Professional Documents
Culture Documents
203 Teacher Packet
203 Teacher Packet
One of the most rewarding aspects of EDU 201, 202, or 203 is the opportunity you’ll have to
observe in a school classroom where students are actively engaged in learning. Each of these
three CSN courses require students to complete a 10 hour "Field Observation" in a Clark
County public school. If CDC Guidelines for Covid-19 prevent you from physically attending a
school campus during the current semester, this packet will offer the alternative experiences
required to satisfy your “Field Observation” requirements for this class virtually.
If possible, to pair you with a cooperating CCSD teacher, your placement will be processed by
CSN’s observation coordinator, and you will receive details regarding your assigned school from
your CSN professor. Only then, will you contact the school and meet virtually with your assigned
CCSD “cooperating teacher”. Both you and your cooperating teacher will design a mutually
agreeable schedule to complete your required contact hours once you meet for the first time.
Within this packet, you will find the required field experience assignments that you must
complete in order to pass this class.
Relationships
You should exercise respectful discretion when voicing your personal views. It is important that
your demeanor and opinions remain confidential. Under no circumstances can information
about any students be released to, or discussed with, any unauthorized person. It is forbidden to
have any contact with students outside of the classroom you are assigned. This restriction
includes CSN students contacting CCSD students in person, through any electronic means, or
through the use of social media.
Dress Code
CSN Department of Education wants you to be a success. Therefore we have adopted the
CCSD dress code for students fulfilling their observation requirement in the assigned school
district. Appearance creates credibility; make a good first impression by dressing professionally,
even when meeting virtually.
Classroom Conduct: At all times, the cooperating teacher maintains legal responsibility for
pupils in his or her classroom. You should never assume that responsibility and be left
unsupervised with children. You should not discipline students. You are an observer, who
should take notes to discuss during your next education class meeting, or to record in your Field
Observation packet.
Professional Conduct:
Never speak to staff or students in an abusive manner.
Never touch or be alone with a student for any reason.
Never give a student food, drink, or other items without the teacher’s permission.
Never take photos/video of students or staff without written permission from the principal.
Never make or accept calls/text using any communication device while at the school.
CCSD WAIVERS
Review the terms of the CCSD Waiver Forms provided by your instructor.
“Student Statement of Responsibility” (Exhibit B)
“Student Confidentiality Statement” (Exhibit C)
These 2 waiver documents MUST be agreed to in order to secure your observation placement.
While submitting your Field Observation Request, you will be prompted to check that you have
read the waivers and that you agree to the terms. Completion of the CSN Field Observation is a
PASS/FAIL component of the course.
1. Pre-plan for initial contact with the school you are assigned and make sure that all interaction
with CCSD employees and students is respectful, courteous, and professional. You are a
representative of this class and the college. CCSD is allowing you to observe their teachers to
further your understanding of the teaching profession. It is imperative that your actions reflect a
willingness to learn, and are reflective of a future professional educator. The school will select a
teacher for you to observe and provide you with their contact information.
2. The first half of your field observation/experience will be centered around learning
background information about the school you were assigned, and focusing on the general and
unique characteristics of its culture. You will be looking at, and reflecting upon things that are
going on in the virtual classroom at the school level that you were assigned. You are simply
observing during this time. Your cooperating teacher may give you guidance on how your
experience can be expanded beyond simple observations, if he/she feels comfortable with your
professionalism and skills.
3. Contact your Cooperating Teacher to introduce yourself. Since this is your first contact, ask
the teacher for the necessary information to access their virtual classroom, and when the live
sessions occur that they would prefer you to join. Share this “Field Observation Activities
Packet”, with your cooperating teacher as well as the last 3 pages which contain the
“Cooperating Teacher Information”, the “Time Log” and the “Field Observation Student
Evaluation”. Let the teacher know that you will be taking notes during the observation for your
packet assignments, that you will be asking them to verify your hours of attendance, and
evaluate your participation once the total observation hours are complete.
4. When logging in with your cooperating teacher and their students during a virtual meeting, it
is recommended that you keep both your microphone and video camera OFF during the
observation, unless the cooperating teacher directs you to speak or be seen while observing. In
that case, make sure your home workspace is void of background distractions, or anything in
view that may be considered inappropriate for students to see. Your online attire should be the
same as if you were visiting the school in person. Employ the use of typical lighting and image
framing to make the most of your broadcast. The typical “Rule of Thirds” works well, whereby
the camera height is adjusted so that your eyes are positioned in the top third of the window.
Front lit subjects look better on screen than being backlit by a window or artificial light.
Read through all the assignments and take notes during your observation visits. You will gather
information on more than one assignment during an observation. Then, using your notes
answer the questions for each assignment.
• All assignments must be word processed. Your detailed responses to assignment questions
must demonstrate careful analysis of the questions and the observation information.
