My mentor teacher is Mr. Christopher Clarke. He currently is teaching only economics at the various levels including: 2 CP, 3 Honors, and 1 AP course. Mr. Clarke teaches a year long required course, where the first semester is dedicated to civics and the second semester is dedicated to economics (the portion that I have observed). On average he teaches 26 students per class, and most if not all of the classes are composed of 9th graders, with a few exceptions for 10th graders. This school year and more specifically this semester he is attempting to implement of a variation of a flipped classroom. He pre-records his lessons where he does a screen cast with a voice over of his PowerPoints for each lesson, each video being about 5-10 minutes. At the end of every lesson there is a formative assessment with five multiple choice questions. Students have two attempts on Schoology, and the site automatically submits the higher score. It is a very much a self paced class, where students themselves must be accountable of going from one lesson to the next on their laptops (with headphones). Students have a pre-determined amount of lessons and are aware at the beginning of the unit when the summative assessment is. 

       Mr. Clarke's classroom is a simple layout with the shape of a square. The rooms is generally well lit with all the lights typically on and a wall full of windows with natural light shining in. Upon walking in one can see the white board and SMARTboard to the right, with my mentor teacher's desks straight ahead. To the left of the classroom are 32 desks for the students. The left wall which is aligned with the hallway is full of posters and bulletin boards, while the back wall's base contains multiple storage units and more bulletin boards and posters. Throughout the classroom my mentor teacher has implemented his personality with Beatles posters, famous Lego architectural buildings, and other small memorabilia of the places he has traveled to. Mr. Clarke requires that students use and have their designated chrome books (always charged), which are given to the students by the school in 9th grade. He also implements and mainly utilizes the SMARTboard as an essential teaching tool within his classroom when reviewing with the class. However, most of his teaching and composition of creating his lessons are done outside of the classroom often at home. Overall the classroom is extremely organized from the arrangement of the desks to even my mentor teacher's desk.

    I myself am an organized person and I was truly impressed with the organized composition of the overall classroom. The desks are arranged in a classic desk layout with 6 rows of desks, each with one desk behind the other facing front. From my mentor teacher's view one can see the whole class and the hallway from their perspective. One interesting note or visual that I really liked for the students was a visual representation of Bloom's taxonomy that my mentor teacher had gotten printed. What I liked the most about the arrangement of my mentor's teacher classroom was how he added his personality. Even in between classes when students are leaving to go to their next class and the next class is coming into the classroom my mentor teacher plays music to fill the time. So often I remember my favorite classes and classrooms to go and learn were where it did not feel so rigid and cold, but the classrooms where it felt warm and inviting. I believe a more personalized classroom also shows that the teacher is in fact human and has likes and interests just like any other person.