10/9/08

I talked to my mom about Ed Admin, and she said whatever is easier and faster. She said I can always go back and take Ed Admin classes if I really want to. So I guess I'm staying in curriculum studies for now.

Today I visited Ms. ****** at Punahou School. She teaches 6th grade math and science. Each 6th grade class (12 total) are team taught. One teacher teaches math and science and the other teacher does language arts and social studies (humanities). Their classrooms are partitioned by a think sliding door. Each student has a MacBook. (They are individually given a computer from 4th grade.)

The math curriculum that they use is called Impact Math. The text describes math using lots of words instead of numbers. Today they were learning about factors. The teacher taught the lesson and supplemented it with a factor game found online. Students worked in pairs or individually. Students take notes in their composition book. They use the composition book to do classrook as well. Homework is completed on folder paper and graded on a scale of 1 - 4. 4 being the highest grade.

In science, they were learning about about the ocean floor. No textbook is currently being used. They just finished a unit on the scientific method. The teacher asked, "What geologic structures would you find on the ocean floor?" Students were given 10 minutes to search the internet with their computer. After, students were to recreate the ocean floor using clay. Later, they will be using a chopstick as their "sonar" to explore their ocean floor.

The humanities class started by correcting Wordly Wise Book 7 Lesson 4 Part E. Students were given guidelines as to what is acceptable and what isn't. Then they moved on to discusssing in pairs their ideas for their Nat Turner essa. The teacher (Mr. ***) already had them write about each side of the story. Now, they were to pick a side and write about it.

Overall, it was a great experience to observe a class at Punahou. The students seemed to be discipline. I'd love to teach there one day.