My first interaction with my summer observation student Jordan* occurred at summer fieldwork orientation. My fellow University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education (UPenn GSE) students and I first met the high school students during one of their morning math classes. The program facilitators introduced us to the students and their teacher then asked us to work with students either one-on-one or in small groups. As the last UPenn GSE student to enter the room, I saw only one female student still in need of a mentor. I asked myself: why is this student working alone? Have any of my fellow colleagues’ offered to help her yet? Does she have an attitude problem? Is she very intelligent and not really in need of help? Will I offend her if I ask her if she needs help? Either way, I decided to speak with her, as I did not want her to feel left out. I asked if I could sit down next to her; Jordan nodded and gave a brief smile. As I watched her complete her math problems diligently and quickly, I realized that she did not have an attitude problem; she really just knew what she was doing!
Towards the end of the math set, Jordan did request help on one problem. I gave her a hint for the first step; she then readily figured out the rest of the problem on her own. When finished, she asked me to check over her work. She only needed to correct one problem. I asked Jordan if she liked math class; she responded that it was “just alright.” When I asked what her favorite subject is, she quickly replied: “definitely not math, I like history.” During my high school years, like Jordan, I performed equally well in classes that I liked and in classes that I did not like. I also tended to work independently on most assignments. Because I saw potential similarities between Jordan and my younger self, and because I believe that examining the patterns and strategies of successful students may provide insights to assist struggling students, I decided that I would observe Jordan for this Portrait of a Learner assignment.
One learner characteristic that I noticed about Jordan was the consistency with which she turned in her required homework assignments for science class. On my first day of observation, I noted that she was the only student, out of the eight in the class, to hand in a completed homework assignment. She turned in her homework at every subsequent class that I attended. The teacher often reinforced the fact that homework in his class counted towards final grades. When discussing homework with Jordan, I discovered that she thinks, “it sucks”. However, when I asked if she always completes her homework, she replied: “Oh yea. I have to. They really hard [on you] at University City*.” She also noted this about her homework: “I do it in my own room. And my mom really pushes me”.
I suspect that Jordan’s consistency with homework completion may help contribute to her success thus far in school. She mentions that, though she does not like school all that much, “last marking period I made all As and one B”. She had to work very hard for those grades, as she explained that she changed schools at the beginning of the year and found her new school much more rigorous than the previous. Her first marking period grades were “horrible,” (see Appendix B), but she was able to adjust to the academic environment and performed better after that. Surprisingly, during some of our informal interpersonal interactions, she mentioned that she is looking to change schools yet again, for a third time.
Jordan stated that she would like to attend a charter school in Northeast Philadelphia. I found this information surprising, as Northeast Philadelphia is quite a distance from West Philadelphia. She stated several reasons for her interest in transitioning to a charter school. First and foremost she thought that ‘choice’ played a very important role in a student’s education; she recognized that the charter school system offered students and parents a choice of how and where to get an education. Secondly, she stated that charter schools were “better” than public neighborhood schools, although she did not explain exactly what she meant by this. Finally, she noted that she really enjoyed meeting new people. I suspect that a fourth aspect may play a role in her thinking: one of the UBMS facilitators, with whom Jordan often talked and seemed to have a positive relationship, works at the charter school. Jordan often asked this facilitator if she had spoken with the principal yet about whether or not Jordan could attend the school.
I observed Jordan interact with many other program members during the course of the program. For example, I noticed that she sat with the same four girls during every study hall; they often spoke and laughed loudly, but eventually would settle down and work quietly, usually without any reprimand. Each afternoon, as the students returned from lunch and entered the science classroom, I noted that Jordan walked in with and was always joking around with the boys of the class. However, during the class period, Jordan became one of the quieter students. If the teacher was teaching, then she neither spoke to the other students nor spoke out of turn. She participated in the class (i.e. answering questions, asking questions, reading aloud) but was not the most outspoken of the students. I also noticed that Jordan spoke in a softer voice when speaking to her teachers, me, or other adults, compared to when interacting with fellow students.
