What is a teacher to do with a class like this? This is a perplexing situation, yet a common dilemma teachers encounter. Two other girls at his table are engaged in a conversation about who will be homecoming queen. A boy in the center of the class covers his head with his hood, lays his head down, and goes to sleep. She is struggling to stay in her seat and is clearly unconcerned with the class discussion. She is told to sit down, which she does, and in five minutes gets up and walks around again. Another girl gets up and walks around the room. They do not share comments and appear to be intimidated by their peers.Ī girl on the other side of the class begins to sing and continues to do so periodically throughout the class time. A quiet boy and two girls sit at a table located in the front of the class. One girl, sitting in the back of the class, totally isolates herself and has no verbal or nonverbal communication with her peers or the teacher. However, periodically one will shout out a correct answer without interrupting the flow of the social conversation. They are more concerned about the social complexities of the school rather than listening. Two girls and one boy socialize in the back of the class. She frequently chats with two boys seated at her table. One girl in the back is putting on eyeliner and eye shadow. Twenty-five students are seated in pods of four. What follows is an excerpt from the author’s field notes describing the complexities of the classroom environment. Despite her efforts to engage students, the class was chaotic. She incorporated a brief lecture, questioning strategies to discuss readings, graphic organizers, and video clips of recent election campaign commercials. The teacher integrated a variety of traditional and constructivist instructional methods. The social studies concepts discussed in the lesson were political parties, the role of campaigning, and the impact of media on citizens’ decisions. Recently, during fieldwork, the author was observing in a high school government class.
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