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For our class this week, we had the opportunity to visit the local county elementary and high school. While I was able to visit both a fifth and tenth grade English class, I chose to focus this post on my observations of the tenth grade class. In preparation for the class, I took a look at the VDOE Standards of Learning to see the expectations and learning goals of the class in which I was entering. The state has emphasized four different areas in which they want students to focus on: communication and multimodal literacies, reading, writing, and research. Social interaction and collaboration with literature and the ability to understand, discuss, and interpret a variety of texts from different cultures is emphasized. With writing, there is a continued emphasis on the writing process and structure with the ability to incorporate evidence that supports or contradicts their claim. Also to be able to peer review another’s work and receive and respond to critical comments. In regard to research, tenth grade students are expected to be able to utilize and discern reliable sources and incorporate them, along with correct MLA and APA citations. Also to understand ethical use of the internet and media and the consequences of plagiarism.

In practice, these skills would help students to understand learning as a collaborative practice. Also, writing and research as a recursive process that requires exterior support and feedback. This would also help students to understand other point of views and opinions and be able to defend or alter their own opinion. Teaching this, however, would prove difficult. A teacher needs to be able to foster conversation among students with the intent to facilitate rather than dictate. Students may also be coming into class at different levels of writing and reading comprehension and may need more instruction to able to reach this level of collaboration. So a teacher needs to also be able to know when to provide this support and instruction.

In my observations of the Tenth Grade classroom, I seemed to see a bit of a contradiction to this standard. However, the day that I had observed, there was a focused lesson on grammar, so this may have been more of an abnormal day. They had also already completed reading their book for their next essay, so there was not a reading discussion scheduled for the day. Before class began, I started observing the physical environment of the classroom. The teacher stood outside to greet students as they came through the door. There were also very bright colored walls and lots of grammar and encouraging posters around the room. The desks were organized in rows, with the teacher’s desk, a projector, and a podium up front. The students then started the class off with “Thursday Thoughts” journal entries. The one for that day was on whether or not they read or believe in horoscopes. However, this seemed a bit rushed and the students did not discuss their answers. After this, the teacher gave a required school shooter training. This was more interactive, with the teacher asking questions about what they would do in that situation. However, the teacher seemed to get a bit upset if students did not answer. The bulk of the class was then taken up by a lecture on independent and dependent clauses and Introduction paragraph hooks, with students filling in note worksheets. Then there was a time for questions. During the last fifteen minutes of class, students were also given the opportunity to work on their introduction paragraphs, based on the lecture on hooks. The teacher had a strong presence, but not very conversational with the students. There was also a co-teacher who sat at the front of the class to help students when they were independently working. She also added commentary to the lecture to help provide more information. While the lecture was not very conversational, the teacher did invite students to speak with her if they were struggling, needed some feedback, or wanted to talk. So this seemed to encourage more of the idea that learning is a collaborative endeavor that the standards of learning encourage.

I saw the writing of introductory paragraphs at the end of the lecture as Evidence of Learning, in reference to what they had just been taught about the different types of hooks and when to use them. I did not see much evidence of PBL, but having the students write essays on the book they had just read showed effort in engaging students practically into what they were learning. I also thought having the students start the class with journaling about something in everyday life allowed them to casually apply the writing skills they were learning to reflection on their home life. This shows some engagement with PBL philosophies.

By: Rachel Mininger