After witnessing Jordan socializing with many students, I was surprised when she said to me during an informal conversation: “I only have like 2 friends.” She appeared very outgoing in the summer program and mentioned frequently to me that she very much enjoyed meeting new people. When asked what she most was looking forward to about college, she said “meeting new people”. She stated that she would like to go to college and have a career as a lawyer or a sports medicine professional; interestingly, both of these career paths require working with and forming relationships with people.
I also had the opportunity to observe Jordan relate to fellow students when working together on various in-class activities. This happened most often in weekly science labs. During the first lab session, the instructors divided students into groups of three to four. The instructors split up Jordan’s group of friends and placed Jordan in a group with two younger students, a male and a female. Jordan appeared displeased when told she had to leave her friends to work with two younger students; these students happened to also attend a different school than Jordan.
The first lab was a forensics lab. During this lab, students had to perform various tasks such as prepare samples for analysis, label the sample holder, add test solutions to the samples, and record what they saw happen. As I worked with this lab group, I noticed that Jordan took charge of the experiment: she assumed the role of note taker/data recorder, she instructed her lab partner on how to break up the samples, she wanted to be the one to add all of the test solutions to the samples, and she told her partners to “stop playing” when she thought they were joking around too much. I intervened to try and allow all group members equal opportunity to participate in the experiment. I observed a similar situation during the sheep heart dissection lab. When Jordan’s lab group received the sheep heart, she was the first to examine it. When the dissection kits were distributed to each group, Jordan was the first to open the kit, remove the scissors, and start her group’s dissection. When one of her fellow lab partners complained that he had yet to do anything, the teacher had to instruct Jordan to make sure her partners had a chance to participate as well.
In addition to expressing an eager desire to participate in hands on activities, I noted that Jordan consistently demonstrated good organizational skills. During science classes, she wrote notes neatly, systematically, and completely. In science labs, she filled out data sheets completely and used precise language to describe her observations. She copied math problems correctly from the board and usually wrote out all of the steps leading to the final answer. Even her final poster project showed a high level of organizational skill. I believe many of the aforementioned learner characteristics (record of homework completion, positive relationships with both classmates and adults, interest in hands on activities, leadership stance, good organizational skills) positively contribute to Jordan’s academic successes in school.
Discussion and Future Implications
Over the course of this summer, my observations of Jordan, her teachers, and her peers have both provided me fruitful material for reflection and made me realize how many questions I have and how much I still have to learn about the teaching and the learning of students. I realized that observation of successful students can provide as much information about effective teaching and learning methods as observation and analysis of struggling students. Additionally, I discovered how interesting and fun I personally find student observation and teacher research to be! Although time for observation will become scarce during full time teaching assignments, I would like to attempt to continue recording fieldnotes and making other forms of recordable observations within my classroom. I would like to work on my interview skills; I feel that, in my interview of Jordan this summer, I asked too many ‘yes or no’ questions. While I prefer interpersonal conversation to the formal interview process, I understand the importance of having this type of method for data collection. I enjoy all the processes involved with getting to know students beyond just their academic or athletic abilities, with helping students master class materials, and with learning about the learning of students and teaching of teachers.
Through my observations this summer, I found support for the social cognitive concepts of learning that I described in my original definition of learning; specifically, I referenced the importance of cognition, models, and personal agency in my definition (Ormrod, 2008, p. 119). However, I realize that my original definition lacked more basic descriptions of learning as well. For instance, in Jordan’s own three-sentence description of learning, she notes the importance of learning ‘street smarts’. In my original composition, I failed to discuss the importance of learning lower level behavioral tasks like “do not talk to strangers,” “do not walk in the middle of the street,” “share with others,” “look both ways before crossing the street.”
My original definition of learning focused on higher-level processes like internalizing, processing, and thinking critically in order to better understand and develop the self. As we personally move through Piaget’s stages of cognitive development (Ormrod, 2008, p. 313) and further develop at the formal operations stage as adults, I wonder if we forget that the basic skills we mastered at the preoperational or concrete operational stages were even skills that had to be learned. When working with students, I believe it will be important to remember that not all children move through Piaget’s stages of cognitive development at the same time. Thus, all students may be not be at the same level of development and may not exhibit behaviors or abilities that I have come to expect.
