TWS-Contextual Factors Classroom Factors: Merrywood Elementary, home of the Musketeers, is a very welcoming school!

Each morning, all of the teachers and staff say good morning with a lively smile on their face. The school is a new school and easy to navigate. When you first walk into the main doors of Merrywood Elementary, you should enter a second door that is on the left. This is the main office and is where visitors sign-in. After leaving the main office, you will enter the yellow hall which is directly across from the office. Follow the yellow hall until you reach the first classroom on the right. There are a few other doors before reaching Mrs. Williams classroom, which is room 201. When you first walk into Mrs. Williams classroom you will notice that the desks are set into table groups with three long tables shared by two students per table. The students are grouped by alphabetical order, gender, and race at the beginning of the semester. Then, after the first nine weeks, students are placed by level. You will also notice that the back wall has six desktop computers. Standing at the front of the room, if you look to the left you will see the bookshelf, which contains individual crates labeled according to the genre of book. At the front of the room is two white boards separated by the SMART Board in the middle. The white board on the left is used to count the days of the school year. For each new school day, Mrs. Williams connects the days with math and asks the students to determine the factors pertaining to that number. Then, after the discussion is held on the different factors, a shape is added beneath the number representing those factors. In front of the SMART Board is a large rectangular carpet with five rows of dots, with each row of dots being a different color. The SMART Board is used daily in the classroom. Before the math and writing lessons, students grab their math or writing notebook and find their assigned spot on the carpet. The assigned carpet spots are determined by each students skill level. During both math and writing lessons, Mrs. Williams has students turn to their carpet partner, which is also assigned by skill level. Mrs. Williams uses the SMART Board to write examples as she teaches a math lesson, to project the workbook page so that students have a visual of what they should complete after the math lesson, and to show students other information such as excerpts to model what students need to look for or do when they are writing. The white board to the right of the smart board is used to show students their homework for different concept areas and their daily schedule. Beside this right white board is a black cart with Mrs. Williams laptop placed on top. Directly beside this cart is Mrs. Williams desk, which is a u-shaped desk with five stools along the outside of the u. All around the room, there are many hand drawn charts which have been created during math and writing lessons and then placed on the walls around the room for students to use as a guide when needed. Mrs. Williams classroom rules include, (1) Respect self and others, (2) Use an inside voice, (3) Stay in your own space, (4) Keep areas clean and organized, (5) Use materials responsibly, and (6) Follow directions and stay on task. Consequences for breaking one of the above classroom rules include a verbal warning first, a warning second, silent lunch third, loss of

privilege fourth, call parents fifth, and sent to the office sixth. When students follow the rules and do as they are supposed to, they receive stamps on index cards. Once students receive five stamps they are able to get a treat from the treat box and once they receive ten stamps they are given the privilege of having more computer time. Each morning, students come in and make their lunch choice by placing an apple stick in the appropriate cup, unpack, place their homework folder on their table and open it to their homework, and start their morning work. After students finish their morning work, they copy down homework, read silently, and work on Accelerated math. Two parents are involved in Mrs. Williams class from time to time. One mother is considered the classroom mom and volunteers her time to plan the class parties and to complete various tasks for Mrs. Williams. Another mother comes in some Wednesday afternoons to work with a small group during math instruction. In fourth grade at Merrywood Elementary, teachers team-teach. In this particular case, Mrs. Williams teaches Math and writing and the team teacher, Mrs. Crooks, teaches science and social studies. Each morning, around 8:15, the classes switch and Mrs. Williams receives Mrs. Crooks students for their Math and writing lessons. The classes switch back at 10:15 and go to lunch/recess from 10:45-11:30. In the thirty minutes before students go to lunch, Mrs. Williams goes over the morning work with her students. Therefore, Mrs. Crooks students are the ones I will see the most, except for immersion weeks. Student Characteristics: Mrs. Williams fourth grade class has twenty-five students, ten boys and fifteen girls who are nine to eleven years old. There are four Hispanic students, nine African American students, and twelve Caucasian students. Some students come from single parent homes while others have both parents. Many of the girls are interested in the male group One Direction. Both the boys and girls are interested in sports, mainly basketball. There are seven students who are part of the gifted and talented program who are pulled out every Tuesday from 9:00-10:30 and 11:40-1:20. Two students are classified as extended resource and are pulled for the resource classroom every day for 50 minutes twice a day. The four Hispanic students are ESOL students who are pulled Tuesday and Thursday from 9:50-10:20. Mrs. Williams also has two speech students; one is pulled on Mondays and Wednesdays and the other is pulled on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Most of the students in Mrs. Williams fourth grade class are kinesthetic and visual learners and learn best in groups. All students are motivated to learn through content that is relatable to their lives. Five of the students are currently a part of the RTI process. Three are in tier 2, one student is in the intervention process, and one is in the referral process with a new IEP being crafted. Many of these students are below target according to their PASS scores from the end of third grade, fourteen students were at or above the scale score of 635 for ELA and ten were below that scale score for ELA. For math, ten students were above the scale score and fourteen students were below the scale score. For the start of fourth grade, students should be at a score of 38 for QRI/DRA. By the end of the first nine weeks, students should be at a score of 40 for the

