Students

The students in this class were very quiet, well behaved, but not motivated. They walk in to the classroom, sharpen their pencils, go directly to their assigned desk and sit quietly for the teacher to start lecturing. The students seemed sleepy and dragging most of the mornings, but there were few that stood out. It was a small class mostly boys and a few girls.

I got to help one student during my observation; he seemed to be having problems. As I sat next to him I guided him through the steps of a couple word problems. He had no problem solving the problem with guidance, but during the pre-tested he was unable to work it out. Not until he was asked to read the problem out loud, I realized he was lacking reading skills.

Like every classroom setting there is an overly anxious student. He had to answer all of the questions, but would get majority wrong. I also noticed him not listening but drawing or scribbling on his notebook during the lecture. During the pre-test, he would guess at the answers to finish first.

Another student, she needs extra guidance during the lecture. She had a paraprofessional assigned. During the six days I was observing, she was doing a little better on her pre-test. She was doing better than majority of the students.

Another student, which may not be funny, but it, amazes me. The Mentor kept asking this student to please sit up and wake up. He was always tired, but during the pre-test he scored higher than half of the students. My Mentor, in a joking manner, suggested to him, if he could pass all the pre-test while sleeping in class, he could go back to sleep.

The most challenging part with these students was when they did not want to participate in the lesson and would guess in the pre-tests just to finish. How can you help a student learn when they do not want to learn?

Even through the class was unmotivated majority of the time, The Mentor did not give up on them. She used manipulative, scenarios, diagrams, and even objects that happened to be at arm’s length as demonstrations.