Journal Entry Standard 3

Nicholas Wall Portfolio Entry

Throughout my field experience, I have observed many different students in their learning environment. My two experiences consisted of observing a 7th grade science classroom within 3 separate blocks, as well as two separate classes in high school, a junior anatomy/physiology class, and a senior medical terminology class. With my own observations as well as the information from my cooperating teacher, I identified multiple students with different learning styles. This was most evident in the 7th grade classroom. As I was assisting in three separate blocks on various days, I was able to meet and observe over 100 students. Amongst these students were a few who their own IEPs, as well as some who did not need an IEP, but simply needed extra help from time to time. I was able to identify a few of the students who needed help right away, based on their behavior while I was observing and walking around the classroom. There were a few students with reading disabilities, which became evident as the class progressed with its work. Most of the time, the other classmates surrounding a student who needed assistance were happy to help their peer succeed. There were also times were either myself, an aide, or the teacher himself assisted the student, such as during an exam or with individual homework. My cooperating teacher did a great job of letting me know which students would need extra assistance, and what exactly their special need was. In that particular classroom, there were learning disabled students,

autistic students, OHI students, and the majority of the specials needs students were EL students. In my high school class, there were not nearly as many special needs students, though there were a few EL students. This particular group of students had to apply to a special program to take these classes, so they majority were high level students who wanted to challenge themselves. Though they might not have been categorized as HPL students, a handful were very bright. These classes were extremely ordered and scheduled, though there were times to get creative when it came to the learning, such as different types of presentations, showing videos, hands-on labs and dissections, and others. It was also evident early on with these students of which ones took their learning serious and focused on their tasks, and which were merely checking out the type of classes to see if that is what they wanted to do in their further education. It was easy to see which students wanted to learn the material and which ones did not. Though both sets of students were very different, it was very interesting to get to observe both groups and see the similarities and differences in learning in each. For example, both groups greatly enjoyed jokes and humor in class, yet the upperclassmen were able to work much faster through their amount of work compared to the middle schoolers, and with much more expected of them.