QRI/DRA. At the end of the first nine weeks, eleven of Mrs. Williams students were at or above the target score of 40, six students had a score of 38, which is still acceptable, six students scored below a 38, and one student did not have a score because she entered Mrs. Williams class halfway through the school year. Fourth grade students are at grade level according to MAP scores for reading if they score a 201. Eleven of Mrs. Williams students scored higher than 202 on the fall 2013 MAP reading test and were considered above grade level. Two students were slightly below grade level with a score between 193-200. Six students were one grade level below with scores between 180-192. Five students were 2 grade levels below with a score less than 179. The fall fourth grade MAP target score for math is 203. For fall 2013, two students scored a 203 and were at grade level. Twelve students were about grade level with a score of 204 or higher. Five students were below grade level with a score range between 193202. Five students were one grade level below with a score range of 180-192. One student was two grade levels below with a score less than 179. The winter MAP testing target score for reading is 205. For winter 2014, twelve students scored above target and are considered above grade level. Two students scored between 198-204 and are considered below grade level. Three students are considered one grade level below with a score range between 187-197. Six students scored below 186 and are considered two grade levels below target for fourth grade. One student does not have a score. The winter MAP math target score for fourth grade is 208. The winter 2014 MAP math test results showed that thirteen of Mrs. Williams students scored above grade level with a score of 209 and above. Four students scored between 200-207 and are below grade level. Five students scored between 187-199 and are one grade level below. One student scored below 186 and is two grades below. One student does not have a score. Mrs. Crooks has twenty-three students, fourteen males and nine females. These students are between the ages of nine and ten. Fourteen students are Caucasians, one student is Hispanic and eight students are African Americans. Mrs. Crooks has two resource students that have IEPs. One student is autistic and requires a shadow who stays with him all day and he also receives ABA and speech therapy. The other student is an ESOL student that receives oral assistance and small group testing in the classroom. This student is also pulled out of the classroom twice a week for fifty minutes. Mrs. Crooks has seven Gifted and Talented students that are pulled and moved once a week into a classroom with other Gifted and Talented students in their grade for 200 minutes. During this time, they work on more challenging content. Mrs. Crooks also has six students that are under the RTI instruction/remediation. Mrs. Crooks students QRI/DRA scores range between 30-44.

Instructional Implications: Accommodations for ESOL and special needs students include small group instruction, individualized instruction, peer tutors, talk partners, and hands-on instruction. Another accommodation is having the students who struggle with concentrating to sit up front or near the teacher. These students are a diverse group and as in any classroom, no two students are alike.

Knowing the characteristics of the classroom and students helps when planning instruction because the teacher can hone in on students interests so that they are more interested in the lessons, thus, they can retain more knowledge. Much of this class requires individualized or small group instruction for those who are lower in skill. Mrs. Williams uses a vast amount of partner work, which I believe is also important because, when practiced effectively, students learn more from their peers. Additionally, students need to be able to listen and interact with their peers by agreeing and disagreeing with others opinions or ideas. Partner pairs should be assigned by the teacher for the majority of the time and should include a student who is at a high ability level and low ability level in order for successful teaching to occur. I imagine that this group of students would benefit from more movement during instruction. For the majority of class time, students listen to the teacher and then complete a writing prompt or a math workbook page. Therefore, if students were given more opportunities to move and interact with the lesson, they would be more engaged in their learning. Mrs. Crooks students require many of the same strategies implemented by Mrs. Williams. The main strategy though is to implement small group instruction and testing. As I have observed Mrs. Williams working with these students, she teaches the new math lesson for the day and then she has the students go to their desks to work on a practice math workbook page. During this time, she reviews concepts where students show that they need improvement. This is a good time to work in small groups, especially for RTI students because it allows for the individualized instruction they often need. Both classes require running records and assessments that take place regularly. These students are constantly improving and it is important to keep track of their progress. I have not seen the students take tests other than the oral spelling tests they take every Friday. These spelling tests are done based on level and each group has a different set of words from a variety of difficulty levels. Otherwise, I do not know of any other testing accommodations students require. It is important to know contextual factors as a teacher because it provides an idea of where each student is academically in order to utilize appropriate accommodations to help students succeed. These factors impact student learning in that each individual will be attended to through careful considerations of their academic abilities. It is important to foster students skills so that they are motivated to learn.