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Observation by Sydney Jorcool
Frank uses “1-2-3 Silence Please” to gather the attention of the class. This seems to be a command that the students understand and respond well to. Has to reference the no eating in class rule, and has to stop the student reading out loud to get some chatter to stop. Good reinforcement of the rules, and consistent in their implementation.
First task of the day: student comes to the front of the room and stands on a low table, reading her homework to the class. The students are writing stories in the past. She reads out loud, and Frank proceeds to commend her on her use of the past tense, instructing the class to clap for her. Excellent positive reinforcement.
Next activity: Frank hands out flash cards with drawings of the classes’ vocabulary words. He tells the students to hold the card on their head. He gives all instructions in English, giving an example of what the students are to do so that they understand. Each student has to say: “I have a bicycle/truck/sock on my head.” The second round is that they have to describe their neighbor: “He/she has a book/desk/lion on his/her head.” This activity reinforces: verb-noun agreement, preposition use, and personal pronoun use. It is visual, tactile, and oral. Excellent activity.
Frank walks throughout the room, carefully paying attention to each student, and when he sees a problem, addresses it in a gentle manner. He has approximately 80% class engagement throughout the exercise. In attempting to address the difference between the preposition on and in, he draws on the board, a head with a pencil on or in the head. He questions the class: ‘which is a problem?’ This causes a laugh and everyone agrees that on the head would be better than in. Excellent for the visual and oral learners.
He tells me that the next step is to take the cards away: “He had something.” Past tense.
Cookie Game begins, a motive for students to speak English. Every Spanish word spoken by the students is a cookie for the teacher and every Spanish word from the teacher is a cookie for the students. The kids really try to speak to each other in English, even when Frank leaves the room for a moment.
Next activity: story time. Frank tells a story from his life (half fact, half fiction) when he was doing an excavation in Egypt on the great pyramids.
The story includes knowledge of geography, which he reinforces by asking the kids to recall on what continent Egypt is
He prompts the students to recall facts of the story from the day before, a good exercise in memory development.
He tells me he developed the story to reinforce the unit on past tense.
Because the story is personal, kids are completely engaged. This is a real story from the teacher’s life!
He draws pictures on the board to reinforce the story, throughout the narrative. This helps the students understand the new vocabulary that they don’t know. Seems almost completely effective.
Using sounds to describe as well; integrates the use of a different sense.
Question: do they get tested for comprehension later?
Explains a bit of Arabic to the students, because some of the characters spoke in Arabic, adding to mystery and suspense. Very well developed story-line.
Makes digging motion to explain a word that the kids don’t know.
Asks a student to act out the verb ‘sneak.’
Stops in the middle of the story, after presenting his problem: students, what can I do? he asks, prompting them to be creative and come up with solutions for his problem. Excellent creative thinking and problem-solving.
The story is a good reinforcement of adjectives- thin, fat, strong. Also uses ‘thinner.’ Very good integration of the use of adjectives.
Instructs students to ‘sneak’ back to their seats. Effective method to keep them quiet.
After sitting still for the long time for the story, the kids are restless. Frank gets the students, from their chairs, to raise their arms, lower them, then he instructs them to wiggle their middles, and then they must put their left hand on their nose and the right hand on the ear, and then reverse. Not only does this activity get the blood flowing, it reinforces right/left/parts of the body, etc.
Bell rings. Time for science. We’re talking about what the brain and the nerves do. Frank explains the relationship between information that passes from the eyes to the brain through nerves (I would like to see the nerve connection outlined better). He balances a ruler on his hand and says that the hand sends messages to the brain, the eyes send messages to the brain, and the brain processes this information to keep the ruler balanced.
Makes a drawing of the relationship between the nerves and the brain on the board, and references it while he talks.
Metaphor: you can think of your body as a bus and your brain as the driver.
Plays a game with the students in which he throws a towel, kids have to catch it. He explains during the activity that your brain has to process all the information in order to catch the towel. He explains that your brain has learned from yesterday, when no one caught the towel. This requires memory.
Goes back to the warm-up activity, saying your hand tells your brain when it has reached your nose. Excellent physical explanation that coincides with the verbal explanation of the science.
75% class engagement during this activity; the kids are getting restless, it’s close to lunch time.
I’d like to see a continuation where the kids make their own brain-nerve diagrams.
The Cookie Game falls apart, which I understand. The kids enjoy trying to ‘trick’ him into speaking Spanish.Alejandra refuses to speak in English, which is odd because she can complete a later worksheet in a fraction of the time it takes the other students. I’d like to recommend her for a psychological evaluation, but I will speak to Karla first.
He tries to get the kids to take out Mega Flash and they complain- a testament to his excellent games.
Class observation by Sandie Hartzie, California State University
Today Frank took his class on a far away expedition to Mars. His method of teaching I hope someday to develop as he was great as a storyteller inserting information as he took them on their journey through space. He is a great model teacher and I hope to someday be as good as him. After he taught both groups, they each went to the computer lab at their different specified times. There I assisted the children in their exploration of space on the computers. They wrote in their notebooks what they learned from researching and I assisted them as Frank was also doing.
Then Frank taught the children about plants and how they grow from seeds. The class is doing an experiment growing seeds in different environments with varied amounts of water, sun, and soil. So today the first group of children planted their individual seeds and I assisted as we taught the children about the seedlings. It was such a neat experience working with the children as they learned and experienced this concept.
After school was over, I also learned that Frank is one of the best teachers I have seen and is so good at working with the children.
Letter of recommendation by Joseph Wheeler
To whom it may concern:
During the period that Frank Schulz worked with us he showed himself to be a very capable and amiable addition to our teaching staff. He has an outgoing and likable personality and was popular with students and teachers alike.
Mr. Frank was notable for his originality and interactive teaching style. He took the initiative to create activities that were both fun and inspirational while at the same time educative. For example, while teaching about dinosaurs he created a mini archeological site in the school yard where he guided students through the excavation of “dinosaur” bones and “fossils”. He also pioneered the new “Buddy” program where students from higher grades spend time mentoring those from lower grades.
Using his own personal experiences and creative methods Mr. Frank developed and established a good working relationship with his students and I would recommend him for a similar teaching role in further establishments.
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