Audrey Rhuems

EDUC 458-03
Dr. Runyan
2-19-16
Shadow Study
During my shadow study, I noticed many different things while sitting in various
different classrooms. For this study, I followed a 17-year-old female in the junior class and
observed how a typical day goes for her and how she behaved in her other classes. Being able to
observe other teaching styles was very beneficial to know the diverse ways that people teach
students. Students being exposed to these diverse types of teaching styles makes for a much more
enjoyable learning experience and they are more apt to have fun and not experience redundancy.
If every teacher had the same teaching style, nobody would fully enjoy school and dread it every
single day. The students are on 90-minute block class schedule so they only have 3-4 classes a
day. For this study, I was able to observe Sally in her algebra, biology II, art, and Spanish classes.
Sally was a pretty good student. One major characteristic I had noticed about her was her
attention span is not very big. Despite this short attention span, she was, for the most part, a very
studious and hardworking student. During her algebra class, she was on time and did not have
much of a problem listening to the teacher, as long as she had something to fiddle with in her
hands. Throughout this class, the teacher put the students into groups to work together to study
and review for their upcoming test on Friday. The teacher is giving them extra time to study and
she is working the problems with them. Sally did not have any problems working well with her
peers and she seemed to care about studying so she could get the good grades on her assignments
and tests. As long as class progresses at a steady pace, Sally was able to stay on task and stay

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focused to complete what was being expected of her. She wasnt afraid to speak up and she tried
to answer as many questions as she could from the teacher. Another thing I noticed was that Sally
would write down notes to follow along to make sure she was getting the right information.
During this class, the students were dressed just like teenagers usually dress, casually and the lot
of them looked clean and healthy. There werent any students with any physical handicaps or
paras in the room. They mostly worked by themselves. Sally also assists her peers to explain
things if they had questions.
In Sallys math classroom, the teacher had a nice set up. The teachers room had a quite
interesting aura. The room was fairly quite and serene and the teacher had a good grasp on
classroom management and keeping the students on task. What was most enjoyable to look at
were the different decorations in the room, the inspirational quote posters, and all of the
individual motivational notes the teacher wrote on her board for her students. These individual
notes would say things like, ________, thank you for helping others with their math. Youre so
nice!, or I love your perseverance, __________! Keep it up!, and I appreciate _________ &
________ for being willing to help other students with their trig!. These little notes were the
first time I had ever seen a teacher do this and it made me feel happy to see a much different way
of showing the kids love and support. The teachers voice volume was very conducive to the
students attention and hearing. Again, she had great control of the students and a factor may
have been because it was the first hour of the day. The teacher starts everyday by asking how the
students are doing and that she hopes they have a great day. They usually do group work together
so the students are used to automatically placing themselves with their assigned partners. Since
they were studying for an upcoming test, they were reviewing some of the algebraic problems
that were expected to be on their test. The students were given 10-15 minutes to work on/review

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the problems themselves as practice. The teacher keeps track of time on her watch and when that
time is up, they all work together as a whole group. She also kept the students on task by asking
questions about the problems and kept them engaged by having them help her do the process of
problem solving on the board. The students were very good and were keeping their voices quite
while staying on task in their review groups. One interesting thing was when a student would
answer wrong, the teacher would rewind back a few steps and guide them through to try again
for the right answer.
For the next hour of the day, Sally traveled to biology II. After a few minutes of
observing, I noticed how the students seemed to really like their teacher. This time, Sallys
teacher is a male so it was interesting to see the differences in teaching styles between a male and
female teacher. Sally responded to her teacher well and paid attention most of the time. The
students were dissecting earthworms and learning the different parts. Sally handled this very
well. Before the actual dissection began, the class did a pop quiz and read together. Sally seems
to really enjoy science, so she paid closer attention and didnt fiddle as much while in this class
like she did in algebra. Following their pop quiz, they turned in their scores and then started
reading their handouts that explained the different parts of an earthworm. The whole class was
buzzing with excitement to begin their first dissection project of the semester. Watching the
students with more hands-on activities shows just how much more this type of learning is
preferred over a regular lecture in class. Sally worked well with her partners and helped with the
dissection. The students had a test that Friday over the different parts of the worm and its
anatomy. In this classroom, since it is a science lab, the teacher has very formal procedures
implemented that the students must follow. When there were 15 minutes left of class, the

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students began cleaning up and followed a specific cleaning routine to get everything
straightened up and sanitized for the next class.
Sallys science teacher had a very different teaching style approach than her math teacher.
He was more upbeat and was more open to joking around with the students as long as they
stayed on task and moved from one activity to the next with hardly any downtime. This specific
teacher called the students by their last names which is very different than a majority of the rest
of the teachers. Despite the room being a science lab, it was quite comfortable. The students
seemed to respond to this male teacher a lot better than the female teacher maybe because his
voice was much stronger and he can grab the students attention better by projecting his voice.
One thing that was very interesting was how the teacher went around the room and had each
student share something from their notes that they had learned the past week. If the student didnt
have anything to share, he just had them say pass. This was also helpful in reviewing for their
upcoming test. Also, the teacher is quite enthusiastic about his class and never let the vibe of his
classroom get boring. The classroom was full of science-y stuff that fit well with the subject of
study. The room is much bigger than some of the other classrooms due to it being a science lab.
There are sinks, long tables, an overhead projector, past student projects displayed, different
examples of science models displayed, and different quotes from important people in history
displayed. This specific teacher was great to observe because of his upbeat personality and how
he put humor to uncomfortable situations for the students to feel better about what they are
studying. For example: the sexual terms they studied that were part of the worms anatomy,
(teenagers always giggle at specific words that refer to the reproductive system). The teachers
desk was located in the back of the room behind all of the students tables. At the front of the