At times, I noted that some of my observations of Jordan appeared to contradict themselves. For instance, I observed a disconnection between Jordan’s conversation with me about the number of friends she has (only two) and my perception of her social life based on the interactions with other summer students. This illustrated to me that, when working with students, I should strive to see the student from as many vantage points as possible; I cannot draw conclusions about a student based only on my perceptions. I realize that, ironically, in our class where we learn about learning, I have to expand my own learning style! I might benefit from incorporating more Gestalt psychology into my thought processes.
Another contradiction that I observed was Jordan’s dislike for homework yet record of completion. While Jordan always completed her homework assignments, she told me that she thinks homework “sucks.” Even when asked whether or not homework really helped her to do better in school, she replied with uncertainty: “I guess [it helps me]”. I also find myself often questioning the relevance of homework. Interestingly, according to researchers at Duke University, homework does indeed help students succeed in school; however, both the quality and quantity of the homework matter (Gilmer, 2006). “Too much homework can be counter-productive for students at all levels” (Gilmer, 2006, para. 4); the researchers claim that anything over 2 hours of homework per night for high school students does not associate with higher achievement.
I believe that Jordan has the ability to reconcile with her dislike of homework and her uncertainty about the importance of homework by recognizing the need to complete her homework to get good grades. From our interview and conversations, it appeared to me that Jordan views school as a means for achieving both social efficiency and social mobility (Labaree, 1997). She notes: “if you want to have money and stuff like that of course you need to go to school”. While I agree with this statement and probably had the same goal in high school, now I more clearly understand that education has a greater role in society than simply helping students get jobs and make money. As Paulo Freire (2005) explains in his work Pedagogy of the Oppressed, education should engage students in critical examination of the world around them and allow students to be “critical co-investigators in dialogue with the teacher” (p. 81). Education should not serve just the self; it should serve the community as well.
Although Jordan does not like homework, I believe she may draw a sense of satisfaction from completing her assignments, perhaps contributing to a strong generalized self-efficacy. This generalized self-efficacy could also explain how Jordan performs well in a number of different subject areas that explore a number of different topics, even though she claims to really only like history class. As Ormod (2008) notes, generalized self-efficacy develops from previous successes and failures (of the self, of those similar to the self, of ones’s group) as well as from the internalized messages of others (p. 147).
Because I saw the important role that self-efficacy may play in Jordan’s successes, I will make development of self-efficacy a goal for all students in my classroom. I will try to make my classroom environment a safe space where students feel comfortable to share their ideas without fear of reprimand or ridicule. I will try to assist students in recognizing their interests, abilities, and potential. I will try to give constructive criticism. However, it seems that some aspects of self-efficacy development will be out of my control. For instance, how can I work to build self-efficacy in a student who has faced repetitive personal failures? How can I combat a history of negative messages experienced by a student? How can I combat the invisibility of stereotype threat (Steele, 2010) that students of certain gender/sexual orientation/race/religion may face?
I also observed many aspects of other teachers teaching styles that I may employ in my own classroom. For example, the science teacher in whose class I spent the most time consistently employed a number of teaching strategies. This technique ensured that students were always engaged with the material. Students would constantly be working: writing notes, taking quizzes, watching relevant teaching videos, doing labs, starting their homework, or doing a “think-pair-share” activity. He often started the class with a quiz that reviewed material from the last class or last two classes. I believe this both encouraged students to learn how to study a unit of material via distributed practice rather than massed practice (Ormrod, 2008, p. 158) and prepared the students for the lesson he would be teaching that day, as his lessons were organized to build off of previously learned material.
In conclusion, my observations of students and teachers over the summer have provided me much insight into how students learn and how I can begin to think about effective teaching. Perhaps the most valuable insight I received from my time at the UBMS program came directly from my student’s answer to the question “What makes a good teacher?”:
Understanding. Like, get to know your students! Kids like that. And learn to compromise…and don’t be hypocritical, definitely don’t be hypocritical.
