Teacher Observations- Kellie

On my previous post, I mentioned how I had observed Donalyn. On the same day, I also observed Kellie.

One of the first things I noticed about her classroom was that the desks were in an unusual arrangement.


But it seemed to work for her in this arrangement. She still had team points and everything, it was just three big teams. I am not sure if this would work for me, but it was interesting all the same.

I noticed that she too ignored some of the wiggles and out of proper chair position like Donalyn did. I decided after seeing both of the teachers deal with that problem that way that I need to relax a bit more about all of my kids sitting properly all the time. As long as they are paying attention, and the lesson is going well, why interrupt myself to have someone sit better. Maybe some kids just need to wiggle.

One really nice transition thing that Kellie did was have their papers for their next activities already on their desk. This eliminated a lot of the time wasted for transitions. I think that one of my experimental lessons would be to try having everything they need for the day already on their table so that for each subject they just need to move it from the top of their desk to in front of them, and we don't have to spend so much of the day looking for missing books/papers/markers etc. My fear is that kids would work and or fiddle with the things on their desk, but who knows, it might not be so bad.

Also, when students got out of the spelling game, they went back to their seats and had to write out the word that got them out of the game 10 times and then do board work. I thought this was a great idea, because I do frequently have problems with those kids who are out of the activity keeping calm and their behavior in check, because they figure they are already out of the game anyways.

I also learned a teaching strategy for a spelling game that I thought was fun. It doesn't really help me for behavior strategies, but was a fun game all the same.

Other things I noticed:
-Uses "What's the procedure?" or child's name to redirect bad behavior
-Praises the quiet student
-Kept all of the kids engaged by the game moving fast
-Kids are not allowed to say, "I don't know" but they can pass

Things I am going to apply from this observation:
-Ignore some of the wiggles to focus on the lesson
-Have an activity planned for kids once they get out of the game
-Have all of the supplies for a few activities already on the desk to ease transition times.