My Classroom Observation (Week 2)

[Anonymous]

Observations via ATLAS

I observed a teacher’s one-on-one tutoring session via ATLAS. The student being tutored, Dustin, was 6 years old in first grade, and the topic of the tutoring session was reading with a focus on rhyming words. Though the classroom in use was relatively small, it was able to comfortably accommodate both the teacher and the student. The lighting in the room seemed relatively poor, at least in the recording; but in a voiceover, the teacher said that the lighting was not an issue. Overall, despite these minor concerns, the classroom appeared neat, comfortable, and suitable as a learning environment for a small number of students. I was unable to discern the location of the classroom relative to the rest of the school based on the recording.

The teacher began the session with a personal question for Dustin, designed to engage him and pique his interest in the book they were about to read. Since book was about a boy and his cat, the teacher asked Dustin whether he had any pets at home. When Dustin replies affirmatively, the teacher spends a few minutes talking with Dustin about his pet cats: to whom they belonged, their names, their habits, etc. Dustin was able to answer most of the questions with ease; and when he struggled, the teacher would encourage him through prompting or clarification of her question. Having successfully piqued Dustin’s interest in the subject, the teacher proceeded to read the short book to Dustin. After each line, the teacher would pause and ask Dustin whether he caught any words that rhymed (if I recall correctly, every line had a rhymed pair of words). Once an example of a rhymed pair of words was given to him, Dustin quickly caught on, and was able to find the rhyming words in each subsequent line. After reading the book to Dustin, the teacher then had him assign the rhyming words from the book into their rhyming “families.” When this was completed, the teacher asked Dustin whether he could think of other words (not from the book) that also fit into the rhyming families. Dustin did not have trouble with this. The teacher then returned to the book. She had made a copy of each page of the book; but certain words (the rhyming words) were missing. As she guided Dustin in reading the book word by word, Dustin would fill in the correct word by penciling it into the photocopied pages. In order to help Dustin with reading comprehension, Dustin was then prompted to put the photocopied pages in the order they occurred in the story. When the teacher opened the original book to reveal the answers, she allowed Dustin to rearrange the pages as he saw his errors. Finally, Dustin slowly read the entire book by himself.

Application of Piaget’s Theory

The student, Dustin, being 6 years old, would be expected to fall within the Preoperational stage in Piaget’s theory. Assuming that Piaget’s theory is valid, I think there is evidence that Dustin is in fact in the Preoperational stage. First, the nature of the assignment (reading) suggests a development in language and symbolic thinking—obviously, being able to read implies a certain understanding that the letters (symbols) together represent words and sentences, which correspond to spoken sounds (language). Based on Dustin’s ability to associate the letters “-ack” with the sound “ack,” it is clear that he is able to think symbolically to a certain degree. Second, though this may be a little of a stretch, I think that Dustin exhibited some degree of the egocentrism that is characteristic of the Preoperational stage. At the very least, Dustin seems to be still in the process of learning how to see from other perspectives. For example, while Dustin is aware that one of the cat is “his sister’s,” in his brief references to his home life, he is apparently unable to see from his sister’s perspective—he has no idea what his sister’s cat is named because “it’s [his] sister’s” cat. While he understands that other perspectives exist, he does not appear able to think from them.

Additional thoughts and comments

One concern I had regarding the application of Piaget’s theory is that it seems to be extremely individualistic. That is, it does not seem to make any real distinction between learning in a one-on –one setting and learning in a social setting among one’s peers. Is it reasonable to suggest that that the classroom dynamic does not change when there is one teacher teaching one student, compared to a case where a teacher is teaching twenty students? My intuition, based on my observations this week, would imply that these two cases are fundamentally different. My hope is that other theories (such as Vygotsky’s theory) will supplement this apparent deficiency.

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