Group 4 Assignment

Reflections on an Observation

Observers

Steve Ramsell: observed a 10^th grade Biology One class

George Gerrietts: observed a 6^th grade science class

Tammy Barcalow: observed a 6^th grade science class

Terri Franklin: observed a 9^th grade physical science class

Assignment Questions

How roles as researchers effected our interpretation of the event as well as those who participated?

Since we all teach science ourselves, we couldn’t help but think about how we would handle this lesson. In addition most of us were good acquaintances or even friends of the instructor. This made us fairly comfortable in the classrooms, even to the extent that some of us (I won’t mention any names, Steve) began to help the students with their exercise sheets, or even (I can’t believe you did that Tammy) covertly brought up useful sites on the computers that were in the room. Some of us felt that our presence affected the students. I know I was asked why I was taking notes. Tammy too commented that students don’t like teachers taking notes in class.

How well did your field notes capture what was actually happening?

Reading the others notes did give a clear picture of the lesson. From our discussions it seems we each had our own way of taking field notes. I wrote down everything. Steve says he wrote done few notes while he was there and then recorded his observations soon after he left. Tammy rewrote hers afterwards to “make more sense.” I think just by reading our individual observation posting you get a feel for the atmosphere not just the content of lesson taking place.

What types of problems did you encounter during the study?

One of our biggest problems was logistic. The flu delayed some of the observations. Preparing for ISAT and other schedules put the grade school science lessons on a back burner. The second biggest problem was what to include in the report. Is the environment or lack of important in this type of observation? Is 30 minutes really a fair observation? How can we observe technology in science if there isn’t any going on in that 30 time frame? Does our presence skew the observations around us? Are we letting out views on technology hinder what we see as effective teaching? I guess these are problems we will have to deal with when we do our real evaluations.

Miscellaneous comments:

It took us awhile to get things together as a group, but we think things will work out from now on. Since we are a combination of grade school and high school teachers it is rewarding to share some common concerns and experiences. It was fun to watch other teachers teach, and even if it was a change in grade level or subject matter from our expertise, as Steve noted it “looks and sounds familiar.”