1. Conduct an inquiry to learn about
your children.
The idea here is that the inquiry will include questions
that will enable you to identify the status order in your
classroom. The inquiry will also include questions tyou might
wish to use as part of your community building, questions that could
give the class kind of a snapshot of itself. Two examples are
provided, one conducted in a 3/4 multiage (Rebecca)
and another conducted in a 3-4-5 multiage (Gillian).
Research by Cohen and her colleagues (Cohen, Chapter 3.) has
shown that a child's status among peers in school is jointly determined
by friendship patterns and how well the child is thought to achieve in
acadmic subjects, particularly reading. Therefore, embedded
in your inquiry questinnaire will be two questions, one that targets
peer relationships and one that targets perceived academic
status. Include versions of the following questions in your
inquiry:
a. For Peer Status. Who would you invite to your
birthday party? (Alternate version: Who would you like to sit
next to on a field trip bus ride? or Who would you like to
hang out with after school if you could have any choice?)
b. For Academic Status. Who are the best readers in
your class? (Alternate version: Who are the best math
students in your room? If you could read with some classmates who
were really good readers, who would they be?)
You can do this inquiry as a way of "getting to know them
better." Here are other questions you might ask in your
inquiry. I'm sure you can come up with more
interesting questions. Order, by the way, is important only for
the reason that the embedded questions are not made obvious.
c. What pets do you have in your home?
d. Do you have any hobbies?
e. What do you like to do when school is over?
f. What's your favorite summer time activity?
g. What is your favorite time of the school day?
h. What do you want to be when you grow up?
i. Who's your favorite male singer?, female singer?
The inquiry is best (most reliably) carried out
individually, one on one. This is especially true for the
questions that target status. Students should be presented with a
class roster and you should have them circle their choices. You
could record their answers for the other questions. You could
also do this as a whole class activity. Decide after discussing
the format with your cooperating teacher. Make sure the children
can respond with more than one name. Up to four names are
appropriate for the status questions.
2. Compile the results of your inquiry in two
reports.
Report One: Class Snapshot
Present the inquiry information to your children, perhaps in a
classroom meeting, as one way to build community and to enable the
children to better their knowleddge of you.
The first report could be a table that puts together
information about pets, hobbies, etc. Use whatever style you
like. One example might be to break the a topic like "pets" down
into subcategories like dogs, cats, goldfish, and so on. Remember
the point is to help you gain insight into your children's interests
and ways in which they spend their time so as to increase your
sensitivity to them as individuals and as a whole group. It could
also form the basis for a whizbang math activity related to patterns in
the class, descriptive statistics of who we are, and so on. You
are not reporting the specifics of the friendship and academic
questions to the children.
Report Two: Status Order
The second report is one you keep to yourself and submit to me as
part of this classroom structures assignment. Create a class list
and note how many times each child was chosen as a close friend (column
one) and as someone who was chosen to do a reading assignment with
(column two). Adding the number of times chosen for each child
gives you a numerical figure for each child (column three) that in very
rough terms allows you to gain access to the status order in your
classroom. Summing the number of times chosen as "friend" and as
"best reader" gives you a status measure for each of your
students. Arranging the children from child with the most choices
to child with the least choices (column four) gives you the status
order for the students in your classroom.
Status order is a critical variable in your classroom's
social structure. High status children are seen by their peers as
being capable. Low status children are perceived by their peers
as having little capability. This has everything to do with how a
child gets included by their peers in the academic work you assign and
require.
3. Choose Four Interesting Children - Note Ac/Soc
Behavior - Identify Strategic Instruction For Them
Later in the course you will be designing a Complex Instruction
Rotation to enhance the learning of your students in both qualitative
and quantitative dimensions. Hopefully, the Rotation can be part
of your interdisciplinary unit assignment and can also address the
"Teaching Over Time" portfolio entry. I am asking you to pay
particular attention to the learning behavior of four children chosen
by you, your choice being informed by what you now know about the
social order in your classroom. Make sure your group of four
includes at least one high and one low status child.
After choosing your children, record anedotal
information about their academic and social behavior. I'd suggest
using post-it notes. Do this for a period of two weeks after you
have identified your children.
Now that you know something more about these particular
children, think about what you could do as their teacher to enhance
their social and academic position in the classroom. What
strategic (specific for each child) instructional strategies do you
think would improve the academic climate in your classroom for these
particular children.
4. Write Assignment One: "Narrative Analysis
of Social and Academic Structure"
Write a narrative analysis that focuses on how the interaction of
social and academic structures in your classroom impacts those
"interesting" children in your room. I'm suggesting the
following organization for your classroom structures assignment.
- classroom demographics
- student numbers, gender, free/reduced lunch count,
ieps or other special ed services, interesting information gained from
the inquiry, family information, ...
- a description of your academic structure
- How you differentiate instruction in your
classroom?
- groupings
- approaches to curriculum
- varying instsructional styles
- social process instruction
- How do you teach to the whole child?
- mind (thinking)
- body (physical self)
- spirit (feelings)
- Who else helps with whom?
- special education
- IST
- other specialists
- Rhythms, Time, Scheduling
- fun and work
- open and closed
- choice and no choice
- an explanation of how your assessed status, your status
order table, comments on this process
- vignettes for selected children
- who they are and what they are like
- impact of peer and/or academic status on their
opportunity to learn in your room
- use your anecdotal notes
- strategic instruction for the interesting
children
- what are instructional plans for these kids
- specifically stated
- connected to status order analysis
Seven pages minimum, 1.5 spacing, 12 font, 1/1.5 margins, tables,
inquiry, etc. to be included (not considred part of six pages)
