Observation Assignment #1

            Walking into Mount Pleasant High School for the first time was overwhelming. It was huge and I was very anxious from what my classmates told me about the school. With a million thoughts and nerves running through my body I walked into the building and found the main office where I was given a classroom to go to. My first class was an AP Biology course but the teacher leader explained to me that their AP classes are not like regular AP classes and that these students are not “real” AP students. With that being said I sat down in the back and looked around. The room and equipment looks new. The classroom is pretty clean but unorganized. The walls are plain with a huge poster in the front that read “Goal: 85% of the class will pass NECAP reading test.” This was puzzling to me because I was in a Science classroom in the Science wing and there are reminders of NECAP tests that are not science. The board was blank. The classroom overall was boring and the teacher’s name was on the door meaning this was his classroom and not a shared classroom. I felt as though he could definitely add to the classroom and make it more welcoming and related to the subject.            

            In this AP Biology class there were six students. They were all sitting at different lab benches reading their textbook and taking notes. I was the minority in the classroom in terms of race. The students looked clean and were dressed appropriately. They all had notebooks, writing utensils, and cell phones. The teacher was on his computer in the front of the classroom. After sitting there for over forty minutes the students finally began grouping together, without permission from the teacher. I still had not heard the teacher speak until he heard too much talking. He disciplined them then went back to his computer. When the bell rang the students got up and walked out quietly and the hallway filled up with yelling and everyone calling to their friends. The teacher finally came up to me and began with small talk. He then explained what I was just watching saying the day before he taught the lesson on Diffusion and today they took notes from the book putting the subject into their own words, but that they mostly only copy the book which is not helpful. I asked if that was how each lesson went and he said yes. These students go into school one day to listen to a lecture and then the next day read about the subject and take more notes. He did not mention anything about labs taken place in the classroom and by looking around there were not much lab materials set up anywhere. This led me to believe that not many experiments took place.

With this being what I saw in my first classroom it is very difficult to see where the students at and what they understand and do not understand. Not one student asked a question. They were told to finish the notes for homework so I am not positive if each student is at the same place in the chapter or if they definitely would finish reading the book for homework. I did not feel comfortable asking these students questions on what they were reading about because the teacher did not speak to me until the class was over and I did not know if it was appropriate to do so.

            The teacher had the power in this classroom. His students acted much differently than in any other classroom I was in. They were quiet and did their work. They stayed busy throughout the entire class period. When the students did get even a little loud the teacher told them to stop talking and they did which was extremely different from the other classes. This could be because these are the higher-level students or because this teacher is stricter than others.

            Being a student in AP Biology at Mount Pleasant High School would not be engaging to me. Listening to a lecture and taking notes is something I am used to but I would not enjoy this in a high school setting. It seemed like a class I would dread attending because it seemed boring and too routine. Not seeing any lab materials could indicate that there is not lab time, which is a plus to Science class. Seeing how the teacher lectured could change my mind but from the small talk I had with him and knowing how the class periods were spent it did not seem interesting to me.