Field Observation; Teaching In Action

Kathleen Jacot
Introduction to Special Education 203
Observation artifact #1
Tuesday December 2, 2014

For my observation I was assigned to Piggott Elementary School my cooperating teacher

was Mrs. Halastick who teaches primary resource education. Primary resource is k-3 pull out
and in class assistance. The elementary school is in a upper to middle class area and is going
to be an International Baccalaureate, or IB magnet school as of the next school year. What
struck me the most was how small the classrooms were with only about 13-15 students per
teacher per room. In other schools I have been to the rooms and class sizes have always been
much bigger.
When I first got to the school the office seemed confused about who the teacher was that
I had been assigned to I later found out that she had just been married and most of the office
staff still knows her by her unmarried last name. Since Mrs. Halasticks third grade group would
not be pulled out the first day of my observations she sent me to watch her aid, Mrs.
Ehrenzweig, do some inclusion work in Mr. Williams 2nd class. I watched as she helped all the
students but of course the students who needed the most help I would see later in the pull out
reading group in the resource room. Mr. Williams used positive re-enforcement in his classroom.
When given a wrong answer he did not immediately say no he just responded by providing the
correct answer and asking them to basically repeat it. I noticed that the majority of the class
raised their hand when they were asked questions; I would guess that more kids were willing to
give an answer since it was low risk. Rather than get mad at the class when they got unruly he
asked the class to give a thumbs up if you are listening effectively getting the classes attention
without spending too much time on class management. He also made good use of the smart
board and the space on his walls. As another form of positive re-enforcement Mrs. Ehrenzweig

gave a necklace charm to a student for helping a classmate. I was a very quiet exchange that
acknowledged the students good deed without interrupting the class flow. Pulling the students
out for resource reading was a bit disruptive but that couldnt be helped.
Mrs. Halasticks resource room had three student computers that seemed like they never
get used except for the students AR tests. AR tests are tests that the students take on preapproved reading books that are at the students reading level. Based on the grades that the
students get on the tests they earn points for prizes and I believe their reading level goes up as
well. Okay, back to the resource room, besides the seldom used computers there was a large
collection of books a desk set off to the side Im guessing for students to cool off at. There are
two large crescent desks with room for about five students max at each facing in opposite
directions. There was also a big cubby bin thing with a drawer for each student where they keep
their class work, books, and star charts.
In the pull-out second grade reading/writing group there are five students. They all have
their own binder and composition notebooks. Mrs. Halastick has the students sit at the crescent
desk in the front facing her for all her pull-out groups. They read together and circled all the
words they did not know are that they found difficult. After they finished reading together they
each shared one of their circled words and tried to figure it out as a group by sounding them out
and using context clues. One word that they focused on was crop as in what is a crop. The
sentence was Jim plants crops in the spring time. The students were then supposed to pick a
sentence to copy and then write a different but related sentence of their own. They wrote on their
own then Mrs. Halastick corrected the grammar and spelling. After the lesson the students got

stars for good work if they did exceptionally well they got two stars. Once the student collects
five stars they get to choose a prize.
The math group consisted of mostly the same students with two additions. They
practiced simple math. The second graders practiced mostly addition working their way up to
double digits. The third graders worked on subtraction with borrowing and addition with carrying.
The first day the students used white boards to practice equations with the teacher. Both groups
used a punch and tally method punch the smaller number then count up to the bigger number.
The next day I came in the groups were switched to using paper and pencil which proved to be
less distracting but also made it harder to keep track of what each student was writing.

Mrs. Halastick also pulls out a group of first graders to work on their phonemic
awareness which is a fancy way of saying that they were working on connecting the letters of the
alphabet to their sounds. There are three students in that group one is ELL but could have other
difficulties. For that group they use board games and the action alphabet to learn both letter
names and letter sounds. The next step is for them to find words that begin with the letter
sounds. She explained that she uses a similar but less advanced strategy for her kindergartener
who I did not get to see her work with since she was absent both days. Over all I really enjoyed
my observation hours I do wish they were not in the holiday season though.