Workshop Exemplar

The workshop that helped me be immersed the most was the observation report.  The observation report helped me understand the characteristics of my learners.  I was immersed while I was observing teenagers because I tried to find patterns and understand what made those individuals excited and able to have fun.  I found that students like to do activities in group.  I have seen this in practice in my school districts.  When students work together in groups, some people are upset because they have to fill all the shoes for their teammates.  In other cases, people jump to the option of working together because they can collaborate and delegate the tasks.  I find that teachers need to be flexible when it comes to group work and that if a student will succeed at a high level by themselves that they should be allowed to work by themselves.  I also found out what boredom looks like in a teenager.  This experience also helped me because I now notice boredom in my students.  Right now, I hear many comments about how they do not understand the purpose of the class activities and are very bored.  I am keeping this in mind as I plan my units so that I try to come up with innovative ways to get content standards across.  Lastly, I feel as though my experience doing the observation report helped me understand the demographics of my students. Many of my students come from difficult situations at home.  This has helped me understand that I need to create a safe haven for my students.  


The blog entries that indicate my progress on my observation report are as follows: 

Thursday, August 4, 2011: Moving Forward with the Observation project 

Observation Workshop (Write-up) Who are my learners? Part II