This section of my work-sample is dedicated to the contextual factors of the community, school, and students at Eugene Field Elementary in Silverton, Oregon.

Eugene Field Elementary School is located in Silverton, Oregon, a small town of approximately 14,000 people. Silverton in is Marion County. According to freedemographicdata.com’s website, the poverty rate in Silverton is 9.9% and the unemployment rate is 6.7%. The average price for a home in Silverton is approximately 200,000, according to this same website. The average household income is approximately 45,000 with about 3 people per household average. According to bestplaces.net, Silverton’s cost of living is 13% higher than the US average. The population of Silverton has grown 22% in the past 10 years and is projected to continue to grow.

The average age is 35 with 59% of the population being married couples. One could conclude from this information that Silverton primarily consists of many younger middle-age families and is a community that appeals to raising a family. Silverton is a less diverse community with 87% of the town’s population being white and only 9% Hispanic. Less than 1% of the population is Asian, Hawaiian, Black, or Native American.

According to crime statistics from trulia.com, Silverton appears to be a safe community, possibly adding to the appeal to raise a family in the community. Compared to the total of .44% of violent crimes in Oregon affecting people in Marion County, only .13% of the population of Silverton is affected by a violent crime.

Eugene Field Elementary is right in the middle of the town of Silverton. It is downtown, in between two one-way streets. There is quite a bit of traffic that passes the elementary school, but the playground is fully fenced in and locked when students are attending. The speed limit by the school stays at 20 MPH at all times. There are many houses within walking distance to the school and many businesses as well. There is a church across the street on one side and a row of small businesses on the other. Many students walk home from school or to after-school activities such as the nearby dance studio, piano lessons, or the after-school program available in the gym.

Overall, the community has a “small-town” feel. Many of the teachers know students whom are not in their individual classrooms and many of the families are connected either by relation or long-time friendship. Many of the teachers, parents, and other adults look out for all of the the students, not just their own. In my opinion there is a feel of “it takes a village to raise a child” in the town of Silverton. In 2009, according to CBS News, Silverton was listed as #9 on the “Top 10 Coolest Small Towns of America”.

Description of the school

           Eugene Field Elementary School is a K-3 elementary school. It is the only K-3 school, with the other Silverton elementary schools being K-8. These other schools are also on the outlying areas of Silverton, with Eugene Field being the only elementary school in the city limits of Silverton. According to oregonlive.com, there are 422 students enrolled at Eugene Field Elementary.

            As shown in a pie chart on oregonlive.com, about ¾ of the students at the school are white. There is a significant population of Hispanic students as well; however the school is predominately white. 16% of the students are English Language Learners and the school has an “English Language Development” program for these students. 50% of the students are on free or reduced lunch according to Oregon Live. Class sizes at Eugene Field are relatively small compared to other schools in Marion County. Oregon Live states that there is an 18:1 teacher to student ratio. My experience was similar to this, with about 20-25 students in the 3^rd grade classrooms.

            The teachers at Eugene Field work closely together with their same grade-level, aligning their goals and activities to meet the student’s needs. All of the language development and learning pull-outs occur at the same time for all 3^rd grade classrooms so that the teachers can plan and be consistent in their teaching for the student’s benefit. The students all appear very comfortable with multiple staff people in the school and are familiar with not only their own teacher, but of all staff members, including aides, and the “office ladies” as the students call them. I felt that it was easy to get advice or help for the classroom as a whole or for individual students by the collaboration of more than just the child’s specific classroom teacher. The grade teams meet weekly to discuss student’s needs and what they can alter in their teaching to better serve all students. I think this is an important part of the Eugene Field School atmosphere and how the teachers are setting the students up for success. The school principal is new this year and is extremely involved. She appears very willing to help the teachers (often subbing for an hour or two so teachers can do important things with individual students or projects), and she is always asking the teachers for their input and suggestions to better their academic program. The principal and teachers at Eugene Field, overall, convey a feeling of caring and setting up for success in learning for not only their students, but for all the children in the school.

