Esl Observation Papers

Mrs. Alice McLoughlin-Doro is a Special Education teacher at Downers Grove South High School in Downers Grove, Illinois. The community is known for its excellent school districts. According to the 2010 census there were 47, 833 people living in Downers Grove with approximately 19,000 households and 13,000 families. The racial makeup of the school was reported to be 88% White, 3% African American, 5% Hispanic, 0.2% American Indian or Alaskan Native, 5% Asian, and 1.6% from two or more races. About 1.7% of families were below the poverty line. The school district report card reports the following racial/ethnic background for the school: 68.1% White, 10.3 African American, 11% Hispanic, 7.3% Asian, 0.2% American Indian, and 3.2% two or more races. The elementary schools, middle schools, and high school all perform very well academically receiving above state average scores on standardized tests. She has been working there for 10 years and is currently a Case Manager of 17 students, all with an IEP, all with different needs and goals in the LD department. She co-teaches two general education classes in English intervention, all freshman. Although she is a Special Education teacher, she works with all the students. She also teaches a READ 180, Tier 3 reading and english intervention. This is where we will be focusing on for this

I teach first grade at Lowe Elementary School; my class is made up of twenty-four very diverse seven year-olds; they come from all over the city of Louisville, from a variety of socio-economic situations. Each student brings a unique personality to our classroom community, and they all work hard to become “smarter and smarter” and to “go to college”. Thirteen students are boys and eleven are girls. Of these twenty-four students, three of them are English Language Learners. Additionally, eight students receive tier two interventions and two receive tier three interventions in reading. In math, five students are tier two and four are tier three. I also teach one student who receives ECE services for a developmental delay. Within my class there is a wide achievement gap.

Dingess Elementary School is a Pre-K through fourth grade school with one hundred seventy-five students currently enrolled. We currently house one preschool special needs classroom and one Head Start classroom, two kindergarten classrooms, one first grade classroom, one first second grade split classroom, one second grade classroom, two third grade classrooms and one fourth grade classrooms (ten classrooms total). We have one full time music teacher, one special education teacher, and because of Title I funding we have one Instructional Coach, Title I teacher, and Sonday Instructor. We have a library assistant, a Title I parent coordinator on staff as well. We have a speech language pathologist two days a week and several itinerant

For this scenario, I am a general education 6th grade math teacher, at the amazing campus of Our Lady of the Lake Middle School. The school that I work for has 8 periods each day, and I teach 6 out of those 8 periods. The classes do range for each period, but I roughly have 23 students in each class and with a diverse set of students; Hispanic (50.1%), White (40.8%), Black (4.8%), two or more races (3.1%), Asian (1%), and Pacific Islander (.2%). At Our Lady of the Lake Middle School the student’s population is broken down to 46% females and 54% males that attend the school. Socioeconomic details for the school is broken down to; eligible free lunch (43.3%), eligible fore reduced lunch (8.2%), and ineligible for free/reduced lunch (48.5%).

The school that I work in is located in Frederick, Maryland. We have nearly 800 students that attend Kindergarten through 5th grade, and with diverse backgrounds. The school is located in a very prosperous neighborhood, with several additional sections of townhomes and apartment complexes which house Section 8. All of these are within walking distance to the school. In Frederick County there are over 2,500 ELL students and more than 11,000 that are FARM (Free And Reduced Meals) students. Our graduation rate is superb with an over 93% graduation rate and a 3.5% dropout rate. This

So, we do have . . . the English Language Learners as a subgroup in our school. We also have the autistic support population of students in our special education department, we have . . . [a] magnet . . . special education population . . . [pause] trying to think, outside of those particular groups if there is anything to consider. We don't have a large African American population, even for a large school, I would have to pull out our . . . profile even to just take a look . . . [and] not a very large Latino population [pause] and we are in the area of the district where we do have a higher SES status. So, we do not have a large number of historically underperforming students.

