Students in the Classroom

I work with all of the special education students in kindergarten, first, and second grade at the elementary school in which I am observing. The students in the classroom are each very unique in personality, interests, ability, strengths, weaknesses, talents, home life, and ways in which they learn best.

The class is male dominated. There are only three girls in the class. However, the girls do not seem to mind the girl to boy ratio.

The students are afraid of raising their hands and getting the answer wrong. Therefore, the students do not raise their hand in class. If they have a question, they usually go up to the teacher and whisper the question into her ear. In class discussions, the teacher usually asks questions that have multiple responses with no right or wrong answer. However, the students still do not raise their hands. Therefore, she calls on the students who do not look like they are paying attention first. Then, she goes through and asks the rest of the students so that everyone has a chance to give their response.

The majority of the students do not have a long attention span. They get distracted and off track very easily. I have noticed that it takes some of the students double the time to complete an activity because they look around at all of the posters and everything happening in the room.

There are only two kindergarteners in the class and they are encouraged to work together. They complete activities together and help each other out. A few of these activities that I have observed include rhyme and sound puzzles. The kindergarteners do not rely on the teacher as much the first and second graders. The first and second graders mostly work independently on assignments. They usually do make up work for their regular teachers. Therefore, not all of the first graders have the same assignments and not all of the second graders have the same assignments.

Two of the students consume a lot of the teacher’s time. One student has severe behavioral issues and I believe she acts out for attention. She likes when someone sits next to her and helps her all of the time, but when there is not someone there, she acts out. The other student asks many questions and will not sit down to work until all of the questions are answered.