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I was really intimidated by this concept when we were first asked to focus on it for this session's observations. My MT doesn't utilize group work often and discussion is even less frequent. The students are usually discourage from interacting with each other and the class is most often lecture based. Student interactions are usually stifled and hushed by the MT. Last week, however, the classes were given time to work collaboratively in a way that I had not seen before. A lot of my observations are either pulled from these brief groups observations or from the previous lack of group-based work and open forum discussions.

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To begin with, it is important to consider the attitude that my mentor teacher has toward some students.

Firstly, my students are visibly and noticeably divided between students that are college motivated and those that simply hope to enter the workforce. This isn't apparent by any physical traits, per se, but more by the body language of the students during class. The students are either postured so that they are engaged, actively listening, and looking toward the teacher/subject material. However, another half of the class (carries across all classes except for the AP course) is postured so that they are able to sleep at their desks. As I've said, my mentor teacher will make comments to students who are talking with others during class. However, there is little-to-no comments made to re-engage students who've zoned out, fallen asleep, or become lost in their phones (unless they're talking to someone).

My mentor teacher does not work to acquaint herself with the students. Rather, it's more of a "let them come to me" approach. The students that continuously zone out or sit quietly in the back of class (not completing work) are mostly left to their own devices. This has allowed many of the students to fall behind on their assignments, including both homework and quizzes/tests. The students that are engaged remain engaged and those that are not remain disconnected from the lectures.

How does this connect to group work?

My mentor teacher treats these two groups of students differently when creating group work or allowing work-time in class. The students that are considered "problematic" are scrutinized much more frequently during this independent time. This is true even when these students are doing something that other, more "exemplary" students are also doing. This is especially true for a select handful of students.  For instance, some students are allowed to listen to their AirPods during class while others are made to remove their headphones as soon as they enter class.

Tying this back to Shalaby's Troublemakers, the students are not given the same treatment. There are definite and noticeable favorites. These students not only receive privileges (like listening to music) that the others don't, but they are also given more patience and guidance when they seek help on assignments. Meanwhile, the students that act out during class are given little-to-no assistance and instead are often reminded of how they "chose not to participate" when it was originally assigned.

Shalaby (2017) considers these "troublemaking" students as those that have, "responded by making themselves hypervisible" (p. 163). These students have worked hard to be noticed by the teacher and as Shalaby notes, the school has responded by attempting to make them invisible. My biggest takeaway from watching my students in group discussion is that my mentor teacher is, whether purposefully or not, reiterating that invisibility to the students.

Questions:
1. Has my mentor teacher always been dismissive of "problematic" students or is this something that develops over time from burnout/frustration?
2. If this is something from burnout, how do I stop myself from developing this same syndrome?
3. Is my mentor teacher making strides with these students in other ways that I'm not seeing? Is she creating a balance of expectations and allowances that I perhaps can't see or understand yet?
4. My teacher always says, "Relationships are the biggest way to build a student's success." How does she know how far to push her expectations on a student and when to give them slack?
5. Can you remain active and empathetic if you only work from recycled lessons and assessments? In other words, can you remain fresh, active, and engaged if your lesson plans aren't?
6. How do you know when lesson plans need to be cycled out?
7. How does a teacher create an open, group work-based environment that rewards some students, redirects others, and remains equitable while doing so? Especially when these students may be working alongside of each other?
8. Can there be differential treatment that isn't problematic in a classroom?

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Thankfully, students do not simply doodle on their Post-It notes

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The students are often asked to use Post-It notes to annotate and ask questions during reading. This isn't always graded, but it is utilized often in class. If the class takes the form of a lecture the students are asked to pull from their notes to ask questions during discussion, pull examples from the text for in-class assignments, and marking moments of confusion, power, or interest.

Why is this relevant?

Well, this happened to be the subject for my microteach in EDUTL 5442 this week. Reading through Subjects Matter, I was able to consider and analyze this form of assessment after seeing it used in the field. This was really insightful for me and opened up a lot of questions about this method and its practical uses. The textbook considers this assessment type and pairs it with an activity designed for the students to physically position their thoughts in the classroom. More specifically, it mentions that the teacher might consider writing categories on the board or on the walls of the classroom and asking students to stand up and file their thoughts (Post-Its) into these categories.

My mentor teacher does not do anything like this with the notes that students take. In fact, the notes are hardly used for more than general, vague guiding points meant to steer the students' thinking and dialogue during class. While some students do use these as they're intended, many of them simply do not take notes at all. I've heard many of them state something like, "If it's not going to be graded, why would I do it?"

Tying this back to the group work focus, I'm curious why my mentor teacher doesn't utilize these notes for increasing/varying student engagement. When the students met in groups last week, they did not reference the notes they'd taken at all. Instead, they simply spoke with each other casually and reflected on the text, referencing specific scenes without specific dialogue or text attached.

What's great about this method is that if students were allowed to work in groups more often, not only could they use their notes for guided discussion (with some reworking to their use in class). Similarly, it could be a way for groups to communicate with each other. I might pose a question to the class and ask them to reflect on it with their groups. I could ask them to create responses on their Post-It notes and stick them in the text where they're most appropriate. I could have the class share these answers afterward. Even further, if I wanted to create a physical activity, I could have students place their notes on the wall, wherever they see fit (under categories made by the teacher prior to class).

1. How would the students react to a physical activity being paired with their notetaking? The students are already familiar with this form of notetaking, so why not push it to another degree?
2. Would students feel more motivated to document notes if they knew that more people would see/read them?
3. What would be the loss/gain of assigning grades to these notes? Would the answers/responses become less "authentic"?
4. How could this work be differentiated for students that do not like to take traditional notes? Could students utilize drawings and other mediums for this activity?
5. How could I use this assignment to create a space for students to anonymously ask questions, provide feedback, and engage with the class when they're not wholly confident?

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The students have been engaged in group work during the past week due to the class working on The Crucible. My mentor teacher has created assignments that require the students to piece together information from multiple sources, under multiple themes, to create responses that consider not only the historical context of the play's setting, but also of Arthur Miller's writing. The students have been given larger, extended writing pieces during these past two weeks and have been allowed to work alongside each other. This has been provided in the form of in-class writing time. Some of the assessments have been worksheets with guided questions while others have simply been open-ended writing prompts. The students are allowed to work with each other during this time, but they often simply meet to copy each other's work. My mentor teacher does not walk around and make herself a part of the groups. She does not mingle or check on their work and instead simply leaves them unattended until the volume level reaches a point that she needs to address. The students disengage from the material and the lesson immediately. Instead, one of them will work on looking up answers while the others talk about gossip or something they've watched. This process is repeated and alternated throughout the rest of the assignment. Open-ended writing prompts are simply hurried through and turned in, unless it's a test. Once the students have completed the work they will simply sit at their desks and peruse social media on their phones or computers.

Why The Crucible?

When I was in high school, this was one of the most collaborative texts that we read. In fact, I distinctly remember significantly disliking the text but enjoying the activities/assessments that our teacher paired with it. Even further, I liked that it was created so that we studied The Crucible in both English and Social Studies simultaneously. I'm not sure that the humanities department at Eastmoor is doing this, though I think the students would appreciate it. They often mention that their classes feel disconnected during group work asides.

It's sad to see the students forced into solitude in a text that I remember so fondly as collaborative. In fact, this was the only time that I interacted with some of those students.

1. What do the students lose by being forced to complete most of this reading on their own?
2. Why might the mentor teacher have changed this to an audiobook and a movie instead of a drama based activity reading?
3. How does this affect the students' connection to the material?