Math

Mrs. Coyer’s Tenth Grade Journalism Class Choosing this project to use as my final presentation was based off of a moral decision to use this class to its full potential. I came into TCXG 464 with the idea of an open mind towards teaching but also having a gut instinct that writing was my passion and teaching was more of a learned science. Yet, as I entered the school for my observation I began to get cold feet about the whole idea of passing on the idea of analyzing a writing text book.
The schools main office I’m guessing due to past school intrusions was very skeptical of my presence even after I had gotten the ok from the assistant principle the week before. I was given a visitors name tag and was told to wait in the office until Mrs. Coyer came and got me, no bathroom breaks or leisure walks around campus were given prior to the administration seeing that Mrs. Coyer was expecting me. Arriving to the class early and giving myself time to stay late to talk with the teacher really influenced me to keep an open mind when it came to the thought of me one day becoming a teacher. She had a natural poise, but she also brought a strong handshake which I’m sure her ten years with high school sophomores influenced quite a bit. From the moment I walked into the vacant class room, to the constant hum of group work, to the final thoughts between me and the teacher, I was given a strong sense of what’s on the other side of the interaction not as a student but through the teachers prospective. She had many things to say about teaching in general, both good and bad, but she always kept a smile. Her tone when explaining what she does gave me the sense that she as well as most teachers really have to love what they do to become a successful educator. This was her 10th year as a high school teacher for two different schools prior to sinking her roots in Puyallup’s soil. The sense I got from speaking with her about her job was correct. I was impressed to see a plaque on her wall that said she had been chosen as Puyallup school districts 2007’s secondary teacher of the year. The few minutes we had to talk before class had started, began to interest me as to how someone with a title like that would conduct a class of 16 year olds, bringing me to my first subject of notes, which was Class Environment.

• Class Environment
I observed a sophomore high school journalism class at Puyallup High on Thursday 28, of February. The time was the first third of the second semester where they were mid way into their In-Depth Feature Packet which was the equivalent to a mid term grade due the 10th of March. The class was only 15students large because of a boy’s basketball state game where 5 cheerleaders and a hand full of basketball supporters traveled to support the team. Their teacher, Mrs. Coyer, and I had a few small discussions via email but weren’t able to get a feel for each other until we actually met that Thursday morning proximately 20 minutes before class. Walking into her class gave me many examples of her interests and how she used those interests while integrating class work and criteria to make a fun forum for these teenagers to hopefully embrace and learn. Above the door were newspaper articles from 9-11 terrorists’ attacks. Hung from those articles to the other side of the back classroom wall were famous newspaper articles from America’s past ranging from the headlines of; “Hover’s Elected to stop the depression” to “39 killed, 60 saved in Zeppelin Blast.” My guess of these documents relevance was to show that the need of journalism has been a major part of our media history and also if the journalism is good enough it can become a historical artifact. The right side class room wall was full of pinned memorabilia from her graduating college Washington State Univ. On the front side of that wall hung a month calendar tapped off on a white board with every event/assignment/quiz assigned or due for the month, which she had explained to me was the single most important tool for a new teacher when it came to keeping control of the organizational focus of her class. She admitted to be a control freak as well as being guilty of taking the class organization to extremes, but I felt it was an excellent way to keep everyone on the same wave length and extinguish the “I didn’t know it was due” excuse. On the left classroom wall there is one computer for the whole class to share which becomes off limits accept during group or free time work where its only used for research and library use. Next to it is a large book shelf and on top of the book shelf is 7 worksheets of the fundamentals of writing and below supporting examples of each fundamental. These 7 are; Voice, Sentence Structure, Information, Word Choice, Organization, Purpose, and Conventions. One the front classroom wall there is a daily brain teaser, with today’s being;
This available, (This space available.) This daily changing intro piece, and the wall calendar I believe were the two best learning factors in making the class’s environment as focused as possible.

