Observation

Alas, I get around to posting my classroom observation. I spent a day in Mrs. G.'s purple room observing her classes.  I quickly realized what a great teacher she is and that she has built an excellent rapport with her students. I was really happy that I was able to do these observations because I was able to make a more informed opinion of my cooperating teacher and the students in CFHS. I was also able to view a technique that I was fairly inexperienced with, which I now see as useful for my future classroom.

For the purpose of this blog I am going to talk about my experience observing Mrs. G.'s 12th Grade AP English class. On the day of my observation the students were doing socratic seminars using the book they were just finishing, The Stranger.  Now, let me say that I have never actually taken part in a socratic seminar. I had a brief tutorial of what they were in 406 and witnessed a poorly executed one in an observation at another school last semester, but that is the extent of my interaction with socratic seminars. I will say that if I never had known anything about them, I would have learned a lot from watching these students. I was truly impressed by the way they all arranged their desks in a large circle around a smaller circle of students. Each student in the larger circle had a student within the smaller circle that they were to be focused on to offer constructive criticism once the seminar ended. As the seminar began, each student introduced themselves to one another and began to discuss what topic they would be using for the purpose of their seminar. Once they came to an agreement they began as one student posed the initial question. They bounced ideas off of one another and backed up their claims by citing evidence from the text. They respectfully agreed or disagreed, again using textual evidence. At one point, I glanced at the board and realized that one of their objectives for this class was aligned with the CCSS to cite textual evidence. Objective achieved. These kids did a great job and I learned a little something about the symbolism of light and dark in The Stranger. Once the students were finished, the outer circle offered constructive criticism. They did a nice job of using, what Professor Kraus would call, the complement sandwich. I picked up on a few things in my observation that I would have praised or critiqued that they brought up to various students in the seminar. It was good. I was impressed.

So what does this mean for me? Well, the purpose of being able to observe these classes is to take away something for my future endeavors as an educator. One of my professors may refer to this as "the golden nugget." First, these students helped to dispel the myth that CF students are not as engaged or motivated learners as other students. While I have been here for three months now and seen this already, I needed to throw that out there just one more time. What I witnessed in this observation, I've seen college students struggle doing. Mrs. G. also gets much deserved credit for this because as she said, it takes a lot of time and effort to get them to this point. She holds her students to high standards and knows that they are able to achieve them. Perhaps this is one golden nugget - see the potential in ALL my students, do not make preconceived notions. I realize you may be saying, well this is an AP class. Yes, I've heard that as I've told this story to people. My response is this, Mrs. G. is also working towards getting her inclusion class to do Socratic Seminars. The work that her inclusion class does is similar to her AP class, they are just behind. So, her inclusion class is just starting The Stranger, as her AP class is finishing it. Potential for ALL.

Second: I realized how useful Socratic Seminars can be. As I said, I haven't had much experience with them, but I loved watching the students engage with the text. It was a useful Summative Assessment. It was refreshing to see students engage in a small group about a piece of literature. The conversation flowed so smoothly. I am glad Mrs. G. told me how much work went into getting them to this point. I'm sure there was quite a bit of scaffolding over the course of the year to bring them here, but so worth it. These students are leaving with a tool for their college tool box. Even if they never use a Socratic Seminar in college, they have a great grasp on engaging with the text and each other. I know my thoughts flow best when I'm able to talk them out and bounce ideas off of my peers and this method totally allows for that.

I found this video of a teacher incorporating Socratic Seminars in her 9th grade class. It's a great example of how Socratic Seminars work, and how Common Core is related to them.

https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/bring-socratic-seminars-to-the-classroom