Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
Kelli Robinson
March 9, 2018
FIELD OBSERVATION SUMMARY 2
The School
When I arrived at Tony Alamo Elementary School I was immediately greeted by the
principal and assigned to observe a general education first grade class, taught by Ms. Powell, that
shared a pod/wing with the special education classes and a fourth-grade class. While I was doing
my field training I had the opportunity to sit down with the principal and ask him questions. He
is a great leader of this school, he treats his staff as a team. He is not a micromanager and said
that he has great teachers he has complete trust in. He involves his teachers in decision making
and each teacher is on a committee and in charge of some aspect of the committee. He told me
that some things that make this school great is the parent involvement and the positive
environment. The staff is here for the children and are invested in their success and the students
want to be here. He said his door is always open and believes strongly in great communication.
His staff knows he is always willing and wants to assist and help them in any way possible. I
could definitely sense the positive atmosphere and environment while I was doing my field
training. Safety seems to be a priority to this school and to the class. At the front office it is
impossible to go beyond a point where you could have access to the children without first being
buzzed in by the front office. In Ms. Powell’s classroom, I notice a clear backpack with safety
equipment and paperwork hanging next to the rest of the backpacks. She informed me that this
backpack is to be taken anywhere the class goes or travels to. She also has a view from her desk
and group table that enables her to see all of her students at all times.
The Classroom
When I entered Ms. Powell’s classroom I was greeted warmly and excitedly by Ms.
Powell and her 19 students. There were 10 boys and 9 girls from various cultures. She has 6
English Language (ELL) students; 1 from Iran that speaks Arabic, 1 from Peru, 1 from Mexico,
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1 from Bulgaria, and 2 from the Philippines that speak Tagalog. As I looked around the room I
noticed a colorful schedule, bold printed rules, sight words, and other colorful printed teaching
aids for the children. The rules posted were: Be Kind, Listen, Keep Your Hands to Yourself,
Follow Directions, and Try Your Best!!! The classroom is small and cozy with several high
windows to let natural light in. There are several bookcases for books, desks, and a sink. Ms.
Powell is reading from a large non-fiction book about birds as all of the students squeeze
together eagerly to be able to have a good view of the book. She takes time to answer each of
their questions and comments and later tells me that she likes for her students to always feel
validated.
I really enjoyed the opportunity to observe Ms. Powell’s teaching style. I feel like I
learned so much from her. She was always willing to answer any and all questions I had and
gave me information I hadn’t thought of. She had unique and clever ways to manage her class
that impressed me. I observed her handling issues and conflict between students that made her
students feel heard and understood. She was extremely organized, prepared and managed time
very well. I loved her interaction with the children during story time and during lessons, she used
various techniques to keep the students engaged and involved during instructional time. She
would break up instructional time by letting them do centers in pairs where they could interact
with each other or they could journal, which she would provide a prompt to get them started. On
one particular day the prompt was, “if you were an animal would you rather be able to fly or
swim and why?” This invoked deep thinking on the part of the students and most of them could
I learned from Ms. Powell how important it is to be flexible as a teacher, you never know
from week to week how things are going to go. It was reading week at the school on the week I
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visited so there were certain adjustments to the schedule as well as an assembly that the Smith
Performing Arts Center came and performed. They also were scheduled to go on a field trip later
that week so it was definitely not a typical week and adjustments needed to be made. She also
taught me that flexibility is important during instructional time, you need to be able to adapt and
change the lesson if it is not being presented in a way that the students can understand. She said
that she has children at all different levels and she needs to adjust the lessons in a way that all of
her students can understand. Sometimes things don’t always work out like you expect and you
Another important lesson I learned is the importance of the classroom community. Ms.
