TWS Part I: Contextual Factors

This fifth grade class room is located on the red hallway at Mathews Elementary School. This classroom has a very welcoming and warm environment. At the front of the classroom there are two dry-erase boards on either side of the smartboard. On the farthest dry-erase board, the date, the class schedule, and the lesson objectives for each subject area are listed. In the front of the classroom, there is a colorful rug, which is located directly in front of the smartboard. This carpet has five rows, with each row assigned a color (red, orange, purple, blue, and green). This area is used for shared reading lessons and class meetings. Students are free to come to the carpet during independent reading time, as well. The desks are arranged into rows, with the exception of two-couplet rows on the far side of the classroom. The students are not in any particular order. There are three students who are islanded which means they are not a part of any table or couplet, they are by themselves. There is a specific reasoning behind the teacher doing this. One of the students, has Aspergers Syndrome and its requested upon the childs parents that he sit in the front of the classroom, away from the other students. Another student, is a diabetic and has to leave the classroom several times throughout the school day. Her desk is located near the door, so her leaving class does not cause any disruptions. Finally, the remaining student is isolated due to behavioral issues, he cannot focus with students near him, as he will try to cause distractions. The teacher has isolated him so he can concentrate. In the back corner of the classroom, the teacher has a horseshoe shaped desk, which is used for guided reading as well as guided math, for the interventionist who comes in during the classs math block. Behind the desk, is a table with all of the materials she/the school interventionist might need when conducting their groups. In the back of the classroom, there are four computers. Two computers are used for Accelerated Reader and Compass Learning, which students can access throughout the school day, with the teachers permission. The next computer, is used for Accelerated Math. Students complete their AM packets throughout the week and record their answers on a scantron. A scoring machine is hooked up to their computer and the students can quickly scan their scantron and their score will pop up on the screen. Students can only turn the scantrons in if their score is above 80%. The final computer is used by the classroom teacher, where she can print documents or browse the internet during her planning period to find worksheets, etc. On the wall next to the classroom door, is the cubby area. The cubbies are assigned a number (1-25) and students are assigned a number based off of alphabetical order. In the cubbies, students keep valuable items such as their homework folders, daily planners (agendas) and their science/social studies textbooks (since they rotate between those two subjects every two weeks). Below the cubbies are

TWS Part I: Contextual Factors

hooks in which students can hang their jackets or backpacks, however, there is not enough hooks, so the students keep their backpacks at their desk, unless the teacher tells them to hang them up (distraction, behavior issues, etc.) The classroom walls are covered in charts and graphs with content that the students have learned throughout the school year. Each of the four walls is a specific content area. The wall above the cubby area, is the math wall, which contains many informational charts from prior math lessons. Above the boards at the front of the classroom, are laminated cards with previous spelling and root words in which the students have learned this year. Behind the guided reading table, there are many posters about language arts and reading strategies. The teacher likes for all of the information from the content areas to be in the same area, especially in an area such as the guided reading table, where she can point and remind students of previously learned reading strategies. The students follow a daily routine throughout the week. In the mornings, students enter the classroom around 7:30am, where they come in and unpack. They place their homework on their desk and get ready for the day. The teacher takes attendance and the breakfast/lunch count during this time. Around 7:50am, the school news program, WMAT, airs on the smartboard. The students recite the Pledge of Allegiance, the South Carolina State Pledge, and the Mathews Pledge. This is followed by announcements in which the students/teachers/staff need to hear. Once the morning program is over the students line up for related arts. Their related arts block is from 8:00am-8:55am daily. Their schedule of activities for the week is: Mondays- Music, Tuesday- Art, Wednesday- PE, Thursday- Computer Lab, and Friday- Media Center. Students walk quickly and quietly down the hall and are met by the related arts teacher. Once the students are with the related arts teacher, the classroom teachers planning period begins. During this time the classroom teacher prepares for the day, grades papers, has grade-level meetings, and sometimes translates Spanish to English in the office, since she is fluent in both languages. At 8:55, the students are brought back from related arts. Before coming back to the classroom, they take their first bathroom break of the morning. Upon entering the classroom, they transition directly into their math block. During this time, the school intervention teacher comes in and assists the classroom teacher with several students, at the guided reading table. They also co-teach lessons throughout the week. This block lasts from 9:00am-10:00am. Around 10:00am, the teacher will transition the students for science/social studies, depending on the week. These two subjects are rotated every two weeks. If it is a science week, the students are actively participating in science experiments in the

