Observation III

November 26, 2007

For my last observation, I decided to see how Emanuel reacted during Problem-Solving Skills instruction.  Mr. Tanner does this daily with students to enhance their problem-solving skills for use during end-of-grade testing.  He uses an overhead projector during the activity.  He allows the students several minutes to answer the question in their booklet.  After everyone is finished; he then goes over it on the overhead.  This activity usually runs around 25 minutes and is after lunch.

12:30- The class is asked to get out their word problem booklets.  Again, Emanuel has misplaced his booklet.  I helped him to find it inside of his desk.  I told Emanuel that he really needs to clean out his desk. 

12:34-  Mr. Tanner starts the lesson by going over what the problem is asking.  He goes over any terminology that the students may not know.  Emanuel seems confused.  He continues to look at his neighbor for direction.  Mr. Tanner catches this and asks Emanuel to look at him during instruction.  Mr. Tanner then goes over the rhyme they say everyday during this activity.  (Read the Question, Figure out what the question is asking for, Reread the question, solve it, and check it)

12:38-  The children begin to solve the problem on their own.  I noticed Emanuel was trying to read the question.  I also noticed that he was trying to figure it out on paper.  But, he had misunderstood the problem and had wrote down the wrong thing.  Some of the other children were also having difficulty with this problem so, my concerns for Emanuel weren't as strong. 

12:49-  Mr. Tanner goes over the problem and writes it on the overhead.  He asks the children what they think the question is asking for.  Some were correct and some were wrong.  Emanuel didn't give out any answer and wasn't pushed to by Mr. Tanner.  Mr. Tanner emphasized some of the words in the question.  This really seemed to help all of the students.  I noticed that Emanuel said, "Oh." 

12:55-  Mr. Tanner wraps up the lesson and asks the children to get out their Spelling booklets.  Once again, Emanuel is having trouble locating his.  I helped him out.

I really feel that Emanuel would benefit greatly from learning some good organization skills.  I feel that there's probably not a lot of that at home.  Emanuel seems to waste a lot of time looking for his belongings.  This cuts into class time and he usually ends up starting latter then the others.  It takes him a while to even figure out the problem.  This causes him to never finish the assignment on time.  Then by the next day he's forgotten how to do the problem all over again.