Classroom Observation #2

For my second classroom observation on May 22nd, I visited Thomas Alva Edison Middle
School in South Los Angeles. I observed Mr. Jimmy Martinez’s 2nd period, 7th grade World
History and Geography class, which, as per state standards, covered Medieval and Early Modern
Times. In Mr. Martinez’s classroom, the day’s objective, agenda, and content standards were
written on the board. The day’s objective was for 85% of students to be able to analyze the
effects that the Age of Exploration had in Europe and the world.
There were about 30 students in the classroom and most were quite rowdy. There were a
lot of side conversations and I saw a few students not-so-discreetly using their phones. But
despite the plethora of chitchat around the room, only a few students were truly disruptive.
Mainly the ones walking around during the guided practice, distracting other groups of students
when they should have been discussing the material with their own group. Those students were
swiftly reprimanded for their disruptive behavior and made to sit. For most of the instruction
portion, I noticed students were otherwise distracted and did not listen to directions in a timely
manner. For example, it took Mr. Martinez a couple of tries to count down from three to one as a
preestablished cue for students to quiet. And when he asked them to retrieve their textbooks and
turn to a certain page, less than half of the students initially listened, and took more than five
minutes for them to just turn to the assigned page. There was also a lack of participation from the
class when Mr. Martinez asked questions during instruction to assess their understanding. After
class was dismissed, Mr. Martinez was apologetic, claiming that the kids were unruly because
the end of the semester was so close, and they were generally excited for summer. He also
confided in me that the 7th graders this years were notorious for their rebellious behavior, both
inside and outside the classroom.
I observed that Mr. Martinez did not use PowerPoint nor images throughout the class and
relied heavily on the textbook for reading material. While his instruction was clear and concise
and delivered in a simple dialogue, I feel that students would have benefited from more visuals.
Students, I have found, are often visual learners, and he did not really cater to those students’
needs. He did, however, write out the answers to the reading the students analyzed during guided
practice and projected them so that students who were not fast in their writing had the chance to
copy it down at their own pace.

Mr. Martinez asked several questions during the instruction and guided practice to ensure
that the students knew what they were discussing. When writing down the answers to the guided
practice, he asked the class how they were going to word the answer in a more concise,
“academic” way. I found that this was an effective way to determine if students could paraphrase
the reading, and thus demonstrate that they understood it. Mr. Martinez successfully engaged
students several times during the guided practice when he collected answers but did not do so in
the independent practice.

As per the History-Social Science Common Core Standard, students learned about the
growing economic interactions and exchanges of ideas and commodities. They learned about
how the quest to discover more trade routes to India led to the discovery of the Americas. The
lesson focused heavily on finding proof within the text that was being analyzed, which is a
valuable skill to develop for history.

The lesson was well-balanced. Mr. Martinez dedicated a good portion of class to both the
guided and the independent practice, which was effective in dissecting the readings for the day.
Though he did not spend as much time in the instruction potion of the class as I have seen other
teachers do, in this case, it worked to maximize the time students had to answer questions that
helped them reinforce the material and challenge them to think about the greater significance and
consequences of finding alternate trade routes to India.

I walked around and read a few of the groups’ written responses to the reading that they
analyzed for the independent practice. Most of them had the right idea and were able to point to
the passages that served as evidence for their argument. From this cursory tour around the class, I
had the impression that though these kids were a handful, they were also clever. If in their other
written assignments, they can make a claim and support it as well as I observed, then they are
satisfactorily meeting content standards.

I thought the lesson was mostly effective. Mr. Martinez played a video at the beginning of
class, which successfully captured most students’ attention. During instruction, he conveyed the
concepts in a simple but clear manner. When he instructed on the Age of Exploration, he talked
about the importance of finding a new route to India, and the desire of other Europeans to stop
the Italians from being a monopoly of India spices. He also talked about life at sea, and
mentioned that the siren myth began with dehydrated, half-starved, filthy sailors who had been at
sea for too long and had been eating rats for months. It was a very interesting bit of information
that I felt made students curious about the Age of Exploration.

And although I can attest that a lot of students were conversing during a lot of instruction
time, the guided practice was where I saw many students engaged. The reason being that guided
practice was done in popcorn reading style, where the students chose the next reader after they
themselves have read. This style of practice made students more alert because they may be
chosen to read, and I feel that it helped them follow along. As the reading progressed, Mr.
Martinez periodically asked the students questions about what was read to ensure that they
understood the material. The couple of students that volunteered answers were correct and were
able to explain why.

As with all things, there was room for improvement. I noticed that Mr. Martinez did not
really use technology in the classroom, other than the initial video. I feel that the students would
have responded positively to the use of images or videos, as the initial video captured and held
their attention. He could have also engaged with the students more by walking around and asking
them for their answers or what they gained form the reading during the independent practice.
While he did walk around to make sure they were on task, he did not engage them in
conversation.