TWS Part I: Contextual Factors

classroom or the schools science lab. If it is a social studies week, the students are working in their textbooks or watching videos about American history. After the science/social studies block, the students take their second bathroom break. Once they return to the classroom, the classroom teacher begins the English Language Arts block. This block consists of shared reading, writers workshop, and independent reading. It begins at 11:00am and ends at 12:15pm. During this block, the classroom teacher begins with a read-a-loud, aligned with their ELA standard. Sometimes this book is integrated with another content area (especially math or science). After the read-a-loud, students are given a writing prompt about the story and they spend 10-15 minutes writing in their notebooks. After a class discussion about their writing, the teacher tells the students to quietly shift into independent reading. This is a time for the students to quietly read, take accelerated reader tests, and check out books from the school library. At 12:15pm, the students line up for lunch. Students walk quietly down the hall to the cafeteria, where they are split into their choices (Brought Lunch, Choice A, Choice B) before entering the cafeteria. The students quietly enter the cafeteria and get their meal for the day. They sit at the back table of the lunchroom, with the classroom teaching sitting at the head of the table. Students are to be silent for the first fifteen minutes of lunch, before being allowed to quietly whisper for the remaining ten minutes. At 12:35p, students line-up and clean their lunch area before going directly to recess. During this time, students play freely outside with their classmates, with the grade-level teachers monitoring the recess area. When coming back into the building, the students take their final restroom break of the day. When entering the classroom, students pick back up with their independent reading. The teacher begins the guided reading block. She call a reading group, usually containing five to seven students to come to her back table. Students in her reading group begin their instruction, while the remaining students are quietly reading their books, browsing for books on the shelf, or checking out/renewing their books from the school library. During this time, the classroom teacher will see two or three groups depending on the day. This block is the largest chunk of time, as it lasts from 1:00pm2:25pm. When guided reading is completed for the day, the teacher will begin dismissing students by rows to get their backpacks. The classroom teacher will write down the homework for the night on the board, as well as give it to the students orally. They are to write this into their agendas. The teacher signs this before the students leave the classroom. After the afternoon announcements, the students line up by the way they go home in the afternoons (car riders, bus riders, van riders). The students quietly go out into the hallway and sit on their assigned wall. The fifth grade teachers rotate days in

TWS Part I: Contextual Factors

which they monitor the students. The classroom teacher, is in charge of afternoon carduty outside, so she does not get to monitor her students. Mathews Elementary School is a PBIS school, which is a district-wide implemented behavior system. For good behavior, students receive a PAWSitive Paw. All of the classroom and school rules are implemented with this system, which are laid out in the schools PBIS matrix, which is in every classroom. Students are reminded of their expectations by the classroom teacher on a daily basis. When students are caught following expectations, the teacher will fill out a PAW and give it to the student to keep. Students can save these and use them for admission to a celebration at the end of every nine weeks. There is little evidence of parent involvement in the classroom. There are no parent volunteers, however, they do assist the teacher when planning for parties. Many of the parents are easily reached whenever a question or comment arises from the classroom teacher regarding their child. Student Characteristics This class consists of twenty four students. There are fourteen girls and ten boys. There are eleven African Americans, two Hispanics, and eleven Caucasians. Both of the Hispanic students grew up in Spanish speaking homes, but they both are fluent English speakers and brilliant. They have no problems in the classroom and adapt well to situations that they may not be fully comfortable with. As mentioned earlier, there is one Autistic child. He suffers from Aspergers syndrome. He has certain tendencies that the teacher has to watch for. He scratches his arms to a point where they bleed. She normally doesnt make him go to activity in the mornings because his medicine is not fully in his system that early. However, he jumps on a computer and works on his favorite subject, physics! He loves to talk about science and how everything works. His IEP states that he wants to be a scientist. The teacher often keeps in touch with his parents about his goals on the IEP. Most of the students in this classroom are kinesthetic learners. The teacher has them engage in many hands on activities. Most of the boys love Carolina football, so the teacher uses different football situations when she is teaching. The girls in the class love to read and be cheerleaders. Again, the teacher uses this in order to engage them. She has many books about cheerleaders. According to the teacher and recent PASS (Palmetto Assessment of State Standards) scores, 16 of the students are above grade-level in mathematics, while the remaining 9 students are working on meeting that goal. 21 of the students are on or above grade-level in reading. The teacher works very closely with the 4 students during guided reading. Her goal is to have all of her students reading on grade-level before

TWS Part I: Contextual Factors

they enter middle school. According to the data from the MAP (Measures of Academic Progress) test, which the students took in the Winter, 65% of the students scored on grade-level for Mathematics, with 35% scoring below grade-level. In Reading, 78% of the students scored on grade-level, while only 22% of the students scored below gradelevel. Instructional Implementations Some of these contextual characteristics have an effect on instructional planning. For example, the teacher has to prepare for some behavioral issues from the student with autism. He always has to have something to do. The teacher always has something for him to do, whether its to read or work on the computers. He responds well to the educational computer games and his outbursts have almost completely subsided. This satisfies some specifications of his IEP. One of the Hispanic students has some trouble in math. The teacher has her sitting beside a little girl who does extremely well in math and has no problem with helping the Hispanic student. They have worked well together since fourth grade, so why change it now? She is responding well. During guided reading, she works on different math sheets the teacher has prepared. The teacher stays in close contact with the students parents to make sure they are aware of her math progress.