Towards the end of the math set, Jordan did request help on one problem. I gave her a hint for the first step; she then readily figured out the rest of the problem on her own. When finished, she asked me to check over her work. She only needed to correct one problem. I asked Jordan if she liked math class; she responded that it was “just alright.” When I asked what her favorite subject is, she quickly replied: “definitely not math, I like history.” During my high school years, like Jordan, I performed equally well in classes that I liked and in classes that I did not like. I also tended to work independently on most assignments. Because I saw potential similarities between Jordan and my younger self, and because I believe that examining the patterns and strategies of successful students may provide insights to assist struggling students, I decided that I would observe Jordan for this Portrait of a Learner assignment.
One learner characteristic that I noticed about Jordan was the consistency with which she turned in her required homework assignments for science class. On my first day of observation, I noted that she was the only student, out of the eight in the class, to hand in a completed homework assignment. She turned in her homework at every subsequent class that I attended. The teacher often reinforced the fact that homework in his class counted towards final grades. When discussing homework with Jordan, I discovered that she thinks, “it sucks”. However, when I asked if she always completes her homework, she replied: “Oh yea. I have to. They really hard [on you] at University City*.” She also noted this about her homework: “I do it in my own room. And my mom really pushes me”.
I suspect that Jordan’s consistency with homework completion may help contribute to her success thus far in school. She mentions that, though she does not like school all that much, “last marking period I made all As and one B”. She had to work very hard for those grades, as she explained that she changed schools at the beginning of the year and found her new school much more rigorous than the previous. Her first marking period grades were “horrible,” (see Appendix B), but she was able to adjust to the academic environment and performed better after that. Surprisingly, during some of our informal interpersonal interactions, she mentioned that she is looking to change schools yet again, for a third time.
Jordan stated that she would like to attend a charter school in Northeast Philadelphia. I found this information surprising, as Northeast Philadelphia is quite a distance from West Philadelphia. She stated several reasons for her interest in transitioning to a charter school. First and foremost she thought that ‘choice’ played a very important role in a student’s education; she recognized that the charter school system offered students and parents a choice of how and where to get an education. Secondly, she stated that charter schools were “better” than public neighborhood schools, although she did not explain exactly what she meant by this. Finally, she noted that she really enjoyed meeting new people. I suspect that a fourth aspect may play a role in her thinking: one of the UBMS facilitators, with whom Jordan often talked and seemed to have a positive relationship, works at the charter school. Jordan often asked this facilitator if she had spoken with the principal yet about whether or not Jordan could attend the school.
I observed Jordan interact with many other program members during the course of the program. For example, I noticed that she sat with the same four girls during every study hall; they often spoke and laughed loudly, but eventually would settle down and work quietly, usually without any reprimand. Each afternoon, as the students returned from lunch and entered the science classroom, I noted that Jordan walked in with and was always joking around with the boys of the class. However, during the class period, Jordan became one of the quieter students. If the teacher was teaching, then she neither spoke to the other students nor spoke out of turn. She participated in the class (i.e. answering questions, asking questions, reading aloud) but was not the most outspoken of the students. I also noticed that Jordan spoke in a softer voice when speaking to her teachers, me, or other adults, compared to when interacting with fellow students.
After witnessing Jordan socializing with many students, I was surprised when she said to me during an informal conversation: “I only have like 2 friends.” She appeared very outgoing in the summer program and mentioned frequently to me that she very much enjoyed meeting new people. When asked what she most was looking forward to about college, she said “meeting new people”. She stated that she would like to go to college and have a career as a lawyer or a sports medicine professional; interestingly, both of these career paths require working with and forming relationships with people.
I also had the opportunity to observe Jordan relate to fellow students when working together on various in-class activities. This happened most often in weekly science labs. During the first lab session, the instructors divided students into groups of three to four. The instructors split up Jordan’s group of friends and placed Jordan in a group with two younger students, a male and a female. Jordan appeared displeased when told she had to leave her friends to work with two younger students; these students happened to also attend a different school than Jordan.
