Mary Brennan

Dr. Scott Reilly

Field II - Spring 2017

Observation Questions

1.) How does the teacher react to off task behaviors?

After observing several classes, I concluded that the teacher is pretty lenient with
how she deals with off task behavior depending on the days activities, who is exhibiting
the behavior, and what the behavior is. The most common off task behaviors exhibited
are walking around the room, playing on phones during inappropriate times, and having
side conversations. The teacher tends to try to discourage the behaviors by giving stern
warnings; however, these only work for a short time before the behavior is repeated in the
same class period. Just recently, the teacher had to give one of her classes assigned seats
due to the fact that they are a rowdy bunch that is prone to off task behavior. However,
the students seemed to take this new rule as flexible and took advantage of the teachers
leniency until she was forced to yell at them to retain their assigned seats.
According to the teacher, each class has a different social dynamic, so some of her
classroom management techniques work better in some classes than in others. Similarly,
she said that she often opts to give warnings as an attempt to settle the situation in house
when possible rather than sending to the office because greater disciplinary action may
further incite attendance issues for some of her students. She also suggested that her
disciplinary action may vary per student and situation due to the wide array of problems
and personalities that her students have. As a result, she believes that sometimes it is
better to ignore some students off task behaviors in order to keep the majority of the
class on track.

2.) What kind of questioning techniques does the teacher use? Do they ask
higher order questions?
The teacher utilizes questioning mainly to activate prior knowledge and facilitate
class participation in her lessons. When activating prior knowledge, the teachers
questioning tends to be focused on reviewing vocabulary and other terms as a build up
for the current days lesson. Her questioning throughout the lecture seems to try and put
the new information into students existing schemas. For instance, when talking about
sex-linked disease inheritance, she would frequently ask the students to recall what they
knew about dominant and recessive genes in order to determine if the person in the
example could or could not have the disease.
With regards to the use of higher order questions, the teacher utilizes these more
so in terms of problem-solving questions. For example, the classes have been doing a unit
on genetics, so they are frequently given problems to solve using punnett squares and
asked to either turn them in or present them on the board and explain their reasoning.
Overall, I believe that her questioning techniques are appropriate and effective.
The way that she structures her lecture notes

3.) Are the students truly engaged in the lesson most of the time? What does the
teacher do to facilitate this?
I believe that the teacher adequately engages most of the students in her classes
through the means of the lecture structure and the activities she presents in class. Her
lecture format includes given the students a worksheet of questions that they fill in as the
lesson progresses that way they are more likely to stay on task because the worksheet
comprises their daily notes. Also, because her lecture formatted like the worksheet, she
frequently asks for volunteers to read the information from the overheard as their peers
copy it in order to familiarize them with the vocabulary and as a chance for them to
receive the information from a different voice than her own. While the dynamics of each
of her classes are different, she says that she tries not to call on the same students too
often for reading or answering questions in order to get the most involved.
In reference to the activities she uses, the teacher primarily gives worksheets.
After observing a few of her classes, Ive noticed that the teacher most commonly
distributes the worksheets towards the end half of the period and gives them time to
complete them in class. She also instructs them to collaboratively work amongst
themselves in order. According to the teacher, she chooses to allow them this time
because many of them dont complete their homework if it is taken home. As a result,
she often puts stipulations for the homework, such as it will be turned in for a grade or
will be reviewed in class using random volunteers, in order to encourage the students to
utilize the time wisely.
4.) Since the school has multiple biology teachers, how does the teacher ensure
that she is on the same path as the other teachers? Do they share materials?
The teacher stated that the teachers within her department frequently touch base
with each other in order to stay around the same place in their content planning.
However, she told me that while all of them are teaching the same curriculum, the only
thing she and the other teaches share in their planning are the tests for each chapter. The
department got together one summer and designed these chapter tests that adhere to the
keystone material and each of them use them as their summative assessments; however,
they all use their own materials to get to that same point. My co-op stated that they
choose to have their own materials because it allows them to do different activities or
spend longer on certain topics, which enables them to express their own personal
teaching styles.