• Questions and their responses must include thorough explanations and examples from the
classroom observation. All responses must be written as complete sentences.
Include the question number, along with your response as a short essay response as in this
sample below:
ASSIGNMENT #1 (Culture): Using the questions below, carefully observe and evaluate the
culture of the school. School culture refers to the way teachers and other staff members work
together and the set of beliefs, values, and assumptions they share. A positive school climate
and school culture promote students' ability to learn. Remember you are evaluating the school
for its educational culture, place of learning, sense of safety, invitation for learning, promotion of
self-actualization, development of values and socialization. Use online resources such as your
assigned school’s CCSD webpage, http://nevadareportcard.nv.gov/di/,
https://www.publicschoolreview.com, and https://www.greatschools.org/nevada/las-vegas/ to
answer the following questions.
The school property mentioning the landscape is an attention grabber because I can see
they have a garden with paintings in the left side of the school, they also have a building
of classroom additions besides the playground area. They have fences all around the
school, even in the front entrance. They also are growing some trees and plants in the
front of the school by where the parking lot is, while the parking lot is in front of the
school entrance and on the right side of the school. They have a school sign in the front
of the school as well for important dates or messages. Also, another sign is posted by a
sidewalk for 3-minute parking to unload/load students.
2. Next, (if available) study the interior of the school: halls, floor coverings, lighting,
doors, windows, hall colors and decorations and entrance security. Explain in detail.
The interior for the school is white and dark blue, by the entrance there is a small
hallway to get to entrance of the classrooms, multipurpose room, playground, and other
classrooms within the school. In the outside the before the hallway there is the main
office and posted in the walls there is bulletin boards and a glass wall recognizing
students’ achievement.
Culture of the School: Read, listen and/or observe to determine the climate, values, and
atmosphere within the school.
1: What are your first impressions of the school? Enrollment, graduation rate, proficiency
rates, student/teacher ratio etc.
My impressions were interesting because this school is an overall great school because
looking at the enrollment rate has grown by 13% over the five school years. The
proficiency rate in math from just the school is 46% compared to the state is 35%, the
proficiency rate in reading is a 53% compared to the state by 46%. While the
student/teacher ratio is 20:1 and the daily attendance is 94.7%. That is pretty good for
being an elementary school!
2: Please describe the student make-up of the school, including gender, ethnicity,
students with disabilities, ELL students, and any other attributes that are important to
note you found.
I found that there is 751 total enrollment that makes up 454 number of student’s being
Hispanic, 22 being Asian, 24 being black, 42 being white and two or more races in 29
students. There are also 301 students who are in ELL and 84 students in IEP. I found
interesting that there is 55% of males and 45 % females that make up the gender in
school. There are about 41 teachers in the school compared to 751 students in the
school.
5. Briefly describe three other pieces of information that can be found on your assigned
school’s website.
As I was looking through the website, I found that they have a NV Reading Week, teachers and
students dress and decorate their classroom doors with what books are their favorite and best
one wins. They also have carnivals where students can interact with others and a way of getting
the parents/guardians involved. One interesting thing I saw was the “Telus Big Give” that
happen in 2016. From the pictures it showed they painted a mural within the school’s wall into a
canvas with the students help. They also have a student recognition for “Student of The Month”,
it acknowledges the student’s achievement as well as their success.
Culture of the Classroom: Each classroom has its own culture and way of life.
1. Evaluate the level of student participation in the class. Who participates? Who does
not?
Since the groups are small, everyone participates. The students like to raise their hands
and answer questions or like to start a book or sentence.
3. Observe student-to-student interactions, inside and outside of the class. Are they
using any chat features to communicate with each other?
The teacher makes them talk to one another by letting them help each other out or by
picking another student to read or take turns by picking out a book.
ASSIGNMENT #2 (Observations)
1: Please describe the student make-up of the class, including gender, ethnicity, ELL,
students with physical challenges, and any other apparent attributes that are important
to note.
It is small group centered, it a great mix of ethnicity, it is equal and since it is a resource
classroom it is a mixture of ELL, deaf or hard of hearing, hard to focus, speech etc.
ASSIGNMENT #4 (Instruction): Observe any instructional time with your assigned Cooperative
Teacher, and record your observations when presented with the questions below:
5: Are there any students isolated or not present/participating in the class? Explain?
None, the teacher makes everyone participate and if student does not know answer they
call a friend for help.
8: List ways the teacher uses “attention getting” commands, word phrases, signals, etc.
Are they effective? The teacher tells the student good job, amazing, excellent, way to go,
you are doing awesome and the students seem to like hearing that which encourages
them to do better and listen.
9: What specific behavior issues does the teacher have to deal with? How does the
teacher handle the behavior issues? Be specific.
Some of the issues the teacher deals with is when a student does not want to do work,
the teacher gives the student a choice which is a break. Often for example, if there is five
sentences the teacher offers them to only write four sentences to encourage the student
to finish their work.
