Group Work Shmoup work

     I had the opportunity to work in a small group this past week while giving a presentation on reptiles to the 4th grade classes.
     Group work is not usually how I do these lessons, but this time it was necessary because the classes had different activities that they were doing and didn't have a solid block of time that they could all be gathered. It was funny to me that there was one or two kids in every group that set the tone for that group. If the group had serious students in it, they stayed on task, had intelligent questions, made connections between what they'd been previously taught and the animals that were in front of them.
     If the group was full of 'goofballs' the questions were more along the lines of  "where do lizards poop." I say one or two students because that's all that it seemed to take to change the tone altogether. One group had 2 boys that were really interested in reptiles and how reptiles lived and moved etc. The other group I worked with had a student who, I'm told, gets sent to the office everyday for making disturbances to get the other students to laugh.

Fieldwork the First 5/17/14

What Developmental Differences Do You See In Students In The Classroom?

       The classroom that I am observing is perfect for this kind of question because there is 1 student with extreme difficulties, 2 with moderate, and 2 who are "gifted".  There are a total of 34 students in the classroom which I thought would make extra management for the aforementioned 5 somewhat difficult. That didn't prove to be the case at this point in the year, but I wonder how the beginning months were. To stay away from using names I am going to name the students alphabetically.

       "Alex" has severe Attention Deficit Disorder and Asperger's. While the teacher is speaking he fidgets with whatever he can get his hands on. He is prone to getting out of his desk and wandering over to the bookshelves or snake tank and zoning everything out. When this happens, depending on the activity, the teacher either speaks quietly to him to get him on task, or lets him be if it is something like silent reading. I watched him for quite awhile and while it didn't seem that he paid attention to anything when it came time to actually do an assignment or line up he was well aware of what was going on. I was informed that his fidget toys actually help him focus on what's being said instead of just daydreaming.

      "Betty" was abused as a child and as such functions at a much lower level than her peers. Her reading and writing are at a first grade level and she is in the fourth. She also has issues understanding appropriate conversation and I saw her being talked to several times about being 'raunchy' with other students. Her speech is also underdeveloped and she has some form of impediment I am unfamiliar with.

     "Caleb" is "normal" seeming but cannot stay on task for more than 5 minutes at a time and has worksheets that are at a lower level than his peers, but I was unable to ask about him specifically to the teacher.

    
    "Daniel" and "Emma" are the gifted students. During silent reading I saw that they were reading High School level books. During the Math Marathon they easily got through their multiplication tables and division tables, 1-10, while most students got through maybe 1 or 2 number sets.