The first lab was a forensics lab. During this lab, students had to perform various tasks such as prepare samples for analysis, label the sample holder, add test solutions to the samples, and record what they saw happen. As I worked with this lab group, I noticed that Jordan took charge of the experiment: she assumed the role of note taker/data recorder, she instructed her lab partner on how to break up the samples, she wanted to be the one to add all of the test solutions to the samples, and she told her partners to “stop playing” when she thought they were joking around too much. I intervened to try and allow all group members equal opportunity to participate in the experiment. I observed a similar situation during the sheep heart dissection lab. When Jordan’s lab group received the sheep heart, she was the first to examine it. When the dissection kits were distributed to each group, Jordan was the first to open the kit, remove the scissors, and start her group’s dissection. When one of her fellow lab partners complained that he had yet to do anything, the teacher had to instruct Jordan to make sure her partners had a chance to participate as well.
In addition to expressing an eager desire to participate in hands on activities, I noted that Jordan consistently demonstrated good organizational skills. During science classes, she wrote notes neatly, systematically, and completely. In science labs, she filled out data sheets completely and used precise language to describe her observations. She copied math problems correctly from the board and usually wrote out all of the steps leading to the final answer. Even her final poster project showed a high level of organizational skill. I believe many of the aforementioned learner characteristics (record of homework completion, positive relationships with both classmates and adults, interest in hands on activities, leadership stance, good organizational skills) positively contribute to Jordan’s academic successes in school.
Discussion and Future Implications
Over the course of this summer, my observations of Jordan, her teachers, and her peers have both provided me fruitful material for reflection and made me realize how many questions I have and how much I still have to learn about the teaching and the learning of students. I realized that observation of successful students can provide as much information about effective teaching and learning methods as observation and analysis of struggling students. Additionally, I discovered how interesting and fun I personally find student observation and teacher research to be! Although time for observation will become scarce during full time teaching assignments, I would like to attempt to continue recording fieldnotes and making other forms of recordable observations within my classroom. I would like to work on my interview skills; I feel that, in my interview of Jordan this summer, I asked too many ‘yes or no’ questions. While I prefer interpersonal conversation to the formal interview process, I understand the importance of having this type of method for data collection. I enjoy all the processes involved with getting to know students beyond just their academic or athletic abilities, with helping students master class materials, and with learning about the learning of students and teaching of teachers.
Through my observations this summer, I found support for the social cognitive concepts of learning that I described in my original definition of learning; specifically, I referenced the importance of cognition, models, and personal agency in my definition (Ormrod, 2008, p. 119). However, I realize that my original definition lacked more basic descriptions of learning as well. For instance, in Jordan’s own three-sentence description of learning, she notes the importance of learning ‘street smarts’. In my original composition, I failed to discuss the importance of learning lower level behavioral tasks like “do not talk to strangers,” “do not walk in the middle of the street,” “share with others,” “look both ways before crossing the street.”
My original definition of learning focused on higher-level processes like internalizing, processing, and thinking critically in order to better understand and develop the self. As we personally move through Piaget’s stages of cognitive development (Ormrod, 2008, p. 313) and further develop at the formal operations stage as adults, I wonder if we forget that the basic skills we mastered at the preoperational or concrete operational stages were even skills that had to be learned. When working with students, I believe it will be important to remember that not all children move through Piaget’s stages of cognitive development at the same time. Thus, all students may be not be at the same level of development and may not exhibit behaviors or abilities that I have come to expect.
At times, I noted that some of my observations of Jordan appeared to contradict themselves. For instance, I observed a disconnection between Jordan’s conversation with me about the number of friends she has (only two) and my perception of her social life based on the interactions with other summer students. This illustrated to me that, when working with students, I should strive to see the student from as many vantage points as possible; I cannot draw conclusions about a student based only on my perceptions. I realize that, ironically, in our class where we learn about learning, I have to expand my own learning style! I might benefit from incorporating more Gestalt psychology into my thought processes.
Another contradiction that I observed was Jordan’s dislike for homework yet record of completion. While Jordan always completed her homework assignments, she told me that she thinks homework “sucks.” Even when asked whether or not homework really helped her to do better in school, she replied with uncertainty: “I guess [it helps me]”. I also find myself often questioning the relevance of homework. Interestingly, according to researchers at Duke University, homework does indeed help students succeed in school; however, both the quality and quantity of the homework matter (Gilmer, 2006). “Too much homework can be counter-productive for students at all levels” (Gilmer, 2006, para. 4); the researchers claim that anything over 2 hours of homework per night for high school students does not associate with higher achievement.