2. Summarize the lesson given and the student’s responses to the lesson.
It was the students turn to pick a book and it was her turn to pick a book and was nice to
let another student pick the book instead. After that she answered all the questions of
the book such as the setting, characters, main idea, etc. She was happy and she got
Dojo Points for letting another person pick the book.
ASSIGNMENT #6 (Cooperating Teacher Interview): Arrange for a convenient time to
interview your cooperating teacher either on the phone or by video conference. Ask the
questions below. Include any school document, handouts, etc. the teacher provides.
ASSIGNMENT #7 (Summary): Thoroughly summarize and reflect upon your entire 10-hour
Field Observation. What did you observe, learn, realize about teachers, students, instruction,
the school environment? How has this observation better prepared you to understand the
teaching profession? How does the observation relate to the text information and class
activities? What specific ideas on teaching will you remember to include in your classroom?
Throughout my observation I have learned and realized many things. To start off, the students
behaved how they were supposed to, it was a sometimes difficult for them to sit up, stay awake,
or stay in one place because of virtual setting. The sense of how the teacher interacted with his
students, such as attention grabbers, keeping them engaged into the lesson, asking questions
etc. He would also give his students a break by telling them to stretch or walk around before the
lesson started. Implemented different strategies for math, demonstrated visual problems for her
students to grasp an understanding of how to solve a problem mentally. The students in the
small group were a mix of high- and low-level students. This made the group balanced because
one can help the other and see how that student solved the problem. I also learned from my
cooperating teacher about parent teacher conferences. Since the school system is based
online, the teacher has already met those parents due to them being by their kid on a regular
school day.
He also told me about IEPs and how they function, I also observed an IEP revision meeting with
a resource teacher, the parent of the student, and translator. It was amazing experience
because I did not know the parent has rights to what their child can have taken away. This child
had lost their two front teeth and the speech therapist held a meeting to let everyone know that
speech was going to be taken away from the student until the teeth grow back and the mother
was okay with it because her child was having a hard time pronouncing and saying words
without her front teeth and everyone agreed to that. This observation helped me understand that
teachers work hard and the number of hours in planning lessons to teaching students the
understanding of each subject is amazing. My cooperating also sent me examples of lesson
plans, strategies, discussed how parent conferences worked, and let me know how long it took
for lesson planning, managing canvas, and teaching the students. I am so appreciative that I got
to work with my cooperating teacher because he made me realize so much.
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Remember that before receiving the final grade for this EDU course, the CSN student must
submit the completed Cover Page, Field Observation Activities, Time Log, and Student
Evaluation to the CSN instructor for grading.
The cooperating teacher must also email the instructor to confirm the successful completion of
the observation. The student is required to provide the CCSD cooperating teacher with their
CSN professor’s email, so the cooperating teacher can send an email to verify that the student
has successfully completed the 10 hours of observation. The instructor’s email must be
provided on the first page of this packet, and on the next page for the cooperating teacher.
Remember that completion of the Field Observation is a PASS/FAIL component of the course.
Students must save this completed packet in digital form, and as a hard copy for the Education
Department’s capstone course, (EDU 299) Education Portfolio or (EDU 220) Educational
Psychology
Thank you for assisting in the preparation of a new generation of Nevada teachers. Our
education majors are required to complete 10 field observation hours in: EDU 203 Introduction
to Special Education.
This class is where many of our students actually make the decision whether they will continue
further study of the profession. We appreciate you joining us in providing these students with a
wonderful first experience in the virtual classroom. If at all possible, please utilize the student to
assist you in supervised classroom instructional activities if you deem them ready.
We are hopeful that the information we have enclosed with this letter, which has been approved
by the Nevada College Consortium, will help you with a clear sense of how this field experience
works. When the student has completed his/her required 10 observation hours, please complete
and sign the “FIELD OBSERVATION TIME LOG” and “FIELD OBSERVATION STUDENT
EVALUATION” (along with the student). Then, return these two pages to the student who will
submit them to his/her professor.
For your convenience, the student has provided you with CSN contact information below.
Please contact the CSN instructor if there are any questions or concerns.
Also, before a final grade for EDU 203 can be assigned, the CSN professor MUST receive your
official email verification that the student successfully completed the 10-hour observation.
Please also “cc” the student on this email. The student WILL NOT receive a final grade in the
course until the email is received from you.
CSN Course # & name: EDU 203 Introduction to Special Education
Should you have any concerns or questions about this process, please feel free to contact the
10 hrs. 28 min
Total Hours
Please complete the following evaluation using the Performance Indicator Scores below (with
the student) once the total observation hours are met. Your constructive comments are
extremely valuable to the student. Return this page to the student along with their Time Log to
be submitted to the instructor with the completed Field Observation Packet.
Comments:
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