things are significantly more difficult to get students to buy in, with a big difference is we had no time to get to know the kids and adjust them before diving into the crew content. Again, I think this just highlights how vital establishing community is at the start of the year as it has a cascading effect on the outcome of the following weeks and months.

Observation 2: Learning Style

Something that is very different with virtually any type of class I have taken is the emphasis on group work. Usually Brian will start with a warmup and have a bit of a content primer, no longer then a few minutes. He will then pass out papers or packets which have the instructions and content they need for the period, with the kids working in groups to read the content and answer some questions had on the instructions. I quite like this for a variety of reasons. The first is that it encourages the kids to work together and cooperate, which I think is very important as cooperation is something which can serve the kids well throughout their lives. The second is it allows for better monitoring and assistance, as me and Brian can come around to the different groups, check in and provide any help they need. The more personable aspect of this makes a lot of this management and assistance more effective. The third is that, frankly, for me there is a lot less anxiety with group work focus then doing full class work that makes it more comfortable for me as well now that I am teaching.

Observation 3: Energy Level

An interesting thing to see in the different periods across different times and personalities is the energy levels of a class. Generally speaking classes seem to be the most cooperative and productive in the morning, presumably after many of the kids have had coffee and are not drained from school work. This generally holds until after lunch time. The post-lunch time classes are interesting because there are a wide array of possibilities. The most common, unsurprisingly, is the kids are bouncing off the walls with energy and are harder to manage and get/stay on task. The next most likely possibility is a sleep coma state where the kids fall asleep in droves and are very low energy after being roused back. The least likely possibility is the kids have comparable energy to morning sections. Interestingly end of day sections (of which there is one) are fairly similar to morning periods in energy levels, perhaps buoyed by the prospect of school ending. Class personalities also have a major effect. Period 4 is very energetic with the most disruptors, Period 6 is energetic but to a healthy degree, a nice balance between personality and productivity, and Period 1 is rather sublime.

October 23, 2024
Two Week Observations

I think the most important thing I observed the past couple weeks is the importance of establishing environment. Brian emphasizes the creation of a warm, inviting and friendly environment to try and balance the personalities of the kids with the expectations of work. Kids are given leeway to do some things many other teachers would not tolerate, such as talking to each other, putting their heads down, doodling a bit, and so on. There are boundaries of course to the limit of this and Brian makes this clear by asking the class to refocus if the level of distraction is too much. But in essence the kids are allowed to be themselves, which I think helps with building trust, teacher-student camaraderie and getting them to focus when the teacher wants them to.

Something that was interesting on a school level and seeps into all the classes is that Freire has a pretty comprehensive set of values and expectations that they really push. Many if not most schools have these, but Freire is interesting in that they are not necessarily lip service to get some brownie points and never actually do anything with. Freire is clear and repetitive of what it expects of the students and their education, with teachers incorporating aspects to varying degrees as they see fit. Some are practical things like no food or phones must be in YONDR pouches, while others are more abstract like be a mistake maker or be a self-advocate.

With the students I have observed some pretty positive things. The students are fairly well behaved overall (mercy on those teaching right after lunch), and I think a large part of that is the environment facilitated in the class. For example, kids I shadowed from one history class to a subsequent math class went from being pretty jovial to being stressed out and frustrated. The kids notably have pretty good critical thinking skills and are not afraid to diverge from each other in their answers to complex or nuanced questions. Can they be frustrating and very distracted? Yes, but they do seem invested in doing the work and doing it well, even if it is just for a grade at the end of the day.

September 15, 2024
Classroom Space

The classroom, Room 311 or Mr. Brian’s Room as it may be called, is tight. Both literally and metaphorically. Literally speaking the classroom is constricted by a lack of space relative to the student size (and it is likely we will be taking on more 10th graders the week of 9/9 that will make this worse), so the maneuver room is veering on nonexistent. On a more metaphorical room, Mr. Brian has designed the space quite well to be inviting and thematic without being gaudy or excessive. There are history related posters on the wall by his desk, some Penn State mementos on The Fridge wall and next to the smart board. He also has a pride flag and BLM flag near the fridge to show his support for these respective causes.

On a more practical level each wall has a surface which serves its own function. The most important is the smartboard where Mr. Brian displays everything, such as the agenda, warmup, instructions, exit ticket and so on. It seems rather intuitive to use and naturally Mr. Brian has his laptop connected to it (though he has a personal laptop to handle things that don’t need to be displayed on the board, like reviewing student answers, handling emails, etc). The Fridge is a poster which is designed vaguely like an LG fridge, with the purpose of being a space where Mr. Brian can hang up work he considers exceptional. So far there has been one piece of work he has decided to put up on The Fridge. The wipe board by the door is for logistics where the daily community goal, class goal and homework is written for the 10th grade and APUSH. Not much else to this board. The last wall has a more fun wipe board that contains the quote of the week, history event of the day, a scoreboard for class participation points and a large mascot in the center. Students can guess what the mascot is by writing the answer on a slip and putting it in a nearby box. At the end of the week he randomly draws guesses and the first five to get it right are put up on the board and given some bonus points. A fun community building activity.

Now given the lack of room in the classroom there is not a lot of customization that can be done with desks, but I think Mr. Brian has done a good job. He has the desks split in two halves facing towards what he calls the aisle, which allows him to walk up and down the classroom to get a good look at the bulk of the students, particularly useful for when they do group work. He has the desks largely arranged around multiples of four because the students frequently do group work in fours, with the kids turning their desks in place when working (an efficient product of the lack of space). It is hard reaching the kids in the back near the mascot white board, but there is not much that can be done given the lack of room.

Overall I think given the major constraints in physical space Mr. Brian has done a good job in arranging the room to facilitate maximum teacher-student interactability and having the kids being able to work together or see the smart board. The walls are intelligently used for practical and fun purposes. We just dread having more students crammed in.

September 7, 2024