A majority of the students in Middle Tennessee Public Schools come from a low- income family household. The school in which I work, Clearview Middle School is not only low- income, but is also a “priority” school. Priority schools are in the bottom five percent in being in the category of lowest- performing in the school district. The population of students at Clearview Middle School are majority African- American, but the cultures among the school are rich and diverse. Many students at Clearview Middle School have high potential of achieving great academic success, but fall short due consistent classroom disruptions throughout the day.

Silas Willard elementary school is mostly populated with students that are white. Hispanic and black students are the next two ethnicities. There is a 57.4% of kids coming from a low income family, which is awfully sad because that is more than half the students. The kids with limited English is only about 3% so that shouldn’t really be an issue. It says only 5% are homeless which seems pretty low, but could be something that they could fix in the future. The mobility rate is pretty low at 12.5%. The student attendance rate is at 94% which I think is really impressive. I think that demographic wise, the children the issues seem to be pretty low, so I feel like there shouldn’t be too many challenges for them. The class size for this school

I intend to teach at Davis High School (DHS), which is located in Yakima, Washington. According to the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI), DHS has 2,097 students enrolled, and 77.9% qualify for free and reduced lunch. About 8.5% of the student body need special education, and 18.2 are in transitional bilingual education. The school makeup is 83% Hispanic, 11.3% White, 3.1% of two or more races, 1.5% Black, and other ethnic groups. There is a 21 to 1 student to teacher ratio; 60% of the teachers have at least a master’s degree; and the average teacher experience is 15 years.

Many researchers have been ambivalent about the effects of seating arrangements in the classroom on students’ academic performance. There have been many studies on classroom seating arrangements to see which one is best for student academic performance. Since classroom desk arrangements have been found to have an impact on student achievement (Wannarka & Ruhl (2008). With all the research studies that have been conducted over the past several decades, researchers have applied their findings to current classroom practice.

In the observed lesson, the teacher has strategically placed desks in a way that amplifies the potential discussion between the students in the inner circle. The students are able to easily pay attention to the speaker, which enhances retention and allows students to implement active listening in regard to their peers. This is not only found in

If the teacher and their students have nothing in common, they are not going to connect on very many levels. Pre-service teachers need to have experience working with students from different communities as them selves. We need more teacher diversity, which would start with making the educational field more lucrative, and provide more support getting individuals through higher education. Teachers should consider a students’ diversity to be an asset, and support students with peer and teacher support networks. (NEA, http://www.nea.org/home/13550.htm) A number of conscious efforts to pursue and support positive interracial learning and communities are needed. There should be in-service training for teachers and staff in techniques to improve race relations among students in their classes and to train the staff in welcoming newcomers visiting the school. Housing counseling should provide recipients of certificates and vouchers information about school quality at the addresses under consideration and encourage people to consider moves to more integrated neighborhoods and schools offering stronger educational opportunities. Possible solutions to educational inequality include: Access to early education, safer neighborhoods and access to better housing and standards of living. Improved K-12 school experience and high expectations of all

Although demographics are excellent, there are still learning challenges that confronting the learning community. For example - 10 students and their families recently joined the school after migrating from overseas. These students and their families require a range of

The small group area is close to my student’s independent work areas because I would like to be easily accessible to my students if they need my assistance during their independent work time. I also chose this positioning because it gives me the best vantage point, whether my students are at a center, at their desk or at the computers, they are visible at all times. The independent work area is located in the center point of the room, purposefully far away from other centers, such as computers, that might distract the students from their work. I decided to give the students desk, which in one way promotes their own independent work, but I also have pushed the desks together in such a way that promotes collaboration

My first observation took place in a third grade classroom of twenty-two students. All students were of Mexican descent and labeled as intermediate/advanced English language learners. The classroom environment itself was very warm and welcoming. There was a bulletin board that displayed pictures of students and their families along with autobiographies. There was another bulletin board dedicated to celebrating Mexican culture and people. The teacher was a Caucasian women in her mid twenties with three years of teaching experience.