Use of Class Time

10:48	Launch	Warm-up	CT is beginning class from the doorway. She is reminding the students what they are expected to be doing at this time and launching them to start on the warm-up.	Majority of students are sitting at their desks opening their binders to begin their work on the warm-up. Several others are walking around to get scratch paper, binders or to talk with other students.
10:52	Launch		CT is going over the warm-up and explaining how this is going to relate to our lesson today. Now she is at the front of the classroom next to the white board and the projector screen.	All of the students are sitting in their desks continuing to work on the warm-up or fixing their mistakes as it is gone over with the CT.
10:56	Launch	Homework Review	CT is at the front of the room asking for any questions that the students might have over the homework.	Students are getting out and looking at their homework. Some are raising their hands since they have questions that they didn’t understand.
11:03	Launch	Transition	CT asks a teammate from each group to collect the binders of the group and put them back on the shelf.	Students are finishing up warm-up and closing their binders and handing them to one of their teammates.
11:05	Development	Lesson	CT is in front of the classroom and talking about what Standard Form is when talking about slope and linear equations. She is covering how to graph these particular types of linear forms.	Students are listening in their desks. Some are talking to each other and one is shouting across the room at his friend.
11:16	Explore	Cooperative Learning Activity - Showdown	After grabbing the flashcards from her desk, the CT is standing in front of the class again and explaining the expectations from the students, including reminding them what the purpose of this activity is. Also, help each other before asking a teacher.	Students are barely listening to the CT. They have heard these “rules” several times throughout the course of the semester. Some are handing out personal white boards to the group members. Some are grabbing dry erase markers so they can being right away when cards are passed out.
11:19	Explore		CT is passing out cards to every group so the students can begin.	Students are sitting in their desks awaiting the cards with whiteboards and markers in front of them and everything else under their desks.
11:21	Explore	Showdown begins	CT and us walk around the classroom to each group avoiding going to the same group at the same time as each other.	Students are picking a card to begin with and then begin working and collaborating as necessary. After they are finished with a card all members raise their hands and have a teacher look over their work. If correct then they move on to the next question, if incorrect then the teacher helps redirect them.
11:37	Summarize	Showdown ends	CT goes over a few common mistakes that she was seeing throughout most of the groups. After this she explains the purpose of today, what they learned and a reminder to get their homework done.	Students are shuffling around trying to put away their whiteboards, markers, erasers and get their stuff from under their desks.
11:40		Bell rings	CT keeps reminding them that there is extra help always available during lunch and after school if they need it.	Students rush toward the door.

 

1.       I think the teacher’s use of time was very good. She never spends too much time on the homework review or the warm-up because she knows we will continue to go over that stuff throughout the lesson of the day. I really like the cooperative learning methods. They are very conducive to having students collaborate and really understand what they are learning. Several times students asked us questions, but we redirected them to their teammates before we answered anything they asked. The students were able to answer each other’s questions for the most part, but there were a few instances where a teacher had to intervene.

2.       I hope to use my class time in a very similar way that my CT did/does. She believes that the lesson and activity are the most important piece of your class period. The warm-up and the homework review are important, but too much time spent on them can just beat things into the ground. This is why I will try to spend a small amount of time on these two things while I stress the main part of my lesson. As always, there cannot be such a strict schedule that there is no room for flexibility. So I will not through time and scheduling to the wind, but always have some time left over for questions, clarifications and misunderstandings.