Observations

For my first teaching observation, I went to Aubry Bend Middle School and observed Ms. Almquist and paraprofessionals in the Special Education classroom. Ms. Almquist has 6 students ranging from 6th grade to 8th grade, and there were 4 students consistently in the classroom working with either Ms. Almquist or paras. I observed different reading and math lessons the students participated in. The students had a variety of different abilities that were individually accommodated for in the classroom.

​

In the English class I observed, the students were reading Charlotte's Web with Ms. Almquist. Reading class consisted of reading one or two chapters every lesson, as a group. Ms. Almquist paused frequently to draw connections and ask questions to the students to check for comprehension and introduce new vocabulary words. They also did activities to go along with the reading, such as a spider web hunt, going to a farmer’s market, and making bugs for a class spider web. This brought the book to life for the students. In the math class I observed, Ms. Almquist worked one-on-one with a student. She incorporated things the student enjoyed by having a “shopping trip” category they were shopping for that day, such as for a cat. The student was applying his soft skills by researching the cost for the cat, writing down the expenses, and adding them up. Ms. Almquist also worked on the student’s rounding skills by asking him to round up the cost by a certain amount. The last skill that was taught was reasoning. Ms. Almquist presented an amount to the student, and he had to tell if he could pay for the cat with that set amount of money based on how much he learned the cat costs. I enjoyed observing Ms. Almquist working on skills with her students, because it taught me how important it is as a Special-Education teacher to adapt lessons to each individual student you work with.

​

I enjoyed watching Ms. Almquist work with her students when behaviors occurred. One student in particular would consistently become off task and repetitively speak of things unrelated to the lesson. Ms. Almquist was firm with him, telling him that it does not have anything to do with what they were learning. The student quickly apologized and refocused on his work. When this student would get too out of control and have behaviors, Ms. Almquist had a procedure of giving him a set amount of chances to correct the behavior, and if the behavior continued or escalated, she would then send him to the quiet room. In the quiet room, he was allowed space to decompress until he was ready to talk about the incident and resume his activity. Technology was used as a reward for the students to earn if they chose it. Ms. Almquist created a culture in her class to prevent and minimize the amount of behaviors that occurred.

​

The students were always very engaged with Ms. Almquist, because she was very dynamic. The more dynamic she was with the students the better they responded and were engaged in the lesson. There was an eagerness to learn within all the students. The students loved engaging with the material, especially when it incorporated something that they enjoy outside of school. All the student’s learning styles were address in different ways. Some lessons were technology driven on the computer, others were hands-on projects creating or doing something, and some were the standard paper and book lesson.

​

I enjoyed getting to know all of the students better during their break times. We would do puzzles together, play Uno, or walk the track together. One day, we did laps on the track and took turns making the silliest food combination we could think of. It was great to get to know the students and their unique personalities in their break times. I am incredibly thankful for my time spent in Ms. Almquist’s classroom and all that I learned from her, the paras, and the students.