Powell said she started building a classroom community from the beginning of the school year
and it definitely showed. All of the children had a sense of ownership for their classroom
community. They helped each other clean up, loved doing classroom jobs to help the class run
Ms. Powell and the other seven first grade teachers meet every week to plan the lessons
and curriculum for the week. Each teacher is responsible for a subject or a portion of the
curriculum. This planning as a grade level lessens their individual planning time. Ms. Powell
pointed out that it is also good for continuity. Each class is learning the same thing each week so
parents in the neighborhood can’t compare and say that one class is learning more or less than
another class because from week to week they are all working on the same curriculum.
I feel like Ms. Powell’s exchange and interaction between the boys and girls in the class
was fairly equal. She uses what is called equity sticks where she randomly pulls sticks with the
students’ names so that all of the students are engaged, accountable, and paying attention. If they
are called on and unsure of an answer and unable to come up with the correct answer they were
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able to “phone a friend” (ask a classmate for help). I feel like this interaction kept instructional
time very balanced. Ms. Powell had one student, a boy who has been diagnosed with ADHD, he
was extremely smart and became bored easily. He also had moments where he would argue and
be disrespectful to Ms. Powell and so because of this there may have been a few more
I was curious about the different positive and negative aspects of teaching in a general
education versus a special education classroom. I noticed there seemed to be more pressure on
performance in general education. In addition, the standardized testing requires the first grade to
know 150 sight words by the end of the year. Ms. Powell tests her students on sight words every
Wednesday and works on them every day. She also does MAP growth in math and literature to
test their percentiles. She said absences and tardiness really effect performance so that is
something along with behavior and grades that she discusses with parents on a regular basis. She
uses incentives such a point system called Dojo for rewards and Believer Bucks for a popsicle on
Fridays. The hope is to encourage her students to be motivated, stay on task and manage their
time efficiently.
Special Education
Although Tony Alamo does not have a full inclusion class the students do have the
opportunity to socialize with one another. One of the students from the special education class
who has autism, Audrey, spent part of the day with Ms. Powell’s class. Ms. Powell assigned two
of her more mature and responsible girls to be friends with Audrey while she was with the class.
Audrey was unable to communicate verbally but she was extremely well behaved and happy.
She seemed to really enjoy the time she spent in Ms. Powell’s classroom.
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In the middle of the six classrooms (2-1st grade, 2-4th grade, and 2 Special Education EC)
were two large tables where specialists who came to work with students. While I was doing my
observation the speech-language pathologist was pulling students out to teach. I was able to
observe how valuable this one-on-one instructional time was for the students and how much they
In Special Education although they didn’t seem to have the same pressures for academic
performance they faced their own challenges and successes. Each student in special education
varied so greatly on what they were struggling with that even with the help from professional
trained specialists the teachers sometimes seemed overwhelmed with the needs of their students.
They were always busy and constantly interacting with their students. I think they were all
agreed that the love that they have for these exceptional children and the bond they have with
them is beyond rewarding. I was truly amazed and admired these teachers and their level of love
and dedication.
One challenge both general and special education seemed to face was a lack of resources.
They all seemed to express the same frustration of the lack of financial help they receive to buy
materials. Most have used their own money to buy materials. They have had to buy and provide
books, learning games, iPads, and other instructional tools for their classroom. They both also
receive a formal assessment and formal observation per year (Nevada Educator Performance,
Teaching and Performance). The administration goes over indicators, standards, and gives ideas
Lessons Learned
cooperating teacher, Ms. Powell, and the other educators I was able to observe. Ms. Powell has
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been a teacher for 15 years and I think through these years she has been able to learn different
teaching methods and styles. One in particular that stood out to me was an auditory lesson during
phonics. She taught the children a really cute, catchy song about a tricky “Y” and when it should
be used. They loved the song and were able to recall it if they were not sure when it should be
used. She taught me about how important it is to be flexible and manage your time. I was also
able to get an idea of what type of school environment I would work best in. I really liked and
respected the principal, Mr. Lindberg, and his leadership style. He was very trusting and not a
micro manager which I felt gave his staff more confidence. I think together with his style, the
teacher’s love and dedication to the children, and the students’ desires and enthusiasm to learn