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Brittany M. Feltman C& I 210, Section 9 April 30, 2012 Observation 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Date 2/6/2012 2/8/2012 2/13/2012 2/15/2012 2/21/2012 2/24/2012 2/24/2012 3/5/2012 3/7/2012 Time 12:00pm-12:30pm 8:00am-8:50m 11:55am-12:25pm 8:00am-8:45am 8:00am-8:55am 8:40am-9:10am 12:35pm-1:15pm 12:00pm-12:55 pm 12:00pm-12:55pm Grade Level K 5 3 8 10 4 2 11 &12 11& 12 School and Subject Metcalf-Music Metcalf-Math Metcalf-P.E Metcalf-Health U-High-Writing Metcalf-Spelling Metcalf-Math U-High-Multimedia History U-High- Anatomy

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During the course of the semester, I have observed kindergarten, 1st grade, 3rd grade, 4th grade, 5th grade, 8th grade, sophomores, juniors, and seniors. Each class was completely different and had their own personality. I observed many different subjects such as music, physical education, health, math, writing, spelling, history and anatomy. This write up will be divided into four parts where I will look at each domain and compare and contrast the differences in elementary, middle school, and high school. I will connect each domain with different theoretical examples and then give numerous examples that I saw while observing in all the different classroom settings. Physical During the semester, I noticed a drastic difference in the physical characteristics of all the students. I was able to see the changes in development by first observing kindergartners and then transitioning all the way through high school. When first looking at elementary grades, I noticed they have a hard time staying in their seat and like to constantly fidget. In the second grade classroom, the teacher provides the students seat bouncers to not only help them pay attention, but to just bounce in place to let off some energy. According to Thelen, students have trouble raising their hand while maintaining balance in their seat. During middle childhood, they will become better at coordinating movement with perception so they can maintain balance, catch a ball, or write their name (54). When these students stood up to go work on group projects, they were tripping and falling everywhere. They were very clumsy. When I observed a 3rd grade physical education class, I immediately noticed the difference in their balance and coordination. The students were doing gymnastics where they had to practice their balancing skills by walking on a balancing beam, and were doing other activities where

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they had to jump and climb a rope. These skills were much smoother then the 2nd graders that I observed. In a 4th grade classroom, the students skipped and jumped when walking from place to place in the classroom, and in the hallway. According to Malina, The quality of fine motor skills increases dramatically in middle childhood There is improvement in speed, agility and control of gross motor skills like jumping, throwing, and balancing (53). In middle school, most of the students were going through puberty. The 8th grade boys were starting to be taller than most of the girls. When the teacher would ask the boys a question, the boys voices cracked multiple times. The boys did not have much facial hair and were very skinny. The girls were also going through puberty. Two of the girls in the class had jeans that were too short on them, which meant that they just recently went through a growth spurt. They had breast development by this point, and a lot of acne. According to Shirtcliff, Dahl, and Pollak, the sequence for girls puberty is acne, breast development, height increase, pubic hair, weight increase, and finally menarche. The boys development sequence is testicular growth, height increase, public hair, strength spurt, spermarche, voice change, and finally facial hair (55). In High school, the students looked exhausted in class. Many of them put their heads down constantly and some fell asleep for a while. The teacher would then call on them to wake them up. The student would then ask to go to the bathroom, so they could wake themselves up by walking around. According to Dahl and Lewin, adolescents work more-in sports, homework, and employment-which keeps them up to late. As a result, about 85% of adolescents are mildly sleep deprived 10 to 40% significantly so (69).

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When comparing the grades, I noticed how much students slouched in their chair. In 8th grade, many students were leaning back in their chairs, laying their heads on desks, and had their feet up on other chairs. This occurred in grades lower and higher then 8th grade. In 4th grade, the students were slouching on the couch while playing games, and while sitting at their desk doing work. In high school, again the students were slouching in their chair, and werent paying attention. They were distracted by other things. According to McHale and Cermak, 30-60% of childrens school-activities require motor skills. These are mostly using paper and pencil, but also some less obvious skills like posture control (67). I found this interesting because most of the students didnt seem to care about their posture which connected to their attitude about the class. Cognitive The ability to think, understand, and apply information varies drastically from kindergartners to seniors in high school. When I first observed a kindergarten music class, the teacher was doing a lesson that involved the students singing a song where they learned the value and names of coins. The students would see a picture and have to say how much the coin was worth. They thought that if one coin was 25 cents, then all the other coins were 25 cents. According to Piaget, he believes that children who are in the preoperational stage (2-7) are not yet capable of thinking logically (98). The teacher used repetition with the kindergartners to help them memorize the values of the coins. They would repeat, nickel 5, nickel 5, dime 10, dime 10, etc. She would point to a different coin and they would have to change the repetition to a different coin and value. According to Kuhn, You can teach kindergartners memory strategies, but they are

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unlikely to apply them to situations outside the training context. They may not see the value of using the strategies and will need more time to learn the strategies than older children (102). When the teacher in the class kept switching from coin to coin, the students continuously confused what value went with each coin although they had already been repeating the values for a while. When comparing elementary students to middle school, the difference in how much children can understand and apply information is incredible. In a 4th grade classroom the students were coloring maps of Europe. They had to understand that they are all separate countries and be able to differentiate the countries. In Piagets Concrete Operational Stage (7-11), students can decenter, reverse operations, classify and conserve successfully. You may notice children at this stage collecting, sorting, and classifying (102). In a health class, the students were learning about muscles and how all the muscles were connected. The students would participate and say where that muscle was located and how they use that in everyday life. They were able to apply the information in a different way than kindergartners and 4th graders. According to Piagets Formal Operational Stage (12 and older), children can think in the abstract. They can follow clear logic and reasons in a hypothetical-deductive manner, even if the premises are not true (103). Vygotskys Sociocultural theory was very noticeable in the middle school classroom. In a 5th grade math class, a boy was trying to explain how you added up all of his fractions to get a total. He didnt know how to explain it and he was struggling putting words together, and realized he made a mistake. Another student volunteered to explain how she got her answer and helped him out. When students explain their

