Shantava Inabinet
Math 103
Professor Chan
L.A.G .C.C
Observation Report
On Friday October 20, 2006 I attended an observation at P.S. 264: Which is located in the neighborhood of Bushwick in the borough of Brooklyn. I was assigned by the assistant principal to observe the top level third grade class of 3-1. The assistant principal informed me that all of the students in the 3-1 class are there because they have the top reading level in comparison to the other third grade students in P.S.264. The teacher of the of the class name was Ms. Gugliemi and she has been in the teaching profession for two years, graduated from a SUNY school (Binghamton), and is currently working on a Masters in education at Touro College.
As I entered the class Ms. Gugliemi instructed the class to greet me. All 18 students responded by collectively saying “Good morning Ms. Inabinet”. I immediately returned the salutation and a felt an adrenalin rush from the student’s politeness. Ms. Gugliemi told me to sit anywhere I was comfortable so I pulled up one of the students miniature chairs and sat parallel to her desk : While she taught the class from the blackboard .
The setting of the class was cozy. The students sat in four groups of four. On the walls were many educational devices and students assignments. Some examples of the educational devices she had posted up were the meaning of homophones and some examples (here, hair, to, too, and two), and the three steps to being a good listener (be quite while speaker is talking, listen to understand what the speaker is saying, and then respond). There was a weather chart that documented the amount of rainy days, cloudy days, sunny days, and snow days that occurred through out the month. In addition there was a chart with “end of the day chores” listed. Each group rotated duties such as turning out the lights, putting up chairs on top of desks, erasing the board, and shelving books that were used for the day. There also were various writing and science projects the students worked on posted up through out the class room.
To add on more about the setting of the class room there were two computers and a printer located at the back of the classroom. The computers were used to assist students who needed extra help in Math. Adjacent from the computers was a book shelf and on the opposite side of the book shelf there was a colorful rug and a portable writing chart. That area was used to conduct a portion of the Math lesson. Ms. Gugliemi informed me that she conduct the lesson in two locations to keep the students engaged so that they would not get restless, board or fall asleep. And finally at the blackboard there was a schedule that indicated the agenda for the day with the start and stop time for each subject. Math was taught everyday from 10:45a.m. - 12:00p.m. Thus the daily time devoted to Math is 1 hour and 15 minutes and the weekly total of Math instruction is 6 hours and 15 minutes.
The lesson that Ms. Gugliemi worked on that day was the meaning of perimeter. She started the lesson off by flashing index cards with the names of various shapes on them. She asked the class ( who were sitting in three groups of four and one group of five) “who wants to read the name of this shape?” All the students eagerly raised their hands and one in particular jumped out of his seat while raising his hand. She told him “how many times I have to tell you I only call on students who are seated while raising their hands”; he sat down and started pouting. Then she called on a girl sitting in group one and she said “trapezoid”. Ms. Gugliemi said excellent. “Who can tell me what a trapezoid looks like?” Once again they all waved their hands frantically. She called on a boy sitting in group two. He drew an imaginary trapezoid in the air. Ms. Gugliemi said “not quit but you’re on the right track”. The next index card had parallelogram on it and she asked again who will like to pronounce the name of the shape she picked on a girl from group four and she mispronounced the word. She responded by saying “it’s ok this word has a lot of letters” She then asked “who wants to help her out? The boy who jumped out of his seat for the first question raised his hand and pronounced it correctly. She responded by saying “excellent thank you for following the rules” She then described what the word parallel meant and used subway tracks as an example. She continued her Socratic method for the remaining shapes which were polygon, rhombus, triangle, perimeter and square. For the square she said “ I know everyone knows this shape so you all can call out” and then all the students yelled out “square” They soon became to noisy and excited so she rung her bell three times and by the third ring they were all silent.
She then instructed the class to go to the area rug for another part of the lesson. The quietest table went first and so on and so on. The quietest table was group four. She then emphasized on what perimeter meant. I also sat on the floor with the students and they looked shocked that I did. She pulled out flexible wire
(like the kind used for closing garbage bags) she had three different sizes she told the class that the longest one was8in, the next size down was 6in, and the smallest was 4in. She asked the class “who can tell me the pattern of the twisty ties?” She picked on a boy and he said three. She asked “why do you think it is three?” and he said “because there are three twisty ties” She responded by saying “yes you are right there are three but each one has a different number, who wants to help him out?” She then picked another student and he responded “the pattern is two because each twisty has 2 inch difference from the one before it” She replied “that is correct very good” She then made a triangle out of the twisty ties using three 8 inch twisty ties. She then asked “if each one of the twisty ties is 8 inches how many inches I have here all together? Who can give a multiplication problem?” They all raised their hands and the student she picked said “ 8 + 3 = 11” She replied “I said multiplication not addition pay attention 8 + 3 is equal to 11 but I want a multiplication problem” She chose another student and he answered” 8 x 3 is 24” She said “excellent now class when you add the number of sides together like we just did that is how you find the perimeter” The class said “ oh” She then referred to the student who added 8 + 3. By emphasizing that it is 8 +8+8 because each side is 8 inches. She also insisted that the distance around as shape is the perimeter.
She then asked the class if the portable chart (which was shaped like an oblong rectangle had 6inches on two of the sides and 3inches on the other two sides what the perimeter would be? The students began counting on their fingers and then their hands started flying in the air. She picked a student and he answered “6+6 is 12 3+3 is 6 and 12 + 6 is 18” She said the number is right but who can tell me what is missing from his answer? She picked a student who replied “inches” She responded “Excellent remember on the state test if you do not put the unit you get the answer marked wrong!”
She told the class to go back to their tables because they were going to work in pairs to build shapes and calculate the perimeter. She informed me that she provides individual attention to students who need extra help in Math. She works with them when she assigns individual work to the rest of the class. She had rung her quiet bell because they were getting noisy while she and I were talking. The table that got quiet first received star a gold star on the quit chart. I returned to my seat by her desk and continued to taking notes. Ms. Gugliemi handed distributed the twisty ties and stood in front of the class room. She designated that one person in the pairs would hold the twisty ties while the other person would make the shapes and then for each new shape the students would switch roles. The first shape they made was a rhombus before she got a chance to give the value of the units the time was up. She had to move on to another subject. She informed the students that they will have a brief review on Monday and then continue the lesson. She assigned reading in the math book on the introduction of perimeter.
Ms.Gugliemi did a wonderful job. The only thing I would have had done differently was provided more examples for the student who did not fully understand the meaning of perimeter. I would have had done that to straighten out the student misunderstanding of the concept.
Ms. Gugliemi apologized for the time interruption and insisted that I come back another day to observe again because she was glad to be the subject of my observation. She was very pleasant and nice and her students were respectful. She told the class to say good bye to me and that was the end of my observation.
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