Corinn Randolph

Walk Through
I completed the walk through assignment in a KG2 classroom. I visited this
classroom six times over a period of three days. Each visit was approximately
3-4 minutes in length. Since I visited an early childhood classroom, I saw
much more than class time and was able to see how the curriculum was being
integrated into various parts of the day including recess, snack, and transition
times.
There was a high level of engagement in this classroom for most of the
students in this large class of five-year-olds. I believe that most of what I
observed fell into the student learning conversations category of student
involvement. While I did see cooperative learning during center time as well
as a large variety of hands-on activities, these were all teacher chosen.
Teacher-led instruction was kept to a minimum taking into consideration the
attention span of a young child. Students were encouraged to converse
during center time as well as snack and recess. There was student work on
the walls that tied into the curriculum that was being taught. The classroom
was organized with clearly defined student areas and I did not notice any
classroom issues from the short visits that I conducted.
I noticed many different approaches to teaching the curriculum with definite
focus on different learning styles. It was evident the teacher took into
consideration that children learn in many different ways and she
accommodated for her visual, kinesthetic, auditory, and musical learners. The
questions Id like to ask her revolve around how she plans her lessons and
identifies the different learners in her classroom. Id also be curious to know
which of the different learning styles she has the hardest time fitting into the
curriculum or her classroom schedule and what things she has tried to combat
those challenges.
I liked using the Downey method for this assignment. It helped me to narrow
my view of what was happening in the classroom, which was important with
such short visits. The specific things to look for really helped me to focus on
the pieces that were most important such as how and what the teacher was
teaching. I think the most challenging part of this assignment was taking off
my teaching hat and putting my administrator hat on. It was difficult to
observe without thinking about how what I was seeing could be adapted for
my students and I think that only time will help with this issue. On the other
hand, being able to observe and put yourself in that teachers shoes could
definitely help to not only develop positive relationships with your teachers but
also connect with them educator to educator.