Running head: PLANNING

Education Field Experience: Planning Observation

Samantha Hess
Raritan Valley Community College
PLANNING Hess 2

I. Observation 2:
Planning

II. Grade Level and Subject Area:

Preschool, ages 3-4, all subjects

III. Setting:
Raritan Valley Community College Daycare, Wendy is still in England so
there is no head teacher but there were 2 assistant teachers, 10 students: 8
boys and 2 girls

IV. Pre-Observation:
At RVCC I have written hundreds of lesson plans for different education
classes that I have taken, including this Foundations of Education class. I also
knew that the head teacher Wendy was not around to help for this observation,
so I would have to ask someone else and work with what was going to be
given to me. I knew mine might be different from other student’s observations
because of this situation.

V. Data:
Since the head teacher Wendy is still in England due to a family emergency, I
asked the director of the RVCC Children’s Campus, Cathy Griffin, questions
about how Wendy plans. She was helpful, but I did not receive as much
information as I would have if I had been able to ask Wendy.

VI. Analysis:
I asked Cathy Griffin what planning Wendy uses to prepare for an
instructional lesson. She told me that Wendy uses online gold now. She used
to use creative curriculum. Wendy goes online, and it has a spectrum of
development of growth for each student. Wendy chooses goals for each child
and it tells her what to work on. It constantly changes. Each child has an
archive and it shows how they have progressed. Wendy comes up with some
of her own lesson plans, but she also uses some that are published creative
curriculum. Children that recently get transitioned into Wendy’s room gets
discussed and portfolios get made (see appendix 1). Online gold recently
changed and only focuses on math and literacy. It cut other things out such as
science, art, music, and social emotional skills.

Wendy follows curriculum from multiple different books. Cathy showed me a

few of them that she had in her office. They are Creative Curriculum teaching
strategies books. Cathy copied a few pages from the book for me that show
different objectives and skills to be working to the lessons. They are color
PLANNING Hess 3

coded by age. Wendy works within the green and blue, but there are times
where she has someone who is in the yellow (see appendix 2).

They do not do “grade level planning” meetings because there is only one
classroom per age group. They do have cooperative planning time during their
lunch break. The head teachers and the Director, Cathy, have lunch together
and it gives them time to talk. They call it “eat and meet”.

When asking about when Wendy plans, I was told that she plans daily, weekly,
and monthly. She plans big first, then breaks it down to weeks, then to days. If
something changes, then the plans change, and she will be prepared for how to
handle it (see appendix 3).

Wendy does like to involve her students in her planning process. She finds
what her kids like to do and then plan off of that. During lessons she likes to
meet with the kids to make webs, which helps show what the kids know and
what they like. It is run by the children. Creative curriculum, according to
Cathy, has become “big business”. It is more exciting to follow the children.
Cathy does not like the direction creative curriculum is going, and she
supports Wendy coming up with her own ideas for lessons.

Wendy submits her plans to Cathy every Friday. The teacher that has been
taking over for Wendy needs more support with her plans, Cathy told me. The
plans get submitted weekly and daily to see where the kids are going with the
lessons. They tell Cathy their plans ahead of time. They do not list the NJ
Student Learning Standards next to objectives in their plans, but they do list
the standards from the creative curriculum book.

VII. Recommendations:
I personally love what Cathy has told me about how Wendy plans. She has so
much experience and education under her belt, it sounds like over the years
she has planning down to a science that she has perfected. Wendy uses a
combination of creative curriculum and child-initiated planning. She plans our
lessons for the week then takes it day by day seeing where the kids take the
lesson. If they like a certain topic within the lesson, the lesson might take a
turn or get stretched out. It is the perfect combination of structure, but also
giving the students the reigns during a lesson (Dodge, Colker, & Heroman,
2010). Creative curriculum and other curriculums like online gold, are making
it more difficult to teach different aspects and skills to children (Bozik, 2013).
It is great that Wendy has the support behind her to create her own lessons.
The only thing I would change about this observation would have been talking
to Maliha, the lady taking over for Wendy while she is away. Cathy told me to
talk to Maliha about how she has been planning lessons since she does it
differently from Wendy, just so I could get another aspect. Unfortunately,
Cathy and I were discussing how Maliha has been struggling to come up with
her own ideas and has been strictly following lessons from books. Because
PLANNING Hess 4

she is just following a book, she mainly leaves lessons for the assistant
teachers to take care of because Maliha does not come in every day. Although
she has taken the head teacher role while Wendy is away, she did not take
Wendy’s hours, and I never see her, therefore I did not get a chance to talk to
her at all.

VIII. Post-observation:
Overall, I thought my observation went pretty well. I was nervous that Cathy
would not have too much information to give me about how Wendy plans, but
she was more helpful than I thought. Of course, I could have had much more
information if I would have gotten the chance to interview Wendy, but there
was nothing I could do about that. I was hoping that I could have talked to
Maliha as well, but again, nothing I could do about that. Cathy was very
accommodating to me; she took time out of her work to sit down and help me
out with this observation and I am very grateful.

IX. Citations:
Bozik, M. (2013, July 30). Teachers as Creative Decision Makers:
Implications for Curriculum: Action in Teacher Education: Vol 12, No 1.
Retrieved from
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01626620.1990.10734389?
journalCode=uate20

Dodge, D. T., Colker, L. J., & Heroman, C. (2010). Teaching Strategies.

Retrieved from
http://www.floridaearlylearning.com/sites/www/Uploads/files/Providers/VPK
%20Curriculum/CreativeCurriculum.pdf

X. Appendix: