Teacher Observation

For our teacher observation assignment, I observed one of Wentworth's best teachers - Donna Strader.  She is beyond a doubt an excellent teacher, all the teachers and students love her.  It was very interesting for me especially to have the opportunity to do this because my background is not in education.  I've never actually been in a classroom to observe before (aside from being a student myself).  It was an awesome learning experience.  I learned a lot from actually comparing "best practices" from our readings to what Ms. Strader was doing in her classroom.  There are different levels of collaboration and I assumed that, because Wentworth really seems to focus on it, that she would be operating on a very high level (using Loertsher's taxonomy).  I found out that this was not the case.  The collaboration that is happening with Ms. Strader and the media coordinator is on a very superficial level.  She IS using the media coordinator as a resource on some very specific projects BUT mostly after the lessons are already planned out.  This is not to say that she is an ineffective teacher or that her lessons are bad but they could definitely be enhanced by involving the MC earlier in the process and working more closely with her in planning and evaluating projects.