Observation Of Mrs. Cole's Classroom

Compared to other schools I have observed thus far, Mrs. Cole’s classroom was very modest. There are not colorful learning centers or reading areas as I have found in other schools. The classroom book collection was very limited to one small box per child in which each student had the same books. Mrs. Cole visited the library twice a week to find books that related to lessons she was teaching for the week. They were located in one crate. The student’s desks were grouped together in four groups of four students and one group of two students. Each group shared one bowl filled with mostly broken crayons and a cup with sharpened pencils. Mrs. Cole had a big carpet in the floor for group learning time. There were four computers on one side of the room grouped together. There were bulletin …show more content…
Anytime she needed to address the class whether it was for academic instructions or disciplinary reasons, she addressed her students as “friends”. This simple act promoted a sense of community and friendship between the teacher and the students themselves. After my first initial day of observing the classroom environment, I focused on aspects that affected school culture. The most obvious to me was the difference of race and how it affected the individual students learning experiences. This is the most diverse classroom I have ever observed. When the students were allowed to group themselves together rather, the students almost always chose another student of their same race. This was very interesting as Mrs. Cole is very intentional about creating a community classroom environment. In regards to race, the children were more likely to interact with their own race when giving a choice, but when they were assigned together the children still worked well together without incidences. I also observed that the Hispanic children were not as likely to raise their hand to be called on and often were shy in speaking out in front of others. I noticed too that they never took