We started class by talking about your next lesson plan, and making plans to for you to teach your second class.
Class observation workshop
We then talked about doing observations - why you might do one, and how you want that document to function in your portfolio.
I felt that the second page of the "what new teacher's need to learn" link on Lew's blog gave excellent food for though regarding what you might want to learn from a class observation.
For the written document in your portfolio you will want to consider the following:
Who is your audience? We decided, for you, audience will be complex; that is you may choose to engage in a performance where you state that you are the audience for this document (so you can learn something about the classroom you observe) => but that the observation will be an opportunity to illustrate for future employers how you use your observational abilities to learn about/become better at teaching.
What is your purpose? You might use your observation to explore classroom culture, practices for assessment, how the curriculum is put into practice in the classroom, classroom management starategies, connections to the larger community, or any other feature of teaching/social interactions you want to learn.
We then brainstormed up a list of features we might note if we were observing classroom cultuer. These included:
teacher actions/interactions/appearance etc
dynamics of communication
characteristics of the student population
power relationships
distribution of responsibilities (who is responsible for what - teachers? students?)
behaviors etc
Form for writing up observations:
As a kind of preface, create an introductory note that states the purpose, context, time and other relevant factors your audience needs to understand in order to be able to interpret your introduction. If you use your blog (your observations from over the semester) point out that your "data" / examples you base your conclusions on have come from a blog you kept throughout the term. If you use detailed notes from a single observation focused on one feature - such as classroom culture - state that.
The body of your observation should correlate roughly with forms for ethnographic writing.
Many ethnographic accounts begin with an "arrival story" that places you in the observation context. This provides you the opportunity to present a detailed description of the context + your purpose for being there.
After placing your reader in the scene with you => state the terms of your analysis: what you will be looking at. Provide whatever context for the examples that follow.
Then make 2-3 points with respect to your focus. In each point, set up a focus, provide some detailed description to provide the "data" for the point you make. This part should read like a story, possibly with dialog. Analyze/state what the description shows with respect to the observation's overall focus.
Finally - sum up what you learned (how you accomplished your purpose). Make references to your examples..
Teaching philosophies workshop
During the last half of class you gave short presentations on your teaching philosophies and fielded the class' & my feedback so as to work on the "persona" or overall "guiding perspective" that you wanted to shine through your specific points. I think you did a great job on that - and as I said at the end of class, the focus in each of your philosophies very much correlated with my impressions of who you are as teachers => so well done. We generally agreed that you should hit what you see as the central purpose of your teaching, what in particular you teach(your focus); how you teach (your practices); your methods for assessing/giving feedback and that all of these features of your philosophy should loosely connect to your core beliefs/persona. We talked about closing with a kind of "what's next" or "where I am going" section = but it whether you make this move depends on your purpose, audience and style. Good job on these - and if you send me revised documents at some point - I will give written feedback if you want it.
For next class:
1. I will return the commented on papers with comments.
2. Send me a copy of your draft syllabus + calendar, assignment series, lesson plans for the second lesson. I will accept these in any form you send them. We will workshop them in class at whatever stage they are in.
We will also set up your porfolio.
Have a good Thanksgiving and see you next week!
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