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1st day -- Principal's Office

Regarding norms/rituals/rules in the classroom: In Ms. Ramaekers’s Chemistry class, the students know that their homework needs to be out on their desks and checked at the beginning of class. Then the students also know that they are expected to be called on during class. Ms. Ramaekers uses the method of calling on students in sequential order, so the students know when their turn is coming up. 

In Ms. Duning’s General Science class, the students know that they are expected to turn in their assignments in a alphabetical order at the beginning of the class. Ms. Duning created a system where she announces the last name of her students while taking roll call. She announces three students’ last names in a row and then takes a break, then proceeds to call the next three students by their last name. Ms. Duning does this ritual at the beginning of class, as the students complete roll call they also bring their assignments to the front of the room when their name is called. Ms. Duning said that this order helps her with grading and organizing papers. If the student is not in class, or did not turn in their homework she recognizes the absence immediately and writes herself a note to follow up with the student. If the students are absent, all of their assignments are placed in their own personal folder. Ms. Duning set up a small storage bin on the back desk and each student has a folder. Inside the folder are graded assignments and assignments that need to be completed by the student. Ms. Duning made a rule that all assignments need to be completed or the student will fail the class. 

Regarding distractions in the classroom: I have observed that in both classes students are accessing their cell phones, eating crunchy foods, and there are tons of side conversations. More of these distractions are present in Ms. Ramaekers class because she never addresses them. In Ms. Duning’s classroom, she addresses an issue as it is happening and the issue doesn’t continue. However, once Ms. Duning takes everyone’s attention from the lesson to focus on the student’s misdemeanor she looses the motivation of the lesson.

Regarding common responses to distractions: I believe that both teachers notice the distractions, especially Ms. Duning since she actually addresses the issues. I think that these distractions cause strong emotion to arise in Ms. Duning because she finds these misdemeanors very disrespectful. Ms. Duning shared with me that she is very consistent and very serious, especially during the first few days of class; if any students are misbehaving she sends the student to the office. Ms. Duning said that after the third day of class each quarter, the students know that she is not going to tolerate such misdemeanors. When Ms. Duning addresses these misdemeanors she remains calm and stands her ground, so I don’t think that she is nervous to address the issue. I think that since she has been teaching for 16 years that she is used to sending the same type of students to the office. However, Ms. Ramaekers tends to be the student’s friend and not their superior. I personally think that Ms. Ramaekers should have more of a backbone rather than being flexible with her students. It just feels weird that she is comfortable being their friend, especially when her role is like being a supervisor and she also is not their peer. I think that Ms. Ramaekers does not address these distractions because she doesn’t want to cross a line with her “friends/students.”

First Impressions of Marion High School

My first thought was how impressive the science facilities were compared to the rest of the school, and my past high school. The science wing had just been renovated this past year and each of the science classrooms were designed to be split in two parts, one half tables and chairs for lessons and the other half a lab area. The tables were organized into three long rows which I found inconvenient for me because I couldn’t see over heads in the front row, since I was sitting in the back. If I were to have a classroom I may have structured the seating/table furniture differently. 

Ms. Ramaekers teaches Chemistry and is in her second year of teaching (in general) at Marion High School. Her class had structure, the block would start with checking homework, then a review of the homework, then a pre-activity, a lesson and then an activity(lab) or a worksheet would follow and then be assigned as homework. Ms. Ramaekers used the smart board for power point presentations, presenting the announcements in written form, and also showed the seating chart. However Ms. Ramaekers did not use the smart board for any other applications. 

After reviewing homework Ms. Ramaekers started the lesson with a demonstration using a candle and a glass flask. The students were asked to observe and hypothesis what would happen if the burning candle was trapped in the glass flask. The class was very excited about this demonstration because it involved fire and also because they didn’t know what was going to happen. However this demonstration had a few problems because the candle wouldn’t light and then the flask wasn’t filled with enough oxygen. The more time it took to set up the demonstration and account for stopping and starting up again, the class was losing their motivation to be engaged. After the first demonstration the students asked what would happen if a bigger flask was used. Ms. Ramaekers allowed the students to keep asking questions and then she would ask conceptual questions in response that applied to their lab about pressure, volume and temperature. 

After the demonstration the students were instructed to finish their lab about pressure, temperature and volume. The students went to the lab area and this is where most of the students found themselves confused. The lab was set up as a rotation and consisted of four stations. One group had to heat an aluminum pop can and then place in freezing cold water. The second group had to get a hard-boiled egg in and out of a flask. The third group had to get a balloon to inflate inside a flask. The fourth group had to observe the effects on a marshmallow in a vacuum chamber. The group with the aluminum pop can had no trouble at all completing that station. The second group however had a difficult time getting the egg to go inside the flask and decided it would be easier to push the hard boiled egg into the flask. I watched this group as they contemplated the two methods and they decided to ask the teacher if it would be easier to push it in (force applied). Ms. Ramaekers said that that was not the method they were asked to use and instructed them to follow the steps on their lab sheet. The students followed their lab sheet and got the egg into the flask correctly. Then the students had to get the egg out of the flask...this became a challenge because there was no direction how to remove the egg and it was too big to fall out of the flask. The group contemplated multiple times before asking the teacher. Once they asked the teacher she just asked them to keep thinking about it and went to assist the group with the vacuum chamber. The group with the vacuum chamber was confused how to start the pump to suck the air out of the chamber and was not doing the experiment properly until Ms. Ramaekers assisted them. The next group was at the fourth station with the balloon and flask. This group never advanced to the next station. This group consisted of all groups and none of them could figure out how to complete the lab. Instead of finding a solution they got more fustrated and irritated that they wanted the answer straight from the teacher. Ms. Ramaekers’s response was, “keep trying, maybe you should experiment.” The students were disgruntled with her response and just sat their staring at the flask. No one in that group learned anything because they decided not to do anything. As a teacher, I would have hoped that Ms. Ramaekers would have encouraged them to explore other options, with a little bit of guidance. Because i think the students needed that extra push. I don’t think that group of girls were ready to explore on their own like Ms. Ramaekers expected them to.  

According to the NCES data page, Marion High School has a student to teacher ratio of 13.66, I found this statistic to be an average. For instance, first period has 22 students and third period has 7 students. The NCES data page also stated the total population of students to be 608, and that 560 of those students are white. I found this statistic to be prevalent in the classrooms, all but one student in first block was white. The data page includes that 122 students are eligible for free lunch, and 47 students are eligible for reduced-price lunch. I found this statistic to be prevalent while grading homework with my cooperating teacher. According to Ms. Duning, she said that most of the students who don’t do their homework at night are not being encouraged by their parents because their parents are not present in the home. Ms. Duning continued to explain how some parents and students do not hold education as the highest priority. Some parents work 2-3 jobs and don’t have time to babysit or make dinner, so those chores become the responsibility of the children and homework takes a back seat. I found this statistic questionable at first because the way I travel to Marion High School is through a neighborhood of suburbs. I however did not calculate the neighborhoods further than the suburb into my impression of Marion High School.