I believe that Jordan has the ability to reconcile with her dislike of homework and her uncertainty about the importance of homework by recognizing the need to complete her homework to get good grades. From our interview and conversations, it appeared to me that Jordan views school as a means for achieving both social efficiency and social mobility (Labaree, 1997). She notes: “if you want to have money and stuff like that of course you need to go to school”. While I agree with this statement and probably had the same goal in high school, now I more clearly understand that education has a greater role in society than simply helping students get jobs and make money. As Paulo Freire (2005) explains in his work Pedagogy of the Oppressed, education should engage students in critical examination of the world around them and allow students to be “critical co-investigators in dialogue with the teacher” (p. 81). Education should not serve just the self; it should serve the community as well.
Although Jordan does not like homework, I believe she may draw a sense of satisfaction from completing her assignments, perhaps contributing to a strong generalized self-efficacy. This generalized self-efficacy could also explain how Jordan performs well in a number of different subject areas that explore a number of different topics, even though she claims to really only like history class. As Ormod (2008) notes, generalized self-efficacy develops from previous successes and failures (of the self, of those similar to the self, of ones’s group) as well as from the internalized messages of others (p. 147).
Because I saw the important role that self-efficacy may play in Jordan’s successes, I will make development of self-efficacy a goal for all students in my classroom. I will try to make my classroom environment a safe space where students feel comfortable to share their ideas without fear of reprimand or ridicule. I will try to assist students in recognizing their interests, abilities, and potential. I will try to give constructive criticism. However, it seems that some aspects of self-efficacy development will be out of my control. For instance, how can I work to build self-efficacy in a student who has faced repetitive personal failures? How can I combat a history of negative messages experienced by a student? How can I combat the invisibility of stereotype threat (Steele, 2010) that students of certain gender/sexual orientation/race/religion may face?
I also observed many aspects of other teachers teaching styles that I may employ in my own classroom. For example, the science teacher in whose class I spent the most time consistently employed a number of teaching strategies. This technique ensured that students were always engaged with the material. Students would constantly be working: writing notes, taking quizzes, watching relevant teaching videos, doing labs, starting their homework, or doing a “think-pair-share” activity. He often started the class with a quiz that reviewed material from the last class or last two classes. I believe this both encouraged students to learn how to study a unit of material via distributed practice rather than massed practice (Ormrod, 2008, p. 158) and prepared the students for the lesson he would be teaching that day, as his lessons were organized to build off of previously learned material.
In conclusion, my observations of students and teachers over the summer have provided me much insight into how students learn and how I can begin to think about effective teaching. Perhaps the most valuable insight I received from my time at the UBMS program came directly from my student’s answer to the question “What makes a good teacher?”:
Understanding. Like, get to know your students! Kids like that. And learn to compromise…and don’t be hypocritical, definitely don’t be hypocritical.
References
Freire, P. (2005) Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 30th Anniversary ed. New York: Continuum.
Gilmer, K. (2006). Duke Study: Homework Helps Students Succeed in School. Duke Today. Retrieved from http://today.duke.edu/2006/03/homework.html
Labaree, D. F. (1997) Public goods, private goods: The American struggle over educational goals. American Education Research Journal. 34, 4, pp. 39-81.
Ormrod, J. E. (2008). Human learning (5th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill/Prentice Hall.
Steele, C. (2010). Whistling Vivaldi: And Other Clues to How Stereotypes Affect Us. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.
Freire, P. (2005) Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 30th Anniversary ed. New York: Continuum.
Gilmer, K. (2006). Duke Study: Homework Helps Students Succeed in School. Duke Today. Retrieved from http://today.duke.edu/2006/03/homework.html
Labaree, D. F. (1997) Public goods, private goods: The American struggle over educational goals. American Education Research Journal. 34, 4, pp. 39-81.
Ormrod, J. E. (2008). Human learning (5th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill/Prentice Hall.
Steele, C. (2010). Whistling Vivaldi: And Other Clues to How Stereotypes Affect Us. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.