Description of the classroom

            The classroom is set up with 4 rows of desks, 2 desks facing each other. There is a document camera at the front of the room and a white board at the side of the room. When the white board is used, 2 of the rows have to turn their chairs around so their backs are not facing the board. This was important for me to realize as I was teaching and analyzing where it would be best for me to stand during whole-group lesson periods. There are many bulletin boards in the classroom with different simple things, such as the writing process and a board for “Thanksgiving”. I was given one of the bulletin boards for my unit in which I put up student work as we went along. The teacher does not have a desk, but there is a round table on the opposite side of the room as the document camera that is sometimes used for students who feel they need more quiet to focus, they can move themselves to the back table. The classroom feels somewhat crowded because of the amount of desks in the room, and the way the desks were set up. My mentor teacher did allow me to move the student’s desks but wanted the 4 row structure to remain the same. I moved the desks so “science groups” I had selected were sitting near each other. The document camera seemed somewhat difficult to use and often the students could only see part of what was on it. Since this was the case, I used more of the white board. I had large papers that as a class we would make drawings and write words, writing big enough that the students could copy things down in their journal. This was also helpful as we had some kids coming in and out from pull-outs and the large charts were available for them to see and their peers to explain to them what we had done while they were gone. I posted these charts throughout the room during my unit time so as a whole-group we could continue to review what we had done and the students would be seeing our work and reflecting on it throughout the day. This was a strategy I learned during a GLAD training on how to help our ELL students succeed. While it was designed to help ELL learners I believe this strategy was extremely affective for all my students to absorb the information on their own time and at their different levels. Overall, it is apparent that the students feel comfortable in their classroom. They know where supplies are and feel comfortable “solving their own problems” when it comes to learning and supplies.

Description of the students

            During the time that I was teaching (in the afternoon), I had 23 students total. 3 of the students were in the LRC or getting ELL services throughout the entire afternoon and were unable to participate in the science unit at all. Out of the 23 students, 1 was an ELL learner and was gone during the first 15 minutes of my lesson. I strategically placed this student next to a student that loves taking notes in her journal and is very engaged. When this student returned from her language development, I partnered her with the other student who shared her journal and explained to her the charts that we had done. Also gone during this same time were 2 other students getting speech attention. I also partnered them with higher motivated students to catch them up in their journals and explain our charts and activities. I had 2 students leave 10 minutes before the lesson ended for extra math help. I would catch up with them the next morning to complete their “reflections” about what we learned and go over anything they did not understand.

            I tried to structure my lesson plans so that any exciting activities or experiments occurred in the middle of the time. This way, my ELL and speech students would be just coming back and it would be before my math students needed to leave. Overall this worked well and the students were all able to participate in the exciting activities. There were 2 times that I did pull these students at a separate time to do a review with them to ensure they were grasping the materials. All of these students made some improvement from their pre to post-test.

            The rest of my students were what their teacher considered “typical” students, with a few (about 5) boys who were “high-achievers”. These boys all were very engaged during learning and excited to partner with the students who had been pulled out for some of the lesson. These students all scored high on the pre test but all got 100% on the post test.

            The students were in very random groups including a mix of boys and girls and higher and lower achieving. A lot of the students do have certain friends in the class but I did not see a lot of evidence of certain kids not wanting to work with other kids specifically. Overall, my students worked well together for their age and not experiencing cooperative learning a lot in the past.

           Because my classroom was less diverse than many, I was able to differentiate instruction specifically for students with different learning styles and really focus on my one ELL student. I did this by having a lot of hands-on activities, verbally talking to the students about our learning, and also having many charts and diagrams that we created together. They also took notes in their journal about our learning. This allowed for students who were visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learners to have an opportunity to learn the material in the best way that they could. I used peer expert groups to help my pull-out students “catch up” on material that they and missed and this appeared to work really well, not only for the students who needed help but for my “experts” as well. Judging by my pre- versus post-test scores, it was beneficial to my students to be able to learn in many different ways and differentiating my instruction for different students was a big part in the success of my unit.