The classroom I’ve gotten to observe has been quite interesting. First off, my first day in the classroom was last Thursday, which happened to be the “Country vs Country Club” day of Homecoming week at the high school. This made for a very interesting experience since it became quite obvious who had dressed up and who hadn’t. During my Thursday tutoring shift, I get to observe both an eleventh-grade and a ninth-grade chemistry class, and the distinction between them is very apparent. The eleventh-grade class (while also having more students who participated in the Homecoming dress-up theme) seemed much more comfortable with their teacher, Mr. Wiebe. A couple students asked for a selfie with the teacher, to document them all in their country themed outfits. They also engaged in more pre-class chatter with the teacher, showing that they were comfortable in the environment Mr. Wiebe had created and with Mr. Wiebe himself. This observation was further supported by Mr. Wiebe cracking jokes throughout his lecture on percent composition by mass, something he had not done in the ninth-grade class earlier (well, he attempted in the beginning but the joke was met with utter silence so he didn’t try again). While I didn’t observe any questions in either class, the students in the eleventh-grade class appeared slightly less engaged, whispering among themselves more during the lecture. When it came to the in class work though, the older students tended to work in groups, asking each other questions about how to do a problem or how their peers had gotten a different answer. While Mr. Wiebe had expressed that I was a chemistry major and thus could help with any questions, only a few students approached me with questions, and they tended to be the students who had decided to work alone. Initially, this was curious to me, but it makes sense. All of the students were having questions, but the ones who had decided to work alone didn’t have someone right there to ask questions of, so instead had to turn to me. It also intrigued me how certain students specifically seemed to choose to ask me questions instead of Mr. Wiebe. Perhaps it was because they were “feeling me out” or because Mr. Wiebe could be perceived as more intimidating than me (for reference, I am a relatively small female and Mr. Wiebe looks like he coaches wrestling in his spare time, so very different vibes). Another difference I noticed was in the students’ interactions with me. The ninth-graders barely glanced at me after I was introduced, while the older students continued to peek at me throughout their lesson.

Thinking about after effects of the pandemic, many were easy to see with all of the students. For example, the ninth graders seemed particularly uncomfortable in the classroom setting. While this could be due to the new experience of high school, there was also a rigidness to many of them that came off as if they weren’t really sure what to do in a classroom anymore. With the older students, I think the familiarity of high school coupled with the new habit of doing pretty much anything they wanted when school was online manifested in a lot of distraction. Many students at the high school used iPads to take notes, but based on some of the noises or interactions between students, it appeared that during the lecture the iPads were not only being used for academic purposes. Another big thing was that very few students, in both classes, actually watched Mr. Wiebe as he lectured. I think so many students had gotten used to not having to do that, that now it actually felt uncomfortable to do so. Mr. Wiebe did not seem to be affected by this, and continued teaching and pointing at his slides as if everyone was watching him.

(Basically what Mr.Wiebe teaching to his class was like, Source-https://colab.plymouthcreate.net/resource/the-zoom-black-box-dilemma/)

If we apply Piaget’s theory to the classes I observed, Piaget would undoubtedly say that all of the students I saw should be in the formal operational stage. All of the students were over age eleven by three to six years, and thus likely should be able to deal with and learn more abstract concepts. While the eleventh-grade class seemed mostly to be in this stage having very few problems in dealing with many theoretical situations of compound composition and reasoning out percentages, the younger students did not seem to be as solidly in the formal operational stage or at least were not being taught as such. The younger students’ lesson included much more hands on demonstrations of exactly what they needed to do in lab the next week and familiar and concrete examples of physical versus chemical properties. It is possible that Mr. Wiebe was simply grounding the younger students with the kind of teaching they might be more used to, as a way to help them ease into a topic that is unfamiliar to them. I believe that more experience interacting with the students is needed before I can more confidently come to a conclusion about what cognitive development stage Piaget would place them in.

Overall, observing was a quite enjoyable experience, even though the first visit was quite awkward. The students seemed to either regard me like I was some sort of unknown animal that they weren’t sure was friendly yet, or completely ignore me. Seeing another teach things that I distinctly remember from my own high school chemistry class was fascinating, since for certain concepts, Mr. Wiebe took a totally different path than my high school chemistry teacher did and other times it was like watching a video of my high school chemistry class. All in all, I very much look forward to tutoring again and hope that as the weeks go on, I get to interact with the students more.