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thinking out loud, they may notice their errors and correct them (118). I also noticed that students are not shy in grade school, they volunteer all the time and constantly want to participate. In the 3rd grade physical education class, the teacher needed a volunteer; a boy raised his hand and came up to the front to demonstrate a warm-up activity. He messed up and all the other students started laughing at him and he was embarrassed. When the teacher asked for a volunteer again later, the boy did not raise his hand again. In Vygotskys Sociocultural Theory discussing social constructivism, students will not engage in the kind of classroom discussion that makes social constructivist instruction work if they feel vulnerable to ridicule, teasing, or appearing stupid (118). In high school, I noticed how much information adolescents remembered from during the school year. I observed a junior/senior anatomy class and the students were reviewing for an exam. The teacher was drawing diagrams, writing on the board, and asking them tons of questions. They recalled a lot of the information without looking back at their notes. It was a class of 8 students and they all remembered the material extremely well. According to Brainerd, adolescent students recall better details than younger students, this occurs for word lists, narratives, pictures, and numbers (143). The sophomore writing class that I observed used Skinners method of positive reinforcement to show students they did a good job. They were playing a review vocabulary game where boys played against the girls to earn the most amount of points. The girls won the game and by the teacher congratulating the students, the girls would be rewarded a treat the following day. Skinner said it is better to reinforce appropriate behavior than to punish behavior, which is what the teacher did to reward her students.

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Emotional Emotions in students varied when looking at young students to high school students. I noticed more emotions in the lower grades then I did in the upper grades. In kindergarten, when the students entered into the music class one by one, a bunch of them went straight up to the teacher and gave her a big hug and then sat down. Beishuizen states that Teachers are not simply dispassionate delivers of information, good teachers develop positive relationships with students. This is why the teacher allowed the students to hug her. When the music class was over, one of the kindergarten boys was upset that a mean girl cut him in line and started crying. He was really upset and became angry. According to Rothbart, this student had negative emotions which showed how easily children become irritated, angry, or scared ( 230). In middle school, students have a difficult time reading others emotions and understanding sarcasm. In the 2nd grade math class, some boys made a sarcastic comment to another boy. The little boy took it personally, because he didnt understand the joke and became really upset and started crying. The teacher went over to him and tried to explain to him what the other boys meant so that he could understand for next time. According to Izard, Language is a tool for managing emotions. The more children talk about emotion, the more they know about emotion, and the better they can regulate their emotions (304). In high school, students didnt show much emotion. They had to be really involved in an activity to show any outward signs of emotion. In the multimedia history class that I observed, the teacher gave the students an article to read about the movie Avatar. It discussed the emotional reactions that many people had towards the movie.

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The students were able to think about the movie and discuss others emotions compared to their own. Most of the students participated in the discussion because they could relate themselves to the article. According to Mather, emotions focus attention; students pay more attention to things with emotional significance (323).In the sophomore writing class that I observed, the students were participating in a vocabulary review game. Certain boys in the class were really into the game and tried really hard to get the answers correctly. They got really happy when they got the answers correct. The rest of the boys werent even trying and had a negative attitude about being there. They were making fun of the kids who were trying. Ashby states that happy students are more productive, perform better on projects and tasks, and solve problems more creatively than students in a negative mood (324). Social In elementary school, I noticed same sex cliques. In kindergarten, girls sat with other girls, but still interacted with boys. In 5th grade, it was even clearer that girls would rather be with girls and boys would rather be with boys. When I observed 8 th graders, girls still interacted primarily with girls and the same with boys. According to Espelage, Friends become increasingly same-sex from preschool through early adolescence. At age 4, children play three times more with same-sex peers than with opposite-sex peers. At age 6, they play ten times more with same-sex peers. By 4th grade, 95% of preferred friends are same sex. In middle school, 90-95% of the cliques are same-sex (144). When looking at the relationships that boys have with boys and girls have with girls, their conversations were very consistent from 5th grade through high school. Girls talked about the boys they liked and the issues they have with other friends. Boys talked about

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their basketball game from the night before and who scored the most points. According to Golombok, boys friendships tend to be based on shared activities and interests like sports and videogames. Girls friendships tend to be based on emotional closeness, sharing feelings, and personal information (442). When walking through the hallways at U-High, I noticed how many couples there were and how close they all seemed. Around every corner there were students holding hands, talking, and kissing. I realized how important relationships are in high school for students and how often people date. According to Diamond, Romantic Partners can be a source of social support to older adolescents, much like an attachment relationship. Romantic love can provide feelings of security, care, and comfort (435). In conclusion, it was interesting comparing the differences between all the different grades. The domains for each were so different. The biggest physical difference was how small kindergartners were compared to high school students. The biggest cognitive difference was how much information high school students could retain and apply to different situations compared to kindergartners who couldnt remember the value of a nickel. The biggest emotional difference was how sensitive the little kids were. They openly cried and didnt care if anyone saw them. The high school students didnt express as many emotions and were very content. The final social difference was how much girls started interacting with boys in high school compared to 2nd grade girls who avoided communication with boys. It was important for me to notice these differences and look at the four domains to realize how different students are from grade to grade.

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References Bergin, C.A, & Bergin, D.A. (2012).Child and adolescent development in your Classroom. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.