Culturally Responsive Classroom

I completed my field experience hours at Volusia Pines Elementary School in Lake Helen Florida. I was able to work with my nephew’s first grade teacher, Mrs. Erica Stevens. Altogether I spent 16 hours with Mrs. Stevens and her students. Mrs. Stevens has worked at Volusia Pines Elementary School for eight years. Her class is a general education class with seventeen students, of the seventeen students nine are girls and eight are boys. This class is very racially diverse four of the students are African American, five are Hispanic, six are Caucasian, and two are of mix race. Three of her students are ELL and one speech and language impaired student. There are three students that have been diagnosed with ADHD. Mrs. Stevens does not have an assistant …show more content…
It is second to English, but Spanish has steadily raised every census done, they are projecting the in 2020 there will be a 5million increase of primary language Spanish speakers (United States Census, 2014). With this information the importance of being a culturally- responsive teacher is a necessity, being able to recognize the English language learner, also abbreviated to ELL, students in a class is of utmost importance. By being a culturally responsive teacher you are one step ahead, because you will have gotten to know your student as well as their family. By keeping the line of communication open a teacher will know what tests and or help each student in her class needs. This is also the best way to identify the special education student, also known as ESE, need to be tested to find out what their ability is. Volusia Pines Elementary does not have a special class for the ESE students or the ELL students, so this can be a little difficult for the teacher. Depending on the student ability sometimes the ESE student does a completely different level of work. Although there is a specific need for ESE, and ELL identifying their needs depends on test that are done on a monthly bases after the initial assessments are finished. The best way to identify these students is by the work they do, and their behavior. ESE and ELL students need to …show more content…
Stevens does a lot of cooperative learning in her class room. They work individually first and then as a group. For example math is done every morning for 45 minutes, Mrs. Stevens first goes over what they are working on for the week while I was there it was counting by 5s, 10s, and 20s. She has them do a work sheet by themselves then they start their math centers. The students work math games in one center, build blocks in 5s, 10s, and20s in another center. The groups rotate from one table to another, then to the floor. Each activity deals with counting in 5s, 10s, and 20s. The students respond positively to the centers. While this is going on the ELL teacher comes in and pulls her students and works with them. The students know what to expect and wait to hear the countdown that moves them on to the next center. The hardest part about watching these centers is making sure that everyone