7th Grade Science Classroom Observation

will be observing Mr. Greene’s 7th grade science class during this semester. I will be observing different class periods and therefore different groups of students. The students are between the age of 12 and 13 years old.

February 2, 2016 11:00am-12:00pm 1 Hour

Today the group I am observing is made up of twelve girls and 6 boys. All the students are white, English speaking, from various social classes. I can see several groups that exist, some girls are working together and three boys seem to have a friendship. The conversation between the students is limited because the teacher has complete control of the classroom environment.

February 10, 2016 10:00am-12:00pm 2 Hours

Today there was a two hour delay, so there is a condensed

Caprari’s 7th grade science class. The first period has eight girls and twelve boys. There are two African American girls, one African American boy, and the remaining students are white. All the students speak English and they appear to be from both middle and lower class families. There are several students with IEP’s and two boys have mild autism. Two of the boys that have IEP’s seem to feed off of one another, they work together on projects, and socialize with one another a lot. Although they only work together academically, they do interact with the rest of the class as well. I have noticed they like to be silly and act like the class clowns. The two boys with autism work together along with another girl who has some learning disabilities. These students find it more comfortable to only work with one another and don’t really talk to anyone else in the class. This group of students like a lot of the teachers attention. They tell many stories about themselves, some of which I feel may be exaggerated for the sake of impressing the class. The African American girl tells a story about finding twenty dollars and fighting with her brother for it. She said in the end her mom took it, and that is not fair because she found it. She told the class that when her mom when to bed she stole the money back. One boy then told a story about stealing money from his brother, just because he felt like it. This groups talks a lot about who is mad at whom

I asked how they like science class and how can it be better. Most of them said it was okay. One boy said it is too hard and to make it better he shouldn’t have to do any work. He was talking about a girl to his friends so my presence made him uncomfortable. To make me leave, he tried talking about his friends’ body parts and then he stood up and just started dancing. I asked two girls what they like to do after school and they said “I don’t know”. So I asked if they did any sports. One of the girls seemed offended by my question and said “no I ain’t into sports”. Her friend said “I wish I ran track so I could get rid of this fat belly” while grapping her stomach. I told her she wasn’t fat and she just laughed. The feelings this girl had may be because rapid increase in body fat that occurs among females in early adolescence frequently prompts young girls to become overly concerned about their weight (Steinberg, 2014). The second class has six girls and nine boys. There is one African American girl and boy, the rest of the students are white. All the students speak English and again there is a mix of low and middle class families. This group likes to tease one another about having boyfriends and girlfriends. There seems to be some drama in this group. They all seem to feed off of one another and get sillier with each story they tell. They are slightly unprepared for class and