Hayley Morgan

Mrs. Cravotta
ED 208
4 November 2013
Observation Reflection
On October 16th, 2013 I went to Hutchinson Elementary in
Greensburg, Pennsylvania to complete four hours of observations for
Characteristics and Strategies with Mrs. Cravotta. While I was there, I
was given the opportunity to observe seven different learning support
classrooms. These classrooms ranged from one on two instructions to
inclusion classrooms with a teacher and a teachers aide. I observed
many times the three types of environments of the classroom,
physical, educational and emotional/social. All three environments are
essential in a learning support classroom, to create the best
opportunity for the child to learn.
Strategies and aides in the classroom greatly support the
students in their learning. In each learning support classroom, the
teachers used direct instruction as their teaching strategy. Direct
instruction includes the teacher reading from a book, like a script, and
using a computer screen to follow along with the lesson. When the
book calls the students to answer, the teacher snaps to indicate they
need to answer as a group. Direct instruction calls significantly for
repetition. For example, Miss Aebi, in her math class, follows this script

for the teaching strategy, what number is this?, the students answer,
60. She repeats the question and then breaks up sixty to, six and
zero. The students answer her questions every time she snaps and are
reprimanded for answering before she snaps. Although this teaching
approach does not allow much room for creativity, the teachers feel it
is the most effective way to teach in a learning support classroom.
Mrs. Yorko, who teaches reading mastery, feels direct instruction is
effective, it does repeat, but it repeats for a reason. Each teacher I
talked to said they try their best to add their own touch of teaching
strategy to involve the students in a creative way. Miss Aebi did this by
paying her students with paper quarters for incentive. If the student
receives four quarters for good behavior, they are allowed to buy a
pretzel. Another strategy used in the classroom to keep track of the
students improvement is a chart. This chart, used in inclusion
classrooms, addresses which skill the student was working on and the
progress they had during that class.
First, I started off my day at Hutchinson Elementary in room 107,
which is split down the middle to create two classrooms. The divider is
a temporary wall that does not suppress noises to their side of the
room. While Miss Aebi, who is a reading and math specialist, teaches
math to two students in Room 107 A, Mrs. Goodge teaches seven other
rowdy students in room 107 B. As Miss Aebi teaches her half an hour
rushed lesson, noises from room 107 B, filters over to side A and

distracts the students. Miss Aebi does her best to keep the two
students, Lee and Justice on task with repetition from direct instruction.
The physical environment of having two classes in one room is not
ideal to the teachers or students. As I was there doing my
observations, I felt I was constantly in the way because there was not
much space between tables and chairs. As the half hour finished, I
traveled to part B of room 107 with Mrs. Goodge who is a learning
support teacher. This side of the classroom has seven students and
they were having a comprehension lesson. The way the classes are
split up depends on the academic level the student is on. That means
Goodges classroom can vary between students from grade one to five;
at that time, there were second to fourth graders. Mrs. Goodge had a
boisterous group for her class. As one student makes noises and
cannot control the movement he does when he is sitting, other
students follow his lead and misbehave. Goodge settles the matter by
giving the boy two options, he can either stand behind his chair, or he
has to sit in his seat with two feet on the ground. Being given this
option, he calms down and choses to switch between sitting and
standing during the lesson. Mrs. Goodge teaches a lesson about the
same; for example, canine and dog mean the same thing. During her
instruction, one student yells out loud and does not seem to have
control over the noises he makes. Goodge continues to teach and does
not acknowledge the noises he makes. The boy beside him complains,

