The following writing sample offers evidence of my ability to reflect on teaching for understanding. This is a journal reflection I wrote for CI 495. The assignment asked us to monitor one student for the entire ay and observe his interactions with others. The reflection made it clear to me how important anecdotal records can be to a teacher.

For this assignment, I followed a boy from my homeroom class. He is an average student and has no apparent learning difficulties. However, he is rather quiet and is slow to interact with adults. I noticed that he is often off task but because he is quiet and rarely distracts others, his behavior often goes unnoticed. For example, during the morning announcements and opening activity, he spent most of his time reading a book. Even though some of the more boisterous students were reminded to pay attention, nothing was said to this student. During instructional time, I noticed that he was listening attentively to most of the directions. He is most apt to attend to the action when students are being asked to read or respond to questions. However, when the teacher leads the discussion, he could be found playing with various distractions in his desk. Fortunately, most of our instructional time is very child centered and students are interacting frequently.

This student displayed very little verbal interaction with adults. He would usually respond if called on, but he rarely volunteered his opinions. I think this is mostly due to a bit of shyness with adults. During recess time, he seemed comfortable with his peers and seemed to play successfully with a group of boys. This student loves sports and the game at recess was football, so he seemed to enjoy himself greatly.

I noticed that when assignments/activities were undertaken individually at the seats, the student often lagged behind others in beginning his work. He then made an effort to glance around at neighbors to determine what was being done. Once he oriented himself, he was a self sufficient worker. He seems to work most effectively in group settings where he can share ideas and another student is responsible for note taking. It is interesting to note that during brainstorming activities, the student can be counted upon to come up with at least one insightful contribution to the conversation.

I found this activity to be very useful in yielding information about a student. In this particular case, it is apparent that the student is capable of high quality work, but he is often overlooked because of his quiet nature. It is important to note that even though the study gave meaningful insight about this child, it was extremely difficult to keep anecdotal records on one child throughout the day, especially while teaching a class of 27 children! One goal I might suggest for this student is to increase the amount of activities pursued in a group setting. This seems to be the most efficient way for him to learn and share his insights and should be used frequently with him.

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