Melanie's discoveries in field

 Let me give you some background information about my classroom and CT to help you get a better interpretation of the environment that I will describe. First of all, I feel very lucky because my CT is very knowledgeable in literacy, and she was recently a literacy instructor (or coach? I forgot).  I’ve already learned a lot from her from one field placement. Also, I’m in a 2^nd grade class, so you can determine whether or not you think my CT’s strategies are appropriate. I’m not going to discuss the interaction that I witnessed during the collaborative book discussion because the music teacher was the reader. Instead, I’m going to describe the students’ engagement while they (as a class) were going over one of their morning worksheets. This worksheet tasked students to read a sentence that had a blank spot for an adjective. They then chose the most appropriate adjective from a box, and completed the sentence. The last portion of the assignment asked students to pick two of the mentioned adjectives, and to include it in a sentence that described their first day of school. My CT told me she values collaborative learning, and this was prevalent in her lesson with the students. She asked some students to share a sentence that they created, and some students struggled. If they struggled, she didn’t help them-the other students did. She turned the question to the students and asked, “student x isn’t happy with his sentence. What can he do to improve it?” There were plenty of great discussions and ideas from her prompts.  The students were eager to share their ideas, and the students who wanted to improve their sentences were very receptive to their peers’ ideas. Although Triplett’s article describes the value and benefits of class reading, I saw similar advantages in this class activity. When improving each other’s sentences, the students gained an impressive comprehension of the adjectives. Together, they produced sophisticated (for their age) sentences, and shared their individual experiences. For example, one student wanted to change his sentence that included that vocabulary work ‘excited.’ Together, the class came up with this sentence: “I forgot my glasses on the bookshelf because I was so excited for my first day of school. I groaned when I got to school without them.” The students demonstrated exactly what Triplett valued in a learning environment: proficient comprehension skills, diversity, and collaborative learning.

There are students in my class who need particular types of scaffolding. One student requires emotional, social, and academic scaffolding. This struggling child is very shy, and the CT goes out of her way to make her feel comfortable and confident. This situation goes well with the study that was done in Triplett’s article (exploring the emotions of struggling readers). During a spelling activity, the CT always checked up on this child. But, she didn’t want the student to feel targeted, so she paid attention to others, too. The CT praises this child, and encourages her to share her ideas in class discussions. This student read one of her sentences to the class about her first day of school, and although she was still timid, I could tell that she appreciated the special attention from her CT. In fact, this student later volunteered to share her knowledge with the class. This surprised me because she was incredibly reserved during most activities. This is a great example of Triplett’s claim: quality personal relationships and support greatly enhance students’ learning.