Memo #8- Research Memo

I have been going back through my TRJ week by week to see what trends I have seen. Here is my first memo from my earlier journal entries:

Repeated Observations:

• ·        Beginning of the year, good community in the class
• ·        Small, only 11 students
• ·        The teacher was very big on silent redirections
• ·        Differentiating with standardized tests was a bit difficult, forcing students to be silent, some students easily felt defeated
• ·        When working whole group in the small setting, my level 1 students were disengaged and frustrated
• ·        Students engaged with one another through charades and other activities when they could break from routine
• ·        Students that are of different levels do not interact with one another
• ·        Students unwilling to participate in small groups
• ·        Team building activities may not be enough

Trends that I am seeing:

• Students are grouping together based on proficiency, certain students are only comfortable speaking in front of other students.
• My higher proficiency students want to do their own thing, they do not want to help others in the classroom who may be struggling.
• I am getting the sense that other students are shutting down and may be intimidated by others in the room. 

Take -aways:

• I really want to focus at this point on getting different students to interact with one another. Since the trend is independent work and talking only with the people you can communicate with comfortably, I will try to implement more small group work into my lesson plans to observe how students work together in assigned small groups.