He made noises, I cant hear you! Instead of telling the yelling boy
to be quiet, she repeats what she said. The social environment in room
107 B struggles with distractions but Mrs. Goodge does very well with
remaining calm and understanding of the students difficulties with
paying attention and staying still.
Next I traveled to Room 109 with Mr. Greece. Mr. Greece works
in small group settings but also works in the general education classes
to assist students that have an IEP. Although this room has the same
setup with a temporary wall dividing the classroom, it feels less
crowded than 107, and more organized. The decoration and creativity
gives an exciting aroma to the room. To encourage positive behavior,
a sticker chart labeled, PAWsitive behavior is stapled to the wall, and
when they behave well, they receive a sticker. On the left wall, are
three computers that the students are allowed to use during their
breaks if they behave well and earn computer time. Right as class
began, one boy named Austin ran out of the room and hid in the boys
room to stand on the toilet. Mr. Greece had to go into the bathroom to
get him out and when he brought him back in, he placed his own seat
right behind Austins to pull him back whenever he tried to get up and
leave again. Instead of letting the incident blow up, Mr. Greece
thought quickly on his toes and used a token-economy strategy for
positive reinforcement. He decided that since they were taking a trip
to the Pumpkin Patch later that week, he would draw three pumpkins,

one for each student, and if they completed their worksheet correctly,
they would be allowed to color their pumpkin. Austin was trying to do
a task-avoidance, by doing something wrong so he would get into
trouble and be sent to the principles office instead of doing
schoolwork. Mr. Greece tried to make the situation not a big deal
because that is the reaction Austin wanted, to get in trouble to avoid
doing work.
Instead of switching classrooms, I stayed in room 109 B where
the same three students from Mr. Greeces class, Sammy, Savannah
and Austin, finished up their lesson with Mrs. Boges. Earlier in the
week, the students watched a video of Christopher Columbus. It was
then their turn to pick a place they would explore, and write a threesentence paragraph about where they were going and what they would
bring with them. As I watch the class, Austin and Savannah are
finishing up their projects by coloring in their picture of Columbus. This
class has a special mix of social/emotional and educational
environment. While the two students are coloring, Sammy has been
required to rewrite his paragraph because it was not up to Mrs. Boges
standards. The original paragraph was written with the words too
clumped together, so Boges gave Sammy a finger spacer. This
assistive technology was a plastic ruler with a finger sticking out of it
so that Sammy could stick the finger after a word he wrote and he
would know how far apart his spaces should be in between words. As

Sammy starts his last sentence, he asks Boges for a challenge. A

challenge is a teaching tool the students can use to boost their
confidence. The challenge Boges offered him was that Sammy could
choose not to use the finger spacer on the last three words, but if he
did not do it correctly, Boges would erase it and he would have to redo
it with the finger spacer. Sammy accepts the challenge and defeats it!
Boges gives him a high-five and Sammy cheers aloud. By conquering
this challenge, Sammys confidence went from low because he was the
only student still writing his paragraph to very high because he beat
the challenge.
As the time ran up for Mrs. Boges class, the three students
traveled to the opposite side of the room for Mrs. Yorkos reading
mastery class. This is another direct instruction lesson, with talking
out the sounds of letters. This lesson uses a book that Yorko holds up
for the students instead of a computer screen like in Aebis class.
Using her finger, Yorko goes to each letter in the words, sand, late and
rain. The students sound out each letter and then they say it fast as a
whole. The letters that are not pronounced heavily like the I in rain
are written in a smaller font to show not to pronounce it. Austin
struggles with the concept and keeps pronouncing the I heavily. As
individual assessments, each student is given a worksheet. Yorko picks
one student to evaluate, and while that person says the words, the
other two put their hands over their ears to prevent cheating.

In each classroom, I observed many examples of social,

educational and physical environments. I believe each environment
relates to one another to form the best possible learning environments
for the child. Learning support classes especially implement the use of
teaching strategies and assistive technologies to assist the students as
much as possible. While direct instruction can be boring and
repetitive, it seems to be doing the trick for the learning support
classes at Hutchinson Elementary. It was hard for me to recognize that
some students had learning disabilities because they were effectively
and efficiently answering every question they were asked. I also
discovered that the teachers had to really work well together to
accomplish their goals. Each class is only given 30 minutes to teach a
lesson and teachers are running around from classroom to classroom.
They worked together to manage their space and time productively to
give the students the most opportunity to learn as possible.