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room is the science table with a sink that he instructs from. This class was very cool to
experience.
Sallys third class of the day was art from 11:30-1:00. Within the art room, the students
were working on their art projects that they had been working on since school resumed after
Christmas break. They had the freedom to work and be individualistic with their art and what
they wanted to paint. Students have access to all of the supplies needed for their projects, but the
teacher puts a limit on how much each student can use due to funding the supplies. The supplies
consisted of paint, brushes, boards, lamps, dryers, canvases, etc. There were some students
working on painting projects and others working on drawing projects. A majority of the students
were painting though. Sally was working diligently on her project and she was working mainly
by herself. She was sitting at a table with another girl and they talk toe ach other every now and
then, but ultimately she is working by herself. Sally was painting a picture of different shades of
colors and adding an hombre look to them. She seems very happy and enjoys working on her
class painting project and having time to be creative. All of the students seemed very comfortable
and happy having the freedom to be creative and use their own judgments on how to put their
pictures together. There are obvious procedures in this classroom too. When the students get to
class, they are expected to get right to work on their projects. When time is up, they are expected
to clean out all of the brushes and clean their workspaces with special cleaner that the teacher
provides. Sally was very interested in the work of other students and was complementing on how
great of a job they were all doing. Her nice gestures were great to observe.
The classroom was your typical art classroom. The room was huge with multiple long
table in a U shape that give the students plenty of room to work and spread out to be
comfortable working on their projects. There was a vast collection of past student work and

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projects displayed all over the classroom. The walls are brick and on a lot of the bricks are small
paintings that students have done in the past to leave their mark, essentially. Within the room,
the atmosphere is very calm and comfortable and gives the students a place of safety and
originality. The teacher has been keeping busy by organizing supplies, taking roll, making sure
the students have what they need for their projects and other things. What was super awesome
about this teacher and the art class was that he played a variety of school appropriate music for
the students to listen to and work on their projects. Music and art go hand-in-hand and the
students responding in a very positive way to that. Students seem to be more apt to work well
while listening to music and the sounds gave the room a much more appealing feeling.
Throughout class, the teacher answered questions if the students were unsure of something but
ultimately time spent that day was for the students to continue their work on their projects.
For the fourth and final class of the day, Sally went to Spanish class. Sally sat toward the
back of the room and was paying very close attention to the vocab words/phrases the teacher was
showing the class. All of the students were engaged with the Spanish words the teacher was
reviewing with them. They had a little more freedom in this class to make comments if they have
something constructive to say. The students seemed pretty interested in learning a new language.
Sally works well with her classmates once again and gets along with the ones that I have
observed so far. She wrote her notes down as the teacher asked and was communicating with
their classmates and helped them if they had questions. Throughout this class, the students were
open to have quiet discussions amongst themselves. As a whole group, the students worked with
the teacher to work on some different sentence examples to learn different parts of speech for the
Spanish language. The students were dressed like typical teenagers dress, nothing special. They

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had enough time after instruction and group work to have some free tie to just chill and talk to
each other until the bell rang.
The teacher was very much engaged with the students while going over vocabulary
words. She moved around a lot and kept the students engaged. The room is much larger than the
other classrooms so she had the student desks pushed back around the room instead of in the
middle of the room. The teacher gives them a chance to use the restroom so there wasnt anyone
asking to go who could disrupt lecture time, (very smart!). This specific teacher was a little more
lax than the other teachers with where she lets her students sit, their comments made randomly
throughout the lecture showed how lax her classroom could get. She is more open to
communication since she is teaching a different language other than English. Her personality was
more lax also than some of the other teachers. Interacting with instruction was very apparent
within this teachers classroom. She put papers with vocab words written largely on the floor so
that all of the students can see. This type of learning seemed to go over well with the majority of
the students. There were maps of the world, of central America, Mexico and Spanish speaking
countries around the classroom. There was also a very personal feel to this teachers classroom.
She had many pictures of her family and the students love this semi-personal relationship with
their teacher. From what I could tell, she has a wonderful relationship with her students. There
are also little notes from students that state how much they love her as their teacher and that she
is one of the best teachers they have every had. I was able to observe a conversation the teacher
had with a Hispanic student where they both spoke only in Spanish.
After completing this shadow study, Sally was able to show me various ways that she
acted in her different classrooms and how she adapted to her surroundings quite well within each
classroom. I was able to see completely different teaching styles and it was very eye opening to

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see just how diverse everyones styles can be compared to my own. This was a wonderful
experience not only because I was able to get to know Sally better, but also the other teachers
that make up the wonderful school that they inhibit.