Chapel Hill School:
Classroom Observations or Teacher Interactions:

Year 6 Classroom Observations:  
I love that they can store their backpacks on shelves outside the classroom all year long.  What a space saver.

I observed in two year 6 classrooms.  One was a math class and one was a writing class.  I was actually a little disappointed in my observations of these two particular classes. 

Both classrooms were set up with desks in rows and no space for students to work anywhere else besides their desk.  Both teachers were giving strictly whole class instruction followed up by students independent work in a note book.  Because my two children are on a multi-age grade 5/6 team at CBMS, I know that the topic, content and skills being taught were what my children have been learning at this grade level, but it was very dry and seemed a little "old fashioned" in the way it was being taught.

Things I did see the teacher's do during their instruction that I appreciated included:

• Giving "Think Time" and waiting for almost all students to have their hands up before calling on a student to share their answer to the math problem.
• Trying to relate the math topic to "real life".  They were working on perimeter and area and she was asking the students when they might need to use this in real life and then creating a problem on the board based on their idea.  For example: one student said "carpeting a room".
• In writing, they were working on voice and using different things to show "happy" and "relaxed" emotions.  The teacher asked for examples of colors, clothes, foods, etc that might show these two emotions in writing.  He also provided "Think Time" and would wait until most students had their hand raised with an idea before calling on someone to give an answer.
• When one student asked if they could put a "job" to the emotion, he allowed that.  That was nice to see that he listened to the student's voice.
• Both teachers worked hard to call on equal number of girls and boys. 
• Both teachers made sure different students were being called on so that all students were having the chance to share their answers.

I would have liked to see the teachers allowing some conversation among students about their ideas.  It would have been nice to see students working together and learning from each other.  I did not have time to talk with these teacher's about anything, I just had time to visit and observe in their classroom.  I do not feel I learned much from these particular observations, other than I feel good about what I am doing in my classrooms.  I feel that I am balancing the types of classroom activities I am doing to allow for movement, students teaching students, practicing activities in fun and meaningful ways and having students evaluate their learning and self-direction (participation and responsibility of learning) levels within the classroom.

Year 4 Classroom Observation (Walk By):

In walking to another observation time, I had the opportunity to walk slowly through a couple of year 4 classrooms.  I was pleased to see the students working in partners all over the classroom.  Some students were at desks, some students were on the floor, some students were standing at the white board and working on that.  It was nice to see them all over the room, working hard with other kids and the teacher moving around and checking in with students.

Informal Teacher Interactions:

During "tea time", recess in the United States, I had two teachers ask me if our instruction is driven by data in the United States.  They spoke of the NAPLAN Test - which is their big national test.  They said that they use lots of class time preparing for the test and it takes up a lot of their instructional time and that "the kids hate it".  I will talk more about this test in another post, as I did get to talk with the schools head of curriculum about assessment and evaluation at Chapel Hill State School.