I really liked how Mrs. Fagan did rotation. She met with three small groups separately
for math and reading. This reminded me
of the school in Finland that we had learned about. While she was working with her small group,
the other students would be working on something else, such as: spelling words,
writing in cursive, word hunts, worksheets or activities on the laptop. Before the next lesson starts, Mrs. Fagan
tests the students. The group is
different each time, depending on the scores of the student's test. The students that had difficulties with the
test would have more practice problems with the teacher. For the students that have mastered that
lesson, Mrs. Fagan goes over new material to challenge them. Like Ayers, Mrs. Fagan chose to use her desk
as a worktable for her and her students.
Mrs. Fagan is not a fan of the testing, but she does like
the common core. She told me the old way
was too simplistic. Now the students
have to show how they figured out the problems and explain their answer. She told me Shaker schools have a large
amount of support and intervention. In
fact, an IB teacher worked firsthand with some of her students in her
classroom.
Mrs. Fagan had the class lesson on a Word document on the
computer. The document would transfer
over to the Smart Board. The students
would sit on the carpeting, surrounding the Smart Board to go over the
lesson. Mrs. Fagan wrote problems on the
board and the students would go up to the board to solve the problem. The ten hours that I had spent in Mrs.
Fagan’s classroom, I did not see her building bridges with the students. Ayers always stressed the importance of
teachers incorporating material that the students like and are interested in,
too. I liked that she did not use the
banking concept in her teaching. There
were plenty of hands-on activities, rather than the teacher being a narrating
subject and the student, a listening object.
All of the students were very eager to learn. When they knew the answer they would be so
excited and raise their hand as high as possible, even if that meant standing
up. They would wave their hand anxiously
in the air, hoping to be called on.
Ayers defined a great teacher as one who interacts with the students and
draws energy and direction from them.
Mrs. Fagan did just that. The
teacher told me one of the students has behavior problems. This reminded me of Ayers and "the
people with the clipboards," who diagnose and label students. Although I have not spent too much time with
this student; to me, it just looked like he was excited to learn. As I have learned in class, it is important
to see beyond the problem child and recognize that he has a wide range of
dimensions – some challenging, some hopeful.
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