Formal Classroom Observation #2

Classroom Cultural Diversity

EDTE 255 requires the prospective teacher candidate to complete specific classroom and school
observations. The observations build on your prior experience in classrooms (if you have any)
and are intended to help you focus on issues of importance in California schools. Read through
the questions and prompts below. This will give you an idea of what to look for and what kinds
of information to collect.

Write a summary report in narrative format (no more than a few pages). Provide information and
address ideas in the questions and prompts below. Make sure to also include your responses to
the reflection questions.

Questions and Prompts:

*I used an Atlas video for this*

Case #2162: Acquiring Specific Viewing Strategies in Order to Comprehend Visual Text

Describe the students in the class. Think broadly about their differences going beyond race and
ethnicity. What appears to be the range of ability levels, socioeconomic differences, languages
spoken, personalities, etc. that are present among the students?
 The students in this video are in kindergarten and are neurotypical. The classroom is
quite diverse and the classroom itself seems to look average. The students in this video
are practicing language arts by describing what they see and hear from a video to their
“think partner”, once they describe what they saw and heard from the video that is based
on cloud, their partner reassures them they were listening by repeating something that
they said during their partners description. The students vary in personality, some are
more talkative than others and some are eager to participate while the other half listen
 and sit idly. It is hard to determine a socioeconomic difference between students’
interactions, and it is hard to tell if any struggle with the English language since they all
speak it proficiently for their age.

How does the teacher engage all students in the lesson? Does instruction involve students in a
variety of learning styles? Which mode of learning seemed to be most effective? Were different
learning styles being addressed? If yes, give specific examples. If you were a student in the class
you observed, would your learning style have been addressed?
 The teacher from the video interacts with all student groups about their follow up
assignment, which is to draw something based on what they saw in class time and then
describe their drawing to their partner. The teacher goes to each group asking them to
also describe what they drew to her as well. This way of teaching incorporates multiple
learning styles, the video covers visual, the communication with their partner covers
auditory, and drawing it covers tactile learning styles. All main learning styles were
covered, which means all students were able to take away something from the lesson no
matter their preferred learning style.

How involved were students in learning activities? What indicators or examples did you notice?
 All students followed instructions for their learning activities. Although some were more
interested in the subject and sharing than others. This was observable based on the energy
students put into sharing what they saw/heard and how much they responded to their
partner of what they heard from their description.

How did the teacher work with a variety of students, such as the reluctant learner; the shy
student; the English learner? The physically, emotionally, academically challenged student.
 All students interacted with the teacher in the video, but some did not communicate as
much as other students. I noticed the way she circumvented this was to have their partner
ask them questions about their work instead of herself. I think this was an effective way
to encourage students from not saying “I don’t know” or “I don’t have any questions”
because children care about their peers/friends a lot.
Did it appear that the teacher had modified instruction to better serve the needs of culturally
diverse students? What evidence, if any, can you report?
 I did not notice any modified curriculum for specific students. All had the same task and
all performed that task well.

Did you observe any instances of students being excluded from learning because their needs
were not being met? How was this displayed? How did it seem to impact the student and his or
her behavior during instruction?
 I did not see any exclusion from the teacher or students. The teacher would approach
each group and ask the same questions for each student in that group. This guaranteed
fair learning and gave each student a way to speak to the teacher if they had any
concerns/ was lost about the assignment. The only thing that could resemble exclusion
would be that she would pick a student at random for the beginning portion of the class
when asking what they saw and heard in the video about cloud formation, and once that
one student answered, she would move on to the next part of the video even though a lot
of students still had their hands up.

Reflection Questions:

What personal challenges do you think you’ll face when teaching a diverse group of students?
 I think a challenge would be to keep all of their attention. Since each student comes from
a different background and home, one way of catching a students attention won’t work on
everyone. Therefore, having a variety of ways to get attention will probably be key.
Furthermore, a diverse classroom also guarantees different learning styles and it will be a
challenge to try and incorporate as many learning styles I can in each lesson that I will
eventually teach.
What did you learn about diversity in the classroom?
 I learned that diversity is a complex topic. I always pictured diversity as different race
and cultures, but it is much more than that. Diversity includes different learning styles,
different disabilities and abilities for each student, and it also includes different
understanding of topics. All of the above need to be accounted for when building a great
classroom.

Consider strategies used to engage diverse learners. Based on your prior field experiences and
your current placement, compare and contrast the strategies observed in these settings.

 Having multiple ways to approach each assignment definitely helps with engagement
across a diverse range of students. Only having one way to complete a task will surely
leave a couple students not wanting to do the assignment or confused to what the
assignments importance is. Understanding material is the whole point of teaching it, and
only choosing one way to do the assignment will have some students not fully grasp it.

What ideas will you take with you?

 I will take the idea of trying to use every type of learning style in my lessons. I think it is
very important to try and use students’ strengths in class as much as possible.

What would you do differently in your own classroom?

 I think I would pick on more students who have their hand raised to answer the question.
Even if the answer is repetitive, encouraging students to participate in class is important
and not picking on them might discourage them to do so in the future.