Makenzie Cannon

EDUC 115
Course paper
6 December 2017
Observation
One of the history teachers that I observed during my time at Patrick Henry High School

in Glade Spring, Virginia was Mr. Hill. I observed his first three class periods of the day. Mr.

Hills first period class was U.S. government and they were doing presentations on how a bill

becomes a law and about the House of Representatives. Mr. Hill made the classroom

environment for his students casual and comfortable. There was also a lot of classroom

discussion. One thing that Mr. Hill discusses with his students everyday are current events. The

current event of the week was the shooting in Las Vegan, Nevada. He asked questions such as,

What should we do to solve issues like this? How do we prevent them? Should there be more

gun control? What are some other possible solutions we can do about this? During the

discussion the students were very engaged and felt comfortable sharing ideas and participating.

He asked them to answer these questions by writing them on a piece of paper and turning them

into him at the end of class. This was a way for Mr. Hill to learn more about his students, their

views, and their ideas. Mr. Hill came up with creative activities and games to keep his students

engaged. In his government class, Mr. Hill made a group project where his students got to come

up with their own country, constitution, and declaration of independence so his students could

understand what government does and how it works.

Mr. Hills second period of the day was U.S. History. As a bell ringer, he had the students

go to the smart board and do a matching activity about the Civil War to get them all involved. He

also used candy as an incentive for his students to go up to the smart board, which got the
students excited about going up to the board and the candy seemed to make his students more

engaged. Mr. Hill also incorporates games such as Kahoot, which the students enjoy. While I

observed, the students were learning about the Civil War. Mr. Hill provided a packet of the notes

for that week to students. As he lectured he could talk about the information on the power points

and the students could pay attention and highlight the important parts instead of the students

having to take the time and copy the power points onto a sheet of paper. This was also the same

in his third period U.S. history. The second day I observed in his classes, he came up with a

game to show his students how the Civil War was fought. Mr. Hill believed that labor intensive

games where students have to get up and move will result in the students remembering the

information better because they physically did it.

Mr. Hill created a inviting and comfortable environment which the students definitely

responded to. All of his students were involved because they were engaged and having fun. The

students were enjoying themselves while they were learning and that is so important in a

classroom. You could tell the students could not wait to come into his classroom every day to

learn. I will definitely incorporate group projects and games into my history classroom.

The second teacher I observed was Mr. Meyers. I observed him for the last two period of

the day. His fourth period U.S. government watched a video on a U.S. senate election all class

period. Mr. Meyers fifth period, which was also U.S. government, walked in a did their bell work

assignments out of the textbook as they do every day, after fifteen minutes or so of working on

their bell work Mr. Meyers then proceeded to lecture. The class was talking about the Federalists

and the Antifederalists. At the beginning of the lecture he compared he two on the board by

categorizing the two. The students were interactive and called out what to put under each

category. Mr. Meyers also made a comfortable environment where the students felt that they
could participate and speak up in class. After a brief lecture Mr. Meyers then left the lecture up

to debate. The rest of the class he let the students discuss and debate their different views. Both

Mr. Hill and Mr. Meyers students knew what was expected of them as soon as they walked

through the door. This observation experience has showed me how to make lecture more

interactive and has shown the importance of classroom discussion. I will also implement plenty

of classroom discussion in my classrooms when I become a teacher.