• Tone Setting
She explained to me that this type of interactive activity is a great way to set the learning tone with in the first couple minutes of class. It allows the students to get out their talkative anxieties and most of the time to make a joke or two about what they think it is. This loosens up the learning environment and strengthens the teacher student bond. After the brain teaser is discussed she opens the class and sets the tone by sitting on a stool surrounded by her students and conducts a two minute discussion as she would if she was talking with her friends at a get together. It’s an open forum so the kids interject when they have something to contribute. This short conversation usually involves a lot of humor and a focused type of group storytelling. After the class when Mrs. Coyer and I talked, I brought this technique up as something I thought her kids really enjoyed and also something that set the tone of “after the conversation time is over, its education time.” She agreed that it helps get the jitters out and she’s learned it’s easier to welcome the jitters in the beginning instead of fighting them throughout the period. The next topic I observed was the Teacher Student Interaction.

• Teacher-Student Interaction
It was a workshop day where the students had to construct an outline of the article they would be writing of the topic of their choice. Mrs. Coyer sat in the back and called up the student’s one by one where she asked many questions forcing the students to elaborate on their ideas in a constructive manner. I could see that she never put down or dismissed the topic no matter how obtuse, but she would ask questions which would maintain their topics focus yet create a stronger foundation to research upon. An example of this was a boy her and I had talked about after class. She said he tries to come off as really intelligent but sometimes trips himself up, biting off more than he can chew.
His topic was how walking in the halls was like driving on the roads. This obviously becomes a hard stance to stand on, but she was able to inspire him to focus on teenage driving as his main point and possibly touch on the walking of the halls as a metaphor. In doing this she comforted his idea through constructive criticism and helped out his research by broadening his boundaries. I was able to hear their conversation go from him feeling bad about his failed idea to ending with a bigger appreciation for his idea once the teacher helped tweak it with his permission. This example became a solid use of teacher student interaction where both parties got what they wanted while both ending in a better place. The student found more research, and the teacher was able to exercise her problem solving methods. When I brought up overhearing his joy of the new idea, she said she calls it the light bulb effect, where she can actually hear through the sound of their voice when a student gets it. She then explained the reason why she teaches is to find those small moments that sometimes the students don’t even realize happen to them.
The classes volume is between a three and a four, a few girls talk off subject in a corner, three boys talk about what they got on their driving tests, and the rest are quietly reading, writing, or staring off into space. I feel more attention should have been given to keeping everyone else on task, but Mrs. Coyer was putting so much energy and devoted attention to the student at hand, that she had tuned everyone else out. This is a common problem facing teachers because the question becomes what’s more important, quantity of talks rushing through the class, or quality? Mrs. Coyer chose quality, which we discussed afterwards, and she told me that there was a certain level of lack of attention to the assigned agenda that she plans room for, and when that threshold is breached she stops her one on one time and reels everyone back in. I personally thought that the threshold I would have placed had been hit multiple times but I think I might have been a little strict for their age bracket and the fact that half the class was on track and the last thing a teacher wants to do is disrupt positive work time for their students. Another example more on a dynamic note was her interaction with the class clown Robert.
Robert is the class clown and always the loudest in work times. When it’s his time to meet with the teacher he greets her by her first name and laughs about it. She begins like all the others by asking him to explain his idea and what he is doing to create supporting evidence for it. He casually explains parts of his idea and shows a lack of interest even after she tries to pry for more information. He commonly gets off subject by talking about how he has a knot in his long hair which get laughs from some of the class fueling him to stay off subject. Mrs. Coyer raises her voice in the questions asked towards him letting the class hear his response and he becomes increasingly flustered and embarrassed by his lack of production on the assignment. I found this fascinating because, she didn’t have to play the big bad teacher role by scolding him and telling the class to get back to work but instead, she used his attention to negatively influence him and indirectly told the students to refocus by regaining the control of their conversation. The one on one time ended with Mrs. Coyer reshaping his article idea and Robert showing more, but still not enough attention to the fact at how far behind he is. All in the span of 7 to 10 minutes she refocused the class, gave Robert a wake up call on his article, and strengthened her problem solving skills. This example was my most effective way to look at how the teacher handles the situations not explained in teaching textbooks.

