Observation One - Giovanna Todd 1

I observed for the first time on October 9th. My school is called Olde Orchard

Elementary and the art classroom is great. The demographic make-up of the school is 75% black,

10% white, 7% hispanic, 7% two or more races, and 1% other. This was found from the website

greatschools.org. My cooperating teacher also told me when we first met the demographics of his

class. He stated that his students were diverse with black being the majority. There are also white

kids and students from Nepal, Mexico, Puerto Rico and other various backgrounds. The school I

am observing is an elementary school so the grades I saw were third through fifth.

The age accurately represented how the students behaved in the classroom. The

environment of the classroom was very chaotic because of the number of students and their

behavioral habits. The classroom itself was wonderful. As soon as I walked in I was in awe of

the space. The room is very spacious and has high ceilings with windows lining the room.

Because of the windows, the room has great natural light but the volume of the class seems to

increase because of the echoing.

My first observation went really well. My cooperating teacher, Mr. Sidders, was very

kind and allowed me to be active in the classroom. This way, I was able to walk around, talk to

the students and help them with their assignment. Many of the students were off task and were

busy talking or disrupting others. Behavioral management is one area I think my cooperating

teacher could work on. The class was distracted, leading to the class getting behind in their

projects. Mr. Sidders used a microphone so all the students could hear him but it was ineffective.

The students ignored and talked over him which lead to even more students being distracted. His

way of solving this was repeating the saying, “I’ll wait..”. This meant he was waiting for the
 Observation One - Giovanna Todd 2

class to be quiet and listen but the students never calmwd down enough. I think with more

authoritative drive and interesting projects, he could gain their attention and respect.

It was unclear whether my cooperating teacher used SLO’s or not. I chose to observe his

teaching rather than asking him questions to see if his methods were clear. The first thing the

kids were to do in class was sit down while Mr. Sidders reminded them of their project and told

them whether they were behind or on time. He caught me up to speed on the project as well. It

was based off of them going outside and finding an object to focus on. Once they drew the

object, they were to lay in a foreground and background. That was the base of the project and I

was never introduced to more. Mr. Sidders plans to assess the students paintings, which is what

they are working on now in class. I can tell because he has reminded them of this project and it is

solely what they have been working on for a while now. I would use a checklist and my own

observations to assess their students’ abilities and work. Mr. Sidders walks around the classroom

and tries to check in on each table so observing their work would already fit in the timeline of his

class. I would also use a checklist because he wants them to understand background and

foreground so making sure they implement those is important. I wish I would have been able to

ask Mr. Sidders about his assessment strategy but honestly, I got swept up in talking and helping

the students. It was an awesome start to being in the classroom and the excitement got the best of

me. I plan to ask him how he assess his students art pieces next observation and hopefully the

students will be wrapping up their projects so I will see the final product that will be assessed.