Professional Documents
Culture Documents
OBSERVATION PROJECT
Brief Description: For this assignment, the class was sent out to elementary schools
individually or in pairs to observe health and physical education classrooms and report
back on it. This project was meant to give us insight on what actual health and physical
education classrooms look like in comparison to our textbook.
OBSERVATION PROJECT
Introduction
We (Lucas and Emily) visited two different elementary schools and observed two
different teachers. We then came together, discussed the information that we had
collected, and compiled this reflection on the experience that we had and what we
learned.
The school that Emily went to was Delaware Trail Elementary in Brownsburg
Indiana. She is extremely familiar with the school because she worked here full time as a
special education assistant for three years. She was extremely excited to go back and visit
her friends and students as a guest and observer. The teacher that she observed name is
Sandy Hopkins. Sandy has taught at Delaware Trail as the Physical and Health Education
teacher for twenty years! She absolutely loves what she does and has enjoyed watching
many groups of kids make their way from itty-bitty kindergarteners, to maturing fifth
graders, ready for their next adventure. The class that Emily observed in was a third
grade specials class. The way that Brownsburg conducts their extra-curricular type
classes is through a process called specials. There are five specials in the building; art,
music, P.E., library, and computer lab. Each grade level has a specific time that they
attend specials each day, and every class within that grade level goes to each special once
a week. Third grade is the first class to come into Sandys gym for the day, right after the
morning announcements!
Lucas, on the other hand, was not as familiar with the class he observed. Lucas
observed a gym class at the James Russell Lowell School 51 through his service learning.
He had stayed with the students for the full day and followed them to specials. At this
OBSERVATION PROJECT
school, they only have three specials in their rotation: music, art, and gym/health. The
gym/health class is supposed to do the work for both of the classes in one rotation.
OBSERVATION PROJECT
what they were learning was universal and the information given would help them in
other areas of life as well.
OBSERVATION PROJECT
younger kids, and the exercises that they needed to perform also varied in difficulty level
depending on what each grade needed to accomplish.
At James Russell Lowell School 51, the students started out walking along the
lines in the gymnasium and this seemed to be the routine way to start out class. The
students walked in a line and changed their speed as instructed. The teacher would call
out for the students to change to gallop or move their arms as the teacher kept rhythm on
a tambourine. As mentioned in the previous section, the class time at IPS School 51 was
running short, so the game was cut short as well. The game was to stand in a circle as a
class and kick a soccer ball with the inside of their feet at an attempt to knock down a
bowling pin. This game also put the boys against the girls. I personally think that this
game was a little complicated with the age and time limit given, but I do not know if this
is something that they have been studying in their gym class or not.
Teacher Comments
Due to the fact that Emily worked at Delaware Trail previously, she already had
an established relationship with this teacher and was able to gain a great deal of
knowledge from her when sitting down and talking. Sandy explained that the level of
disrespect from students had grown tremendously recently. The students did not seem to
have any sort of idea what it meant to have an authority figure in their life that they were
expected to listen to. The word entitled came about quite often in the conversation.
Sandy said that she thought the school was doing a decent job at keeping up with these
issues the best that they could, but it seemed that each year, the kids coming into the
school as kindergarteners were getting less and less mature. She said that this is the
OBSERVATION PROJECT
biggest struggle that she faces as a teacher. Students come into her classroom seeing it as
an extra recess instead of a place to learn about health and pursue knowledge in physical
academics. When it came to lesson plans, Sandy said that with a rotating schedule,
creating her plans was not very difficult. She basically had to create one day of lessons,
and then repeat it for each different class. This way, each class in every grade level
receives the same support and education.
At School 51, we did not have the time to sit down with the teacher and talk
because it was the end of the day and the class was cut short anyway. The teacher had
only made a couple comments that that day was a little more hectic than usual, but no
other comments were made.
Summary
Emily This was a really fun experience. I had spent time in P.E. while working with a
couple of my own students in the past but during those times I was there to provide
support for my kids, not to observe the teaching styles etc. of the class itself. What I have
also noticed is that there does not seem to be an elementary school that offers Health
Education as a separate class. Sandy stated that almost all schools have started
incorporating health into their other lessons because of a lack of resources to be able to
make it into its own separate entity.
Lucas This experience made me realize how differently classrooms can work, even if
they are teaching the same thing. The way that this class developed seemed the same on
the surface, it was different going deeper. In this scenario, I realized that the teacher in
any classroom needs to be prepared for anything.