OBSERVING A RESOURCE ROOM 1

My Experience Observing a Resource Room

Justyne Varsallona

Dr. Dale Warby Edu 203-1001

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Abstract

I will be discussing my field observation experience for my education 203 class, intro to

special education. I will also compare and contrast what I learned in the class to what I learned

observing. I was placed at Theron H. and Naomi D. Goynes Elementary School where I was

assigned to the teacher Mrs. Danielle Wolf. Mrs. Wolf is a resource teacher who does inclusion

and pull out. Her classroom was located in the portables.

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I am an elementary education major, I had to take the intro to special education class for a

credit for my degree. Initially, since the class is an eight week course, I was a little overwhelmed

with the work load. The modules, notes, power points, and tests covered a lot of information.

There was information on hearing and sight impairments, physical and mental disabilities. From

the class, I was prepared to observe students with all disabilities since I learned so much about

them. At Goynes Elementary School, I did not come into contact with any hearing, vision, or

physically disabled students. I was placed in a resource room. A resource room is for students

with a learning disability. The resource room allows students to be given specialized instruction

either individually or in smaller groups.

In class I learned about IEPs, I even did my own IEP as an assignment. While I

interviewed my observation teacher, I asked her about grades and progress reports. She told me

that since her students are in resource, she does not give them actual grades, she grades them on

their progress towards their IEP goal. In class I learned that IEPs happen yearly and that they

start with the school psychologist. My observation teacher told me that unlike general education,

where there is a progress report and parent teacher conference season that is not the case for

special education classes and IEPs. Since every student gets evaluated at a different time and

enters the program all the time, IEPs happen a year from whenever that student got evaluated. So

they happen almost any time throughout the year. If a student started in May, the next May there

would be an IEP meeting, and if a student started in October the next October would be the IEP

meeting.

Also in class, we read about behavioral characteristics that students with disabilities

might have, I was observing every student and I would not have been able to guess that that

student would have had a learning disability. Learning disabilities show themselves in many
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different ways, but all the students I came to watch had zero behavior problems and stayed on

task. I was very surprised.

The course definitely prepared me well for the field observation, I would say I was even

over prepared since I did not observe any students who had visual or hearing impairments or a

physical disability. I did learn from my observation class that there is modified specialist classes

for students with disabilities, so a student who is physically disabled would not get the same

Physical Education class as a student who is not physically disabled. The student with the

disability would receive a modified Physical Education class instead.

My time at Theron H. and Naomi D. Goynes Elementary School was something

unforgettable. Before I began my field observation I was a little nervous. The school was a little

difficult to contact, I had dropped by the school a couple of times a left messages for the

principal to contact me but she is a busy lady. She had back to back meetings, stem conferences,

and I was scared I was not going to make it into a class. Thankfully, after a week and a half I was

finally placed with a teacher

I was lucky enough to observe Mrs. Danielle Wolf, it was her first year at Goynes

Elementary but she has been doing special education for over 15 years. Prior to being at this

school, she came from a school on the east side and her old assistant principal made a transfer

last year and she followed. Mrs. Wolf was so friendly and amazing. On the first day she met me

at the main office, right in the morning she does check in’s with students who have bad behavior,

so she picked me up then we went to an office where she picked up two behavior cards and then

she dropped the behavior cards off to the students. The behavior cards had different things on

them, more specifically there was a goal they are working towards and if that goal was achieved,
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the reward they wanted for that goal. In order to receive the reward, their main teacher had to

sign off on their behavior card which stated that they demonstrated excellent behavior that day.

Mrs. Wolf has a very busy schedule. She has students who come to her class for pull out

and she also goes to classes for inclusion. She has seven different groups she works with every

day. For the first hour she has a writing class, this class is pull out and has two students. Her

second class is a four student math class that is at different levels. Mrs. Wolf bounces around

tending to all her students and being readily available for all questions. Her third class is made of

her two behavior check-ins, this is a Reading class that practices inclusion. So Mrs. Wolf leaves

her portable and goes to Mrs. Thompson’s class which is a kindergarten class. The fourth class is

a pull out math class that is made up of one student. Her fifth class is her largest pull out group, it

is a reading and writing class that has about six students in it. Her fifth class is an Inclusion

reading class for Mrs. Cruz’s fourth grade class, it is made up of four students on different

reading levels so there’s independent reading, spelling tests, and fluency tests.

After this Mrs. Wolf is on lunch duty where she watches the students at recess and after

that she takes her lunch.

Then the second part of her day begins, her first class after lunch is a behavior class that

is made up of two students. They independently do their work and Mrs. Wolf is there for support.

For her last class, her seventh class, it is another inclusion class with Mrs. Cruz. This is a math

class made up of four students. After all her classes are done she has prep time where she makes

her lesson plans and pulls out the material for the next day. My day went by very quickly

watching Mrs. Wolf, she runs around the school a lot and tends to students from kindergarten to

fifth grade, she teaches many different curriculums and all at different levels. She splits her
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classes by subjects and from there she works individually with the students since most of the

time they are at different grade levels.

Watching Mrs. Wolf I got to see firsthand how different resources is. Mrs. Wolf could be

coloring with crayons in Mrs. Thompson’s kindergarten class and then teach multiplication and

division in Mrs. Cruz’s class. She explains all the material so well and all the students are very

receptive, respectful, and actively participate. From my time observing her, I did not see any

behavior problems, not even with her behavior students.

Resource is a lot different than what I thought it would be. I actually was confused with

it, I thought it was a separate classroom with students of different grade levels and it was going

to be difficult. Maybe it is because Mrs. Wolf has been doing this for over a decade, but it looked

so fun and a lot easier than I thought. I’m an elementary education major, not special education

but I am really considering taking more special education classes and doing a major change.

Mrs. Wolf’s job is very rewarding, with special education students some of them lack

number sense. And when they grasp a math concept, everyone is happy and excited. Every

moment was fulfilling since every time a break through happened there was genuine happiness

from both ends. Since class sizes are extremely small, they are more personal and it allows more

time for explaining and questions to be asked. They can ask questions to their hearts content and

practice until they figure it out and only after they figure it out and feel comfortable with it, they

move on to a different assignment. Since it is resource, everything is IEP goal based, so there is

not a hard letter grade that the students receive from Mrs. Wolf and because of that I think they

are more comfortable with her and in her classroom.

In short, I really enjoyed my time observing at Goynes Elementary School. The school

itself was very nice, clean, and maintained. There are computers in every pod, chrome books,
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and literacy areas to check materials out. Goynes is a great school. I learned a lot from Mrs. Wolf

from ways to teach number sense and counting money to different reading tips and tricks. The

students were so well behaved and receptive and Mrs. Wolf really cares about her students. I feel

very fortunate to have been placed with such an amazing teacher.