• The Assignment
The assignment the students were working on during the class period was the equivalent of a mid term which they were about a third done with. The name of it was the In-Depth Feature Package with an overview including; research, a personal interview, writing and editing of short stories, and the design and creating of side bars. The criteria in the overview was a compilation of separate exercises the class had conducted prior to this package, so according to Mrs. Coyer they were more than prepared to fulfill the objective without being re taught what do to, becoming somewhat of a final test of information learned up until now. After creating my creative assignment handout I had realized that the simpler and more to the point the objective and criteria is the better. Mrs. Coyer also shared my opinion on this because after about five minutes of skimming through the packet I had a very good handle on what was expected, how it was to be done, and what the grading criteria would be.
At times I thought the assignment was almost overly simplified for the grade level because most of the pages were fill in the black answers and everything was already formatted how the teacher had wanted it. The steps were bold and clear to the student, as was the number of facts and questions she wanted the students to include during their interview. I am not sure on the level of organization the 10th grade level is to be able to handle on their own but If I had to find something wrong with this assignment I would say that although the work is challenging the reliability on the student to keep themselves on task became smothered due to the extensive outline packet they were given. Coming from a college student who would love to be baby fed instructions as this packet did, I naturally became jealous, but if the 10th grade level needs that to stay on task I think as a whole the In-Depth Feature Packet was very well put together.

• Student Attention Span
The entire 50 minutes the students stayed true to how they had came into the classroom. Some were quite and attentive which gave me the sense that these were the students who would gain the most out of college life and end up having the highest success rate with in their class of peers. I enjoyed watching these diligent workers the most because, I new these type of students when I was in high school and they are the ones that currently are making all the money and in the best positions to succeed in their futures. I felt like I was looking into a crystal ball because I just knew they would become successful, and the high school conversations and drama they were missing out on because of homework would surely pay off in time. I wanted to encourage them to keep up the good study habits, but I felt out of place so instead I wrote about them in this observation. Others like Robert and his group of friends did whatever they could while the teacher was occupied with other students to stay off task. Because of their lack of motivation to complete their work I often found them in this small class, to be the most self conscience of what others thought about them probably because all they had was their reputation, leaving them unhappy and most likely to not succeed in the future. The third type of attention span was the girl in the corner who sat the closest to me. She never moved, talked or noticed much of anything. She stared at the wall and played with her pencil. She might have been having a bad day but when I asked Mrs. Coyer about her, she said that she’s tried to deal with her in a forceful way but it only makes her go into her shell even more. This leaves the teacher somewhat helpless making them allow the girl to zone off, but always trying to include her so that hopefully one day she will give school a chance. This type of attention span broke my heart because the way Mrs. Coyer talked about her was that there’s not much she can do because it seemed to be the more the teacher tried to reach out to her the less likely the girl was to positively respond. So there the teacher is, bent over a barrel wanting to help this girl but not able to unless the girl wants to help herself.

• Discussion on what I’ve learned
The first thing I learned about teaching is how these recent school tragedies have tightened security to the point that a visitor has to be escorted to the classroom with permission by both the principle and the teacher. After getting past that mess of secretary paper work I learned that a visually pleasing environment for high school students is very helpful when trying to set a positive learning atmosphere. I think when the teacher shows their own talents and interests like college diplomas and college school memorabilia or favorite sports, it allows the students to believe that their opinion is also important and welcomed by the teacher.
After the environment welcomes the students I believe that Mrs. Coyer’s first two minutes idea, became her biggest asset in establishing a relationship with her students and also allowing free speech with the idea that after that time had passed the teacher holds the floor for the rest of class. Along with this establishment relationship goes the power struggle which the teacher must learn how to win in a positive way which Mrs. Coyer showed. By using the class’s attention on Robert to back fire and embarrass him to change his way of communicating with her gave everyone an example of what happens when respect is not given.
Once the power struggle is won it’s the teacher’s responsibility to know her students attention spans and be able to push them to their limits. The teacher must also keep in mind that limits for students will differ upon each individual case. And lastly, being able to conduct an assignment promoting a higher level of thinking with a handout that clearly explains the objective and answers most too all questions the students might have is a challenge with in itself. As a whole I really enjoyed observing this class, it allowed me to break away from the student mentality and look at learning from a teaching standpoint and finally understand why teachers do what they do.