Field Experience Observations Reflection

For CI 414, I observed at Maine West High School in Des Plaines over a period of two days. The demographic makeup of the classes I observed were mostly white but also a large minority population, specifically Hispanic. In all the classes I observed, English was the language spoken in instruction. However, there were several ESL students who spoke Spanish to each other before, during, and after class. I observed classes for all grades of high school 9-12 and all different levels from transitional to AP classes. Obviously, the language the teachers used in class differed according to the grade level and the academic level of the students.

            The biggest thing I noticed in my observations with regards to literacy practices was the incorporation of digital literacy into the lessons. Maine West requires that all students have Chromebooks and it’s expected that teachers utilize them into the lesson. Some teachers did a better job than others in this aspect. The best case of digital literacy was in the APUSH class I observed. I was actually in this class five years ago, and the teacher was using many of the same strategies he used when I was a student. APUSH is a very content heavy class that is also very fast paced. And the teacher used digital literacy to keep the class up with the lesson. He showed videos, historical documents, and played audio clips. The best thing he did was show an interactive website that he asked the class to look over for homework.

            There were two classes that I explicitly saw disciplinary specific literacy practices employed. In most classes, instruction was direct instruction through lecture. I don’t know if most of the classes are like that or if I was just unfortunate to observe on those days. I saw disciplinary specific literacy practices in the APUSH and regular US history classes. The teacher in US history provided the class with a great graphic organizer that split up the important battles of the American Revolutionary War. It listed who was involved, when it took place, and the significance of the battle. I thought this was a great thing to do because it made the students look through at the battles through the lens of a historian in explaining the significance as well as contextualizing it with other events. And in APUSH, they were studying Manifest Destiny and the effect it had on the expansion of slavery. The teacher explained how the expansion of the United States was viewed as so important, that both northern and southern states put aside their differences and agreed on this. The problem was that these differences would catch up several years later when southerners wanted to expand slavery into the newly acquired territories. This eventually helped lead to the Civil War. The teacher listed the cause of Manifest Destiny and then several of the effects that it had, both short-term and long-term. Cause and effect is probably one the biggest discipline specific literacy practices in history.

            One thing I noticed in several of the classes I observed was that it was student focused learning; students were teaching themselves about the content and learning more through discussion or another activity. I observed a sociology class that had two Socratic seminars about different topics. The next day, the groups would switch and discuss the other topic. A government class acted out a trial that had to do with learning about the exclusionary rule. I felt these were good ways to promote student engagement, as well as threatening a loss of points if they didn’t participate.