ISTEP Observation

1. Mrs. Carroll decided that day to begin ISTEP preparation with the students, using an audio book on the computer and a booklet for the students to study. The text that all the students listened to was Rikki Tikki Tavi by Rudyard Kipling, a short classic story that I thought was excellent for seventh graders to easily follow along and prepare them for ISTEP. I was sitting next to another student who has an IEP and I was keeping an eye on her when Mrs. Carroll called me up to her desk. She stopped the recording, and when I was within a foot from her desk, she told me quietly she had to check another classroom from across the hallway. That class had a substitute teacher, and Mrs. Carroll felt like it was getting chaotic. She asked if I could take her spot, play the audio, and pause everytime the students had to answer a question after each section. I agreed, and she was gone for twenty minutes. (She had to take a disruptive student from the other class to the main office.)

2. The students gave me no trouble as I took their teacher’s spot and played the audio for them to listen. I can tell Rikki Tikki was an easy read as I first thought it was going to be, and I made sure to speak up when I paused the recording. For example, there was a Critical Thinking question where the students had to predict what was going to happen next in …show more content…
With Rikki Tikki being a short story, I was at the end of the final section when Mrs. Carroll returned. I can tell she was grateful I was there that day; otherwise she would have never gone to the other classroom to stop an argument. She couldn’t leave her kids alone. Before I left that day, she told me that she liked it when I come on a different day from my partner. She feels that the students get more distracted if there is more than one Purdue student in the classroom. I usually work on Wednesday mornings, but after what she shared with me, I would appear